Spreading the e-Learning Word (Part 2)

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By David Boggs, CEO and Founder of SyberWorks, Inc.

In Part 1, I described some of the more “mainstream” ways to promote your organization and its e-Learning products to target audiences via the Web. This second part explores some additional Web channels that you may not have considered, specifically:

Twitter
Craigslist
eBay
iTunes
and others

These are all places where your e-Learning business can live on the Web to good advantage. But people must first be able to find you there. So let’s first discuss:

Twitter

Do you tweet? With its 140-character limit on posts…er…tweets, it isn’t exactly the place to promote e-Learning products or services.

Or is it?

Go to http://www.twitter.com/ and create a free account (you know you want to). Then click the Search link at the bottom of the page, enter “e-Learning” and click Search again. Less than a second later, you’ll see what’s being said around the world right now about e-Learning. When I did, I found:

Requests for help with specific e-Learning technologies.
PodCasts and press releases from e-Learning suppliers (including SyberWorks).
URL links to e-Learning blogs, products, conferences, and other sites.
Free tutorials about authoring e-Learning materials.

In fact, these tiny tweets offer many opportunities to spread your firm’s presence and influence, through comments, product links, and promotional URLs. (Your competitors are probably doing so already.) Twitter is also a great way to watch what's being said right now in and about your field…and to join the discussion.

Craigslist

OK, this is a stretch, right?

Not really. Craigslist is becoming the place to post jobs and find employment. But it’s still a fairly overlooked place to do promotion. I’ll call your attention specifically to its discussion forums section (just below personals). There you’ll find such potentially useful categories (for us) as:

1099, about self-employment and related products and services
comp, about computer technologies
educ, about colleges, training, and learning
science, about science

Then, under services, you could consider posting an occasional ad under:

computer
creative
lessons

And, believe it or not, you will occasionally find very pertinent postings in the gigs section, under computer and creative.

These (and other categories) are easy places to place your company name, and its products, services, and expertise, before target audiences…especially when they’re in specific cities and states.

eBay

This too may seem a stretch, but I just searched eBay’s marketplace for the term “e-Learning” and came up with 72 hits. They included a ton of e-Learning books for sale, plus a few CBT courses. In truth, eBay isn’t the best place to sell most e-Learning products. But you can promote yourself there.

Specifically, check out eBay’s Community > Discussion Boards > Computers, Networking, & IT forum. When I did, the first 10 of its 86 pages contained eBayers’ questions about:

Creating and saving Flash SWF files
Java/PL/SQL
Dreamweaver
Search engines
Hardware, software, operating systems, and browsers
Internet security
LANs and networking
Computer-based training

And many of these questions offered untapped opportunities to put one’s name and services before eBay’s more technical users, while also helping to solve problems related to your markets. So occasionally checking in on this eBay forum could be a good way to start (or join) discussions about your markets, to help others, and (oh, by the way) to put your firm and its services before their eyes.

iTunes

Apple’s popular iTunes hosting and distribution service isn’t just for music. It also offers more than 100,000 free educational audios, videos, lectures, language lessons, audiobooks, and podcasts…from universities, PBS stations, and cultural institutions around the world.

And again, most e-Learning materials aren’t suitable for this kind of delivery. But, if your firm’s products lend themselves to promotional videos on YouTube (which I discussed in Part 1 of this article), then also look into iTunes …especially since your younger audiences use it every day.

Others

What other ways can you think of to expand your firm’s presence on the Web? Most public sites offer forums, and ways for users to comment on their purchases and needs. I can think of three immediately: Amazon.com, CNET.com, and ePinions.com. But still other influential sites may serve your particular markets.

There are many such opportunities out there. So if your e-Learning products and services are ready for wider exposure, consider spreading the promotional word over less-obvious services like these. Your competitors may already be.

About the Author:

David Boggs is the CEO and Founder of SyberWorks, Inc., in Waltham, Mass.

About SyberWorks

SyberWorks, Inc. is a leader in providing Learning Management Systems and custom e-Learning Solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations, higher education, and other organizations. Located in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company serves the multi-billion-dollar e-Learning market. Since 1995, SyberWorks has developed and delivered unique and economical solutions for creating, managing, measuring, and improving e-Learning programs at companies and organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe, and other countries.