During lockdown, and categorically termed as a period of uncertainty, the Internet started to show its importance in ways we students had ignored before. In the month of April, reading articles about Marketing was only to learn how the experts are uncertain of how to market their products and how the market is going to send a chilling note down the spine.
But fortunately, on reading the Marketing Experts and viewing their expressions on how Digital Marketing is going to change the scenario of marketing, gave me new hope and a path to work on. But how do I learn Digital Marketing? I mean everything around is closed; how do I join a class? C’mon, who am I kidding? We live in the world of modern technology and getting any knowledge is now available on the tip of our finger.
The first learning tool I turned to was the YouTube. The advantage of which, is that you just sit in front of the screen with an internet connection and listen to the expert with a focused mind. FOCUSED MIND??? (pause) Anyways thanks to the short videos on YouTube and sorry to the long videos which I don’t click on.
Online courses have been in existence for a very long time but during the lockdown, it has received a different boost all-together. Many training institutions started re-working on their marketing campaigns and giving discounts like never before.
One major drawback that came with these online courses was the pre-recorded content, which was probably done a year or two back. As I was trying out for Digital Marketing, the tools they demonstrated their features seemed to be outdated and YouTube too didn’t seem much of a help, because the digital marketing tools keep changing every few months.
A month passed since the lockdown and our University instructed the Professors to take up online classes to move ahead along with the time. Google classrooms, Google Meet, Zoom, Cisco Webex became our new Lecture Halls. It was all new to us, but the learning machine within us made it pretty easy to grasp them and quickly adapt to it on need basis.
But the truth remains, that virtual classrooms can never replace the physical classrooms. And in a pandemic like this, and thinking of having an experience of our favourite physical classes is like calling the misfortune on us. But the least that can be done is have an interactive platform for learning.
There are some institutions that along with pre-recorded classes provide assignments to make it more effective. But the fact is having conversations make any classroom interesting and effective, be it Virtual or Physical.
Apart from the virtual classrooms of the academic subjects, I happen to come across a Digital Marketing Course (as I was looking for one) that provides live sessions (as in the classes are not in a pre-recorded format) and it is quite similar to the physical classroom in terms of interaction. In other words, the trainer teaches while we are present in the digital room via a software. What’s more? We can ask the trainer any questions regarding the topic there and then. And I was happy about hearing it as this is what I was longing for.
Moreover, the main motive for me to take up this live session course was that I could finally get to learn the Digital Marketing tools updated as of today and not an outdated one. Hurray! Trust me that was a different kind of joy. Because seeing the outdated features in the pre-recorded sessions made me lose my interest in the area of study I wished to get skilled.
We all know how Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc has been upgrading every few months for Privacy Policy purpose or for Business platform. From this pattern, you can only imagine how tools like Google Ads, Google Analytics, Email Marketing, Social Media Advertising features and many more such tools and techniques have been upgrading very often to maintain the competition in the market and that is why it is important to learn those upgraded versions.
With internet exploring the way of marketing on digital platforms such as the Search engines, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, the E-Commerce platform is changing drastically that what seems new feature today might become old the next month and learning this from pre-recorded videos of years back is only a waste of time.
In these past few months, I finally came across an Institution that provided me a Digital Marketing Course helped me learn Digital Marketing techniques and tools of the current days. It also gave me a platform where I can personally contact the Trainer for any related quires and revisit the classes to practice what is taught.
Attending this course still felt better than the pre-recorded online courses I had attended before. Why? Because there was some conversation from both ends! Finally, there was a platform for online classes where the students could contribute to the class. There was nothing more I could ask for.
But every Coin has two sides and unfortunately, the Concept of Live Class comes with few drawbacks as well. Let’s be honest when we are at home attending such live classes is not an easy task due to the unavoidable responsibility arriving at any time. And my bad, sometimes I would miss out on the conversations and the worst was when I would ask for a doubt and right at that moment, I was required to leave the class due to the “Chores”.
Well, that’s another thing but there was one thing that I most enjoyed about the Pre-recorded classes was that I was the master of my time. I could log in anytime and anywhere and go through the courses. I could even pause the video and rewind.
It’s funny how we humans are blessed with all the proficiencies and yet how ignorant we are sometimes to be grateful for these resources. Let’s utilise the time and resources readily available at our end, as we never know the new learning can be a potential life changer.