How Social Media Trainers can Conduct Online Workshops

While India has its fair share of agencies and consultants, there is a dearth of social media trainers who can impart their knowledge to those who are willing to pay a premium for it.

Yes, we do have few who conduct workshops across cities and are doing a farily good job at it. But conducting offline workshops means overheads that eventually result in too much hassle and expensive fees.

So why not go digital and conduct online workshops at a cost that is affordable to most?

Wondering how to make that possible? Let me show you how:

YouTube:

No brainer. YouTube today is the world's largest school. From guitar lessons to cooking, there are tutorial videos on almost all the topics out there. Yes, social media as well.

As a trainer, all you need to do is to create a YouTube account using your Gmail credentials and start uploading videos.

Once you have uploaded your video, add appropriate title, description and tags with relevant keywords. Known as Video SEO, it will help in your videos getting found by people who are eager to consumer your content.

Pros: Easy setup. YouTube's reliability. The videos won't face downtime.

Cons: Not a good option if you want to monetize it. You can't put your videos behind a paywall. And the income generated by displaying ads on your videos is not going to be any good either.

Create Your Own Training Portal

This requires you to create a branded portal of your own where you will share all your video content which will be visible to only to those who have paid to view it. A good example of this will be 42inception.

You will need to buy a domain, a hosting service provider, a developer to build the website for you, a payment gateway service provider and a separate video hosting service provider. Why a separate video host? In my opinion, it is best that you hire services from people who are experts at it. Webhosts, while good at hosting websites, are not good with videos. So it's better that you host your video with a video host who are experts in this domain.

Now all you need to do is to market your portals, bring traffic to your website and convert them into customers.

Pros: Paying customers!!!

Cons: Setting up the website and hosting will involve quite a lot of investment.

Use 3rd Party Knowledge Portals

If you can't afford to spend on creating your own portal, I would suggest that you try 3rd Party portals who will host your content and put it behind a paywall for you to monetize it.

You can try out a service like Gyaanexchange for the same. A portal like theirs brings learners and trainers on to common platform so that they can benefit each other. They will simplify the entire process of setting up a classroom-like atmosphere so that you can tutor effectively.

The setup process is fairly simple. All you need to do is to explain your training course in detail so that your prospective students can know more about you and then upload your training material.

You can create a proper class structure with videos, discussion streams and assignments (as attachements). It streamlines the process of evaluation and you can keep a track on how your students are performing.

This is possibly the best way you can establish yourself as a professional trainer.

Also, since they will be handling the payments for you, you need not worry about the technical headaches that come along with payment gateway security.

Pros: Paying customers!!! No hassle of managing your own portal. Reliable uptime.

Cons: They will take a small share of fees from you. However, you are saving considerable amount of capital as compared to doing it all by yourself.

Great! I have made my choice. Now how do I create videos?

There are 3 ways you can go about creating video content:

Use Screencast Software

Download a free (I would suggest going premium) screencast software and record tutorial videos on your desktop. You can create videos where you take your readers through PPTs/Prezis with a fluid voiceover as narration.

You will need a good quality as microphone to record your voice and a video editor to add your branding and remove any glitches.

DIY Video Recording

If you are not camera shy and are an effective speaker, I would highly suggest that you record your videos and avoid using screencast softwares.

All you need is a white background (wall or a cloth will do), a nice HD camera and a good microphone. You can either buy a DSLR for the same or rent one if you are bootstrapped.

Hire Professionals

If you want your tutorials to look immaculate, then you should hire professionals who are expert in delivering top-notch video content. They are experts in determining the right aspect, angle, lighting and what not.

Your videos will be a treat to the eyes but do be prepared to shell out a good amount of money as well.

There! I have explained the entire recipe on how you as a trainer can go about sharing your knowledge with those who in need of it. I hope you do take up online training seriously and fill the knowledge gap that is prevalent in our industry.

Looking forward to seeing your tutorials videos soon!