Online Course Tips and Tricks with Rob from Thinkific

Your Dream Business

English - October 07, 2018 22:19 - 48 minutes - 49.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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Previous Episode: Email Marketing 101: Tips and Tricks

Next Episode: 3 Mistakes I Made When Starting My Business

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTA lot of brands are educating their prospects to share their authority and knowledge prior to asking them to purchase or sign-up for something. Online courses help you offer more content than you can via any other medium. You can use videos, audio, quizzes and more.Anyone in any industry can create and use an online course! Hula hoopers make online courses. Those who are experts in Excel use online courses. They truly are for anyone!Your social media strategy will differ depending on the platform you use. Instagram might be a bit more laid back versus Facebook, and even more laid back than LinkedIn, which is a bit more formal.Content is incredibly important, but it doesn’t work if no one sees it. That’s where social media comes in.To easily curate your content, create a content plan that’s easy to follow.Decide what type of post you’ll make on each day. This makes it easy to create content, generate ideas and curate simply.When you’re taking a blog and repurposing it, use Easel to make all of your images. It allows you to duplicate it into any social media dimension easily.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…It’s never about us, it’s about the people we’re serving! Focus on the customer above all else, no matter what it is you’re doing. Whether it’s creating a course, marketing your business or posting on social media, put your customer and their needs first!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat industries can benefit from online courses? – 08:00How online courses are disrupting education – 11:54Rob’s background in digital marketing and social media – 16:37Social media is a big part of any marketing strategy – 21:18It’s all about the customer, always – 27:40How to generate social media ideas – 36:08Using and repurposing existing content – 40:08
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEThinkific Episode 25: Why and How to Repurpose Your Content to Maximize Its Potential easel.ly.com
Transcript below

Hello, and welcome to episode 33 of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast, and I'm your host, Teresa Heath-Wareing. I hope you have had a great day, whatever you're doing. And if you are looking for a podcast that helps you understand social media marketing and how to use it for your business, as well as other tips and tools and tricks and strategies around running a business, than you are in the right place.

Now, this week we are doing another interview, which is really cool. And I am really pleased to introduce to you the lovely Rob from Thinkific. Rob and I met in San Diego back in March when we were attending Social Media Marketing World, and I managed to get some time with him and the Thinkific team and have a breakfast, which was really, really lovely. And I decided back then it would be great to get them on the podcast and great for them to, not only talk about the online platform that they have, which is Thinkific, where you can basically build a course online for free. They have a free version of their platform, but also one of the things that they do really well is they do really nice social media. I love the way that they are able to be very personable, considering they are a platform.

And sometimes that can be quite hard to do, but they do a really good job with their social media. So I wanted to get Rob on for two reasons. One, because I love their platform and it's a great platform for you to look at if you want to do an online course. And two, because I love how they do their social media. So Rob is part of the Thinkific marketing team, and in July 2016, he joined Thinkific in the support and onboarding team. And then he moved into marketing. And [inaudible 00:02:07] managers Thinkific social media and community channels. We had a great chat about all things social media, about managing social media for a platform company, and being a social media manager for our business.

We also talked about why online courses have been so popular and are increasing in popularity, and some of the amazing case studies that they've got. It's a really cool episode if you are looking to start an online course or if you are managing social media and you just want to find out what some of the ideas they have, and how they manage their social media platform. And he's a lovely guy and it's a great conversation. So I'm really excited to bring this one to you. So without further ado, please welcome Rob.

Rob, welcome to the podcast. I am so excited to have you here.

I am super excited, super honoured be on your podcast. Thank you so much.

No problem. So as I said in the intro, Rob and I met in San Diego this year. Gosh, that feels like such a long time ago. Feels like last year, definitely this year. And I've seen you guys previously, I'd been following you guys. I know what you do, and then I got to meet you and have breakfast with you. And it was fab. So when we started the podcast, I knew that I wanted to bring on key people and also people who knew particular things in different industries. So you guys are a great fit for that, but my audience doesn't know, if they've not heard of Thinkific before. Could you just briefly tell us what you guys do and what the platform's about?

Sure, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So Thinkific is a online course platform. So it's a software as a service, and it helps entrepreneurs, brands, creators really use online courses to sell it as a profit, for a fee or to use it to train their customers for retention or for lead generation. So really, it helps all types of businesses and entrepreneurs leverage technology to get their knowledge out there, get their content out there, in an easy way. So that's really what really Thinkific is.

It's something that is not new as such, but it's still growing. I feel like, from my point of view, and I think possibly over in the states and Canada, it might have grown a bit quicker than we have over here in the UK, but I think online courses is a real area of growth and something that I've looked at, loads of people I know look at, and I think one of the reasons they're doing it is because it's this additional revenue stream or revenue stream, kind of this dream of making money while you sleep. Sounds so easy, I believe it's really not that easy. And why do you think that people are really kind of coming into this online teaching type side?

So there's a lot of ways ... I think there's a lot of reasons why people are coming to online courses now. You know, a lot of people are, even as lead magnets, people are using online courses, They used to share PDFs or video series, or that kind of thing, but people don't really like to be sold. So I think a lot of brands and a lot of entrepreneurs are now educating their prospects, I guess you want to call it, educating their prospects to share their authority, share their knowledge in that space before asking them to sign up to something or purchase something. So it's a way to really get your name out there, get your knowledge out there, to show off your authority and knowledge in particular topics, and to attract those potential prospects into your world.

And that's really interesting actually because I guess I had never thought naively of a course as a lead magnet. Now, one of my lead magnets is a five email mini course. So I literally just emailed the content out and it's just text within an email. But I'd never really thought about actually using a course of some sort or a mini course as a lead magnet itself. That's such a good idea, isn't it? And maybe just using a small course, building up to the sale of a big course, could be one of the ways to then convert them into a sale maybe.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a great way to do it as well as just an email course, but an online course actually helps you with other aspects. You can use quizzes, you can kind of see which students are completing which lessons and consuming that content, so you can do a little more sort of digging into that topic and giving more value. You can use videos, audios, presentation slides, you can do that all within sort of your platform, so you can kind of see all of the different things that your students and your prospects are doing in there. So yeah, it comes off as a little bit different than just a straight content push.

And actually, one thing you've just said there that is so good is the fact that people don't want to learn just by one way, do they any more? We are so used to this crazy multimedia world we're in of videos and audio and images and gifs, and whatever it might be, that actually we want to learn more that style than necessarily ... If I have to read anything, if I'm totally honest, I'm a nightmare. I don't want to read anything. If someone could show me a video, I would much rather watch that video. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic way, a much more interactive way in order to get that content across. Isn't it?

That's the truth.

What industries can benefit from online courses?

Do you guys see that online courses ... because so many people are really excited about online courses, because of the fact that there's this revenue stream, and some people ... I've had amy on the show, I mean she has built her entire career, and a very successful career, in selling online courses. So it's not just as a side hustle as it were. People can build their entire careers by selling a course online. But do you think that there is a particular industry that really suits the kind of online course platform or do you think that basically anyone in any industry can kind of come up with an online course?

Yeah, I think anyone in any industry can come up with an online course and use online courses to grow their business and to scale their business. Obviously, the authors of the world, the consultants, the coaches, they naturally will gravitate to online courses first and start adopting that first because they're already doing that offline. But I've seen a lot of different industries and niches use online courses for a number of ways, and not just to sell it for profit, but use it to, like I said, attract new leads, but also to train their customers. We even have other software companies using online courses and using Thinkific, companies like Hootsuite, Later, Aweber. All these companies are using it to educate their prospects, but also to keep the retention and even using it as part of the onboarding to train their customers on how to use their platforms.

So it's really interesting. Even other niches, you don't really necessarily think of. We have a really successful course creator who teaches hula hooping and we have another one that teaches how to sew. We have other ones, John, who is out of Spain. He teaches people how to use Excel, and then he does really well. There's just so many different online courses out there. So it's an interesting time. I think a lot of people are going online to learn things that they don't necessarily want to learn offline, if that makes sense. You can't necessarily go to a course in real life on how to use the hula hoop, you know? But people are using that and they're going online to learn those kinds of things. So it's an exciting time.

It is. And actually what was really interesting, because I have a degree in marketing, which obviously I sat in a university for a whole three years doing, and obviously that degree was literally just lecture, someone talking, read loads of books. Which, how I even got that degree, I don't quite know. Because like I said, reading is not my forte. And one of the things that happened was obviously I then went into my marketing career. I spent 10 years in marketing, and when I started my own business, and I wanted to focus on social media, one thing I wanted to do was make sure I was really good at it because there were lots of people out there that said they did social media and they didn't perhaps have the level that I would have liked them to have, or I would have wanted for myself. And I went and find all these experts in social media.

And the very first one I find was Mari Smith. And I did a course, an online course with Mari. And I remember thinking at the time, and this would have been almost five years ago. And I remember thinking at the time, oh my God, this is crazy, right? So I'm doing this course and she's in San Diego, and I'm sat here in the UK, and she shouts out my name on one of the calls or whatever, and I literally like ... my husband sat in the same room as me. And I'm like, "Oh my god, Mari just said my name." But that's how I learned. That's how I learned about social media. And since then, I've done loads of online courses like ... and obviously that's one of the reasons I know Amy's because I've got courses that convert. I've obviously done stuff with her. I've got James Wetmore's that I'm doing at the moment. And for me, actually that's how I keep ahead. That's how I make sure my business is where I want it to be. And I couldn't ... like you said, there is no where locally that I could walk into a classroom and learn what I can learn online. It's crazy, isn't it?

How online courses are disrupting education

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that is the whole education world, it's just getting disrupted that way. You know, I think the stats with university enrollments are down, people are learning things online. And not only that, employers are looking at experience versus knowledge and I guess a degree and all those kinds of things. I think Google just announced that as part of their ... They don't longer need specific education requirements for some of the positions that they're hiring for. So it's an interesting time in that way. You know, like even in social media, I see a lot of on Linkedin. I see a lot of people that have even put down that they've completed Hootsuite certification. So that gives some credibility when they're going out there and saying, "Hey, yeah, I know how to use these tools now." So it saves me a lot of training time on your end if you hire me versus someone that may have like a degree in marketing but no experience.

And I totally agree, and obviously having a degree in marketing, I obviously advocate the fact that it was great that I have this degree.

Of course.

But I'm really honest in the fact that A, in my entire career, not one person asked to see my degree certificate. Like honestly, it's kind of made me think like I could have just made it up. Obviously I didn't, but they never asked to see that. And secondly, although my degree was brilliant, the transferrable knowledge was actually not that high and it wasn't as practical. It was obviously much more theoretical. So when I then got into the workplace, I didn't know these kinds of things that I really needed to do, and especially on something like social media, it didn't exist when I did my degree, and even if it did, it moves at the speed of light.

So you could do a course today on something and tomorrow it can be completely out of date. And what's really funny is ... It's funny that you should mentioned the education system because I have a stepson who's 15 and he's in his last year of school and he's going to be doing his GCSEs, the exams over here, and he's kind of had conversations with me before and he said, "I don't understand why we need to do this. If I want to know something, I just look on youtube."

And you kind of can't argue with him because actually we are in this amazing world where we can find out anything and we can find an expert in it and go and say, "Have you got a course? Can I come and learn online with you?" You don't necessarily have to go through that kind of formal education. Not that I'm going to tell him this obviously because I've told him he's got to go to school and work really hard on his exams, but you kind of can't argue with him, can you? It's an amazing world we're in.

You can't, you can't. One example that comes to mind is, like right now on social media and we're talking about social media, is that Instagram has a lot of attention and Instagram stories has a lot of attention and I dare you to look for a course somewhere in any college that is going to teach you how to use Instagram stories to grow your email list. But yesterday, I came across Chris Strub who I think you probably know.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah, Chris Strub. And he has a course on Instagram stories because he does a lot of Instagram stories. He's built his whole brand on it. And so, how can you keep up, right?

Yeah.

And my son even, like you mentioned your son ... My son yesterday, we were like, it's fall here in Vancouver, so everything's back to school and it's kinda like, okay, what do you want to do programmes wise, do you want to do swimming or basketball?

And he's like, "I want to learn digital animation." He's eight years old.

That is awesome.

Yeah. And I'm like, "Okay." So I did a search and there's some colleges here, some arts colleges, that has digital animation courses, but they're not going to take an eight year old. Right? So he went on YouTube and he's going to learn how to do it. I'm like, "Well, I'll try to look for an online course for you." But it was hard for me to find one. But on YouTube, there's a tonne of those how to videos. And so that's where he's going. So it's an interesting world.

It is. And when you think about what social media has done for our world, and the different roles now ... So there isn't just a marketing person, there's a content creator, there's a community manager, there's a social media person, there's animators and advertising people. There's so many different roles. And actually, all of them are amazing. But like you said, I think if I walked into a marketing degree today, I don't know how much of that stuff they would actually teach and how much they could teach because it's moving so fast.

Rob’s background in digital marketing and social media

So this is a great point actually, to introduce the fact that you are a social media community manager for Thinkific, I think I've said it in the intro, but to say it again. And actually, it would be great just to get a little bit of your background, and where you've come from, how you ended up working at Thinkific.

Sure, yeah, yeah. So before Thinkific, my world was digital agency, so I was working at a digital agency here in downtown Vancouver for a number of years doing everything. I was at one point creating WordPress sites. I was doing SEO and OnPage SEO.

So I was there for a few years and so I kind of learned the ropes, how digital agency worked and digital marketing worked. So it was great. In our building, there was another startup, it's actually an eCommerce startup called Lemonstand. And there was a guy there named Sid [inaudible 00:17:30] and so we bumped into the elevator a lot and we'd talk about, "Hey, what are you doing? Like what kinds of things are you guys doing?" We even exchanged businesses, we would refer them clients and vice versa because they were an eCommerce platform similar to Shopify.

And so yeah, got to know him. And then one day I messaged him like, "Hey, yo, what are...