The Art of Influencing with Social Media and Content Marketing
Kobe partners with Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) to develop ‘ The Art of Influencing with Social Media and Content Marketing‘ Modular Masters to equip marketers with Social Media and Influencer Marketing knowledge. This 5 days course allows marketers to understand the industry and stay abreast of what is trending. In addition, there is an opportunity to learn from influencers on how they create content on Instagram and many hands-on activities to apply what have been taught.
This course is essential for every marketers as the way to do marketing has changed, because the world has changed.
The World Has Changed...
Digital Marketing is constantly changing, from the time people were so used to reading blogs to now, using short stories to document behind the scenes and live feature to interact with followers in real time. Such changes are led by human behavior. Advertising is no longer as effective as in the past due to the following reasons.
1) As their attention span gets shorter, they will not pay attention or recall the advertisement unless it is relevant to them.
2) With more people installing ad-blocker, they will not longer be able to see your online ad.
3) People only listen to those they trust, not so much about what the brands are saying anymore.
According to research, 92% of the people trust recommendations that come from families and friends. 60% of buyers that come through referral buy faster and are less price-sensitive.
The question to ask ourselves now is then how can we make use of social media marketing to effectively reach out to our customers? One of the more effective ways is to embark on influencer marketing strategy.
The Art of Influence Day 1
In day 1, we will be covering a short introduction about social media – history, trends and landscapes. It is important to know how social media has evolved and what are the some of the reasons that cause the evolution.
Social media landscapes are classified into 5 categories – Publishing, Discussing, Sharing, Collaborating, Messaging and Networking. With this understanding, we will go into in-depth discussion and hands-on activities for B2C social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook) and B2B social media platforms (LinkedIn and Quora).
After which, we will cover the different platforms’ ad formats and discuss about Instagram’s algorithm and the future of marketing. Day 1 will give the students a better understanding of the whole social media landscapes which will prepare for them for day 2 where the main focus will be on influencer marketing strategy.
The Art of Influence Day 2
We will start the day with introduction to Influencer Marketing. Influencers, or also known as Key Opinion Leaders, play an important role in a successful influencer marketing campaign. There will be a detailed explanation to the pyramid of influence, which refers to the influencers’ tiers – Celebrity, Macro, Micro and Nano influencer.
The next part of the session will be touching on the process of executing a successful Influencer Marketing campaign. A good influencer marketing campaign needs to be strategically planned. Here are some thoughts for consideration:
1) What is the objective you are trying to achieve?
2) What is the marketing message you are trying to convey?
3) What is the content angle that will be able to effectively bring out your marketing message?
4) Who are the right influencers to select for this campaign?
5) Execution
6) Measure and analyze
Influencer Marketing is a big topic by itself. The concepts mentioned above are part of it. To learn more about influencer marketing strategy, you can contact us or read about it via our blog.
The Art of Influence Day 3
Day 3 is a different day from usual because it is an out of classroom day where they will be learning from influencers on how to create content on Instagram. For the first run, we managed to work with @Pxdkitty, who shared her knowledge and many tips on how to take visually appealing pictures using props. Of course, beside just learning from the experts, the students are also given hands-on activities where they are supposed to apply what they have learnt.
For the later part of the day, the students will be sitting down with the influencers and going through a Q&A session. This is the opportunity for the influencers to share about their journey with the students and also for them to find out about the influencer industry. As the industry is constantly evolving, it is important to educate and share with one another about what we have learnt so far and what is trending. Based on feedback, day 3 is the day where they enjoy themselves the most because they can get to be an influencer for the day.
The Art of Influence Day 4
For day 4, we will be working on the customer persona. Customer persona is important in helping to create relevant content that is receptive by your customers. You can create effective ad or content only if you understand your customers.
With that knowledge, we will then proceed to learn about content marketing and the different types of content you could develop for your customers. We have always heard about content is king because it helps to build trust for your brand and for your customers. Content marketing is important because:
1) It helps to improve brand reputation.
2) Great content helps to influence conversions.
3) Optimized content helps improve your SEO efforts.
4) Creating great content is a cost-effective way to bring in new leads.
Analyzing the campaign’s effectiveness is also important and we will be sharing with the students on how to measure the marketing metrics. Every social media platforms has their own in-built tool to help measure your effort and we will be running through each of the platform on their format.
The Art of Influence Day 5
Today is the day where they will be presenting on their project work. This is a masterclass and project work is something that you cannot avoid. But this is a good opportunity to apply what you have learnt for the past 4 sessions, and the project will be a fun one because you will get to choose to work on a company of your choice. The instructor will be sitting in and evaluating on your project work and sharing her thought with the group at the end of the presentation. Other than the industry knowledge, another thing that you could get out of this class is the friendships and connections from like-minded individuals which will last a lifetime!
If you are interested in learning more about this course or wish to join the next run, you can sign up through this link. We hope to see you there!
