In this article by Matthew A. Gilbert, the author of edX E-Learning Course Development, we are going to learn various ways of marketing.
(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)
If you don’t market your course, you might not get any new students to teach. Fortunately, edX provides you with an array of tools for this purpose, as follows:
Access the Creative Submission Tool at https://edx.projectrequest.net/index.php/request.
You can find the edX Media Kit online at https://www.edx.org/media-kit.
Read edX Learner Stories at http://edxstories.tumblr.com.
Traditional marketing tools and the options available in the edX Marketing Portal are a fitting first step in promoting your course. However, social media gives you a tremendously enhanced toolkit you can use to attract, convert, and transform spectators into students.
When marketing your course with social media, you will also simultaneously create a digital footprint for yourself. This in turn helps establish your subject matter expertise far beyond one edX course. What’s more, you won’t be alone; there exists a large community of edX instructors and students, including those from other MOOC platforms already online.
Take, for example, the following screenshot from edX’s Twitter account (@edxonline). edX has embraced social media as a means of marketing and to create a practicing virtual community for those creating and taking their courses.
Likewise, edX also actively maintains a page on Facebook, as follows:
You can also see how active edX’s YouTube channel is in the following screenshot. Note that there are both educational and promotional videos.
To get you started in social media—if you’re not already there—take a look at the list of 12 social media tools, as follows. Not all of these tools might be relevant to your needs, but consider the suggestions to decide how you might best use them, and give them a try:
Visit edX on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/edX.
Add edX to your circles on Google+ at https://plus.google.com/+edXOnline/posts.
Picture the possibilities with edX on Instagram at https://instagram.com/edxonline/.
Connect with edX on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/edx.
Pin edX onto your Pinterest pin board at https://www.pinterest.com/edxonline/.
Review presentations from or about edX courses on Slideshare at http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?searchfrom=header&q=edx.
Listen to some audio content from Harvard University at https://soundcloud.com/harvard.
Read edX’s learner stories at http://edxstories.tumblr.com.
Follow edX on Twitter at https://twitter.com/edxonline. You might also consider subscribing to edX’s Twitter list of edX instructors at https://twitter.com/edXOnline/lists/edx-professors-teachers, and explore the Twitter accounts of edX courses by subscribing to that list at https://twitter.com/edXOnline/lists/edx-course-handles.
Watch vines about MOOCs at https://vine.co.
Read posts on edX on the MIT Open Matters blog on WordPress.com at https://mitopencourseware.wordpress.com/category/edx/.
Watch course videos and promotional content on the edX YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/EdXOnline.
Additionally, whether the impact of your effort is immediately evident or not, your social media presence powers your personal brand as a professor. Why is that important? Read on to know.
With the possible exception of marketing professors, most educators likely tend to think more about creating and teaching their course than promoting it—or themselves. Traditionally, that made sense, but it isn’t practical in today’s digitally connected world. Social media opens an area of influence where all educators—especially those teaching an edX course—should be participating.
Unfortunately, many professors don’t know where or how to start with social media. If you’re teaching a course on edX, or even edX Edge, you will likely have some kind of marketing support from your university or edX. But if you are just in an organization using edX Code, or simply want to promote yourself and your edX course, you might be on your own.
One option to get you started with social media is the Babb Group, a provider of resources and consulting for online professors, business owners, and real-estate investors. Its founder and CEO, Dani Babb (PhD), says this:
“Social media helps you show that you are an expert in a given field. It is an important tool today to help you get hired, earn promotions, and increase your visibility.”
The Babb Group offers five packages focused on different social media platforms: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Facebook, or Twitter with Facebook and LinkedIn.
You can view the Babb Group’s social media marketing packages at http://www.thebabbgroup.com/social-media-profiles-for-professors.html. Connect with Dani Babb on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdanibabb or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/danibabb
In this article, we tackled traditional marketing tools, identified options available from edX, discussed social media marketing, and explored personal branding basics.
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