Summary

The article outlines a practical approach to learning marketing through social media platforms, emphasizing its accessibility and effectiveness for career growth and communication.

Abstract

The author of the article emphasizes that marketing is a crucial skill for professionals and entrepreneurs, which can be self-taught effectively through social media. This approach is particularly beneficial for those who lack the time and resources for traditional education methods like an MBA. The article highlights the importance of marketing in enhancing communication and presentation skills across various aspects of life. It suggests that platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn are ideal for beginners to learn marketing by engaging with content, analyzing feedback, and experimenting with different strategies. The author argues that this method of learning is not only cost-effective but also provides immediate feedback and the opportunity to iterate quickly, fostering a growth mindset and the development of modern skills such as flexibility and agility.

Opinions

The author believes that everyone, regardless of their profession, can benefit from learning marketing skills.
Traditional forms of education, such as attending school or enrolling in courses, are considered time-consuming and expensive compared to self-learning through social media.
Marketing is presented as a universal tool that enhances all forms of communication by employing a cycle of planning, executing, analyzing, and reassessing.
Social media platforms, especially Instagram and LinkedIn, are recommended as the most effective channels for marketing education due to their high user engagement and free access to marketing tools.
The author suggests that a growth mindset, relevance, and the ability to present ideas effectively are key benefits of learning marketing through social media.
The article encourages active participation on social media rather than passive consumption, advocating for hands-on experience as a means to learn and discover personal capabilities.
The author shares personal experience of successfully growing a startup's Instagram account, emphasizing the practicality of the approach.
The article downplays the need for perfection in content creation, promoting the idea of learning through trial and error.
The author criticizes traditionalists who are resistant to change and suggests that taking initiative to learn new skills is more productive than attributing success to talent or luck.

Best Way To Learn Marketing — For Beginners

No founder or freelancer got time for a full-time MBA.

If you think you are stuck in your career growth, you are unable to win over clients or fail in making relationships— you can use some marketing to make things better for you.

But how do you learn marketing? Luckily I stumbled on to a very simple way to teach myself marketing and for free — through social media.

For me, learning a new skill meant going to school or enrolling in a course. This requires time as well as investment and I did not have both.

Importance of Marketing

I was a supply-chain management consultant for 7 years and before that I worked as a software architect/developer. Marketing was never a skill-set I sought, well “I thought” my job did not require it.

I realized it much later that every form of communication can use some marketing to boost chances of effectiveness. Marketing is like a loop where you plan, execute, analyze, reassess and repeat the process.

Essentially once you put any activity through the above cycle, it will improve over time. Marketing teaches us tools and techniques to improve and experiment in all forms of communication.

In the tech community they say everyone should learn how to code, I don’t disagree it does help immensely in logical thinking.

I would say that everyone should learn how to market because weather it is your career or personal life, marketing will teach you how to present anything the right way.

Learning Marketing

This area of study is always evolving and in the last 100 years it has really exploded and transitioned due to the availability of new media channels.

My entrepreneurship journey forced me to learn marketing for two reasons,

Finding more and more users for the product
It is the most expensive item for an early stage startup

There was a time — print media marketing was the only channel available to public. Then we had radio, door-to-door, Television and digital media.

While being the most recent — social media marketing, a part of digital is also the juggernaut. And among all the social media platform, instagram has the highest rate of user engagement.

I suggest you to start your marketing education on Instagram unless you are primarily focused on B2B, then LinkedIn would be a better choice.

These platforms are free to launch a marketing campaign. They provide live feedback, you can delete, update and test any idea, concept or product however you like.

Social media can make you a marketer with 30 minutes or less daily effort.

Learn as you go — every post, stories give insights on your audience, who viewed it, how much time they spent and just by spending few dollars you can advertise to more people.

At least initially you don’t need any additional tool, these platforms equip you well. You can create different types of accounts with them such as personal or company.

Don’t just be a social media consumer, participate and grow yourself. In the process you will learn new skills and even discover more about your own capabilities and interests.

Benefits of Marketing

You will acquire a growth mindset like some kind of ninja hacker. Positioning yourself, a product or a service would become easier and a second nature.

It will further teach flexibility and agility — the two modern skills we need in the fast changing world. You will also become intentional and less self conscious.

The three basic aspects of marketing will be well covered,

Learning — what sells
Executing — how to sell
Analyzing — how to improve

Not bad? right.

Be it a photo, quote or your point of view — you will learn how to format content, how to form a sentence or how to show things people want. This teaches you how to be relevant.

Once you have the content prepared you will learn when, where and to whom to present it. You can choose the type of content, the audience and demographics. You’ll be surprised to see how fun it is.

The best learning I got from social media is how not to get hung up on perfection.

Creating and sharing is only half of the journey, next you move on to analyze the data you get when your audience engages with the content. This is where you learn the most, the magic happens here.

Teaching Yourself

I would like to think most of you have instagram and/or LinkedIn — even if some of you never check anything or just see what others are upto. There was a time I was just a spectator too.

But now, I don’t feel that I am wasting time — I even grew my startups instagram account — Namaste Revolution to over 25K followers in 2020.

So let’s get you up and running, first decide what you want to promote —

Yourself — use your account
Idea/Concept — create a new account
Product or Service — create a new account

When creating an account, name it so that it represents the idea — this itself will become your first challenge and you will learn how to give a sellable name.

Setup your profile with a picture or a logo, give it a name and a short bio. Google as much as you like to learn the best practices. It’s the start of learning a new skill.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, you can change anything and everything whenever you like. Fail and fail fast, after all even the best marketers will tell you they fail 9 out of 10 times. There is no shame.

Now just start posting and learn as you go, the first thing you will realize is that it is pretty darn tough to get followers. But by now you have already taken the big step.

Take Away

I know most traditionalist will not agree with me — they hate to live in future and I don’t care but if you have come this far — I know you want to try it.

Ever wondered how others around you move fast in their career? or someone or some product goes viral? You may think it is talent or just luck, I know it is easy to overcome our shortcomings with this mentality.

But we can take charge and learn new things and skills from the tools already available to us. Social media platforms can teach everything the modern marketing requires.

Google search is enough to start the learning journey, I used it extensively in the beginning. I have also decided to journal all my learnings and start sharing over medium, my website (coming soon) and a newsletter.

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Thank you for reading and please comment.

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