Member Article

Leading North East Social Media Firm Launches Training Academy

Leading North East social media agency, The Social Co. has launched a specialist training academy to provide much needed suppot to businesses of all sizes, from sole traders to large organisations.

The expert team has launched The Social Co. Academy following its market research and actively gaining feedback from local businesses and identifying a gap in the market for expert training for small business owners, marketing professionals and social media teams.

The new service launch marks further success for the company following significant growth to a team of 28 and multiple client wins and internationally viral campaigns.

Zoe Pouton has been appointed as Director of Training for The Social Co. Academy - she said: “I’ve been with The Social Co. for two years and have experienced first-hand the impact which successful social media campaigns can have on businesses of all sizes. Some SMEs don’t have the budget to spend on monthly retainer-style support, while some organisations may have an in-house team who could execute the campaigns with the right knowledge and up-to-date skills. We’ve created a cost and time effective solution to meet the needs of these organisations.

“Obviously, a lot has changed for businesses in the last 18 months. The pandemic and subsequent isolation has highlighted the need to have a better online presence for many organisations. That, combined with furlough and lack of collaborative working has meant that there is now a huge demand for staff training and updates on any changes to these fast-moving and adapting platforms.

“Social media moves quickly, algorithms change and the types of content which gain interaction alongside user habits are constantly evolving. We are here to provide the knowledge and in depth training which will yield fantastic results for our clients.

“The training has been created to be time-efficient and convenient – we know that everyone is busy so we wanted to make the training as accessible as possible. This is why we’ve developed a range of options to suit individual needs including courses over one full day, two half days or three evenings either at The Social Co. office in Durham or via videocall. We provide full training kits to use and take away too.”

The team has developed three variations of training to suit the needs of a range of learners, including Beginner, Intermediate and Bespoke. The beginner course will include lessons on professionalism, getting to know algorithms, organic social posting and the tools available to enable learners to get the most out of social without a big budget or technical equipment.

The Intermediate training will give those already with some experience of social media knowledge on how to successfully run adverts and paid-for content, how to get the best return on investment for advertising spend and how to use more complex tools and programmes. It is also designed to support participants with building their own design skills, animation, videography and more complex advertising campaigns.

Their bespoke level course means they can offer social media consultancy to businesses on a more personal level, whether that means visiting a work place to teach a range of staff or one and one sessions, audit and support with business social media accounts. The firm will also set up community groups for previous participants to join to swap tips, build networking opportunities as well as developing specialist and bespoke courses and consultancy to offer ongoing support.

Zoe and the team are also partnering with Schools, Colleges and universities to educate students on social media safety. Zoe continued: “Our purpose is to ensure that self-sufficient teams are gaining the highest return on time and investment via their social media teams and channels. We know how important SMEs are to the economy, which is why we are supporting everyone from business owners operating solo enterprises to marketing managers of larger organisations.

“We’ve already seen great success following our initial training sessions and we look forward to supporting many people and businesses with The Social Co. Academy.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophie Swift .