For five years, Augusta Free Press has offered classes on marketing, website design and social media to the local business community in Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro.
This fall, AFP is taking the classes to Facebook Live.
“This should make it easy for anybody to take part,” said Chris Graham, the president of Augusta Free Press LLC, who teaches the Building the Machine classes for AFP.
There is no cost to participate, and you can sign on from wherever you are – in your office on your desktop, via mobile or tablet.
As has been the case for the past five years, the classes will begin with instruction on a specific topic in marketing, web design and social media, and offer plenty of time for question and answer.
“The difference is the convenience, for those taking the class and for us, honestly,” Graham said.
The classes will be presented live on Tuesdays beginning on Tuesday, Oct. 11.
The classes will be archived on the AFP Facebook page and embedded on the AFP website at AugustaFreePress.com/classes.
Class schedule
Websites 101: Tuesday, Oct. 11, noon
Your business is online, or you’re developing a new website for your business. What do you need to make sure to include? And most importantly, how do you make sure the website translates into dollars toward your bottom line?
- Calls to action, and how you can help people find what you want them to find
- Use your website to collect new customer information
- The money page: the most important page on your website
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
Mobile Websites 101: Tuesday, Oct. 18, noon
Did you get a threatening-sounding email from Google telling you that if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, then your site will no longer show up in mobile searches on Google?
Just over half of all web traffic and e-commerce sales come from smartphone and tablet users. Do you have a strategy for how your business can generate more business from mobile?
- Is my current website mobile-friendly?
- Is my best bet the app route? (Not unless you want to spend a lot of money.)
- Can I maintain my branding on my mobile site?
- Do I need a whole new mobile website? Or can I tweak my existing site to cover both bases?
Social Media Marketing After Facebook: Tuesday, Oct. 25, 10 a.m.
It used to be relatively easy to market your business on Facebook. You started a business Facebook page, got people to like it, posted updates to the page about your business, people saw them, and you got sales.
Now that Facebook is throttling your posts to limit the number of people who can see them without you paying for ads, you’ve got to do some rethinking.
Does Facebook even work for your business anymore?
- Is Facebook still something that I can use to boost my business?
- If I spend money on Facebook ads, how much is enough, and how do I best spend it?
- How can I get Twitter to work for my business?
- What other social media platforms can work to boost sales?
Marketing on a Budget: Tuesday, Nov. 1, noon
You don’t have money for TV, radio, big newspaper ads, but you still need to get in front of customers and potential clients. But how?
- Developing and getting attention to good content for your website.
- How to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to make your business go viral
- Develop and build a newsletter list to touch base with customers and clients in their email inbox
- How to write and disseminate PR through the local media to get attention to your business
Getting Past the Ad Rep BS: How to Best Spend Your Ad Dollars on TV, Radio, Newspapers, More, Tuesday, Nov. 8, noon
The ad rep sitting across from you will tell you how important it is that you buy the big ad package that he has designed just for you.
How do you have any idea of knowing if it’s going to work?
- How to look up newspaper and magazine circulation numbers, radio and TV ratings numbers and website traffic numbers
- Measuring viewers, readers and web visitors on a cost-per-thousand basis
- Demographics numbers on different forms of media to give you a sense of which can best reach your target audience
- Talk your way into the best deal possible with one bit of secret inside ad rep sales info
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