Here’s a Thought :: Why Stop Learning?

I’ve already started seeing back to school advertisements and we have a full month of summer left! Although I won’t be going back to school this fall – it got me thinking about learning. The learning process shouldn’t end just because we’re not headed back to the classroom in September – especially for those of us in the fields of marketing, public relations and social media. Our industry is constantly changing, growing and developing and we should be changing, growing and developing right along with it.

I know, I know – it’s hard enough to find time in the day to get your normal workload in – who has time to search through articles and resources to find the information you need? That’s where the wonder of webinars comes into play. There are hundreds of companies and websites that provide free resources on the topics of public relations, marketing and social media. These webinars can range from a general topic such as “how to write press release” to a more targeted presentation about why Facebook timelines can benefit your business. The information you need is out there – you just need to find it.

Well, you don’t really need to find it – we’ve taken on some of the legwork on and compiled a list of informative and free sites that hold webinars on a variety of marketing communications topics. All you need is 1 hour a week to learn something new or brush-up on a topic you might a little about already. Can’t fit the live webinar times into your schedule? Here’s the best part – most of these webinars are stored on these websites so you can go back and listen to them on demand! That’s right, you can listen to them on your own time and at your own convenience. Learning on demand = no excuses.

Webinar Tip: {that I learned from another webinar} Its easy to put your headphones on and work through the presentation. But, to get the most out of the webinar, you really need to put your full focus into listening to it. Retention rates drastically lower when you’re doing more then one task. So, do what we do here at Elements – take turns, take notes and pass your webinar wisdom on to others in your office.

Resources:

HubSpot: Free on-demand Internet marketing webinars / videos about blogging, SEO,social media and more.

BrightTALK: Provides webinars and videos for professionals and their communities around current and relevant industry and business thought leadership content.

Buddy Media: Buddy Media social media webinars and gain the insight necessary to take your social media presence to the next level.

Social Media Today: Social Media Today’s Best Thinkers webinar series brings together the world’s best thinkers and practitioners on social media and networked business.

PRWeb: Learn how to use news release distribution from PRWeb to benefit your organization. Read online marketing tips, whitepapers, videos, webinars and more.

Memberships: Are you a member of any marketing or business group? A large number of these organizations host webinars that are free to members. For example, I’m a member of the PRSA and I just received an email this morning with 3 webinars that are free to members.  Looks like I’ll be brushing up on bringing the power of PR to brand marketing!

~Allyson