If you’re looking for new ways to market your business, your product or your service in this growing era of digitalization, social media is just the right option.

Over the years, the shift towards digital world has been rapid, from connecting with people around the world to searching for a good place to eat. These days there is very little one can do without a smartphone or the internet. The same is true for marketing a business and building your brand – there is much you can do through the use of a unique combination of social networks known as social media.

Social media marketing is a powerful way through which businesses can reach larger audiences with the use of various social media websites and tools. And it’s important to understand why. “People are very active on social media, and it’s much easier to show sponsored contents that there are catered to people’s interests. For instance, Facebook, which is the most used social network in South Asia, rarely shows ads that are irrelevant to its users. And the cost of boosting your content or your page on a platform like Facebook is very nominal compared to traditional marketing methods” says Priyanka Banyal, an Online Advertising Expert at eCdemy Nepal.

In Nepal’s case, despite a slower progress in going digital, the methods of marketing have changed significantly in the past few years. More and more businesses are looking at social media to promote their brand, their products, and their services, especially smaller companies with a limited budget that want to reach the right set of people. In the context of Facebook, there’s a setting that allows users to pick a target audience with age, gender, region specifications when posting a sponsored content and they can, after a certain time, know exactly how many people saw the content on their news feed, how many people clicked on a link (if the post included one), and which groups of people are most interested in the post.

Through social media platforms, businesses are also able to build a relationship with customers and receive feedback from them on many aspects to understand what works and what doesn’t. This gives room for improved brand loyalty from customers because social media helps companies and organizations become less like profit-driven corporations and more like a group of people who share the same vision.

When we think about social media and digital marketing possibilities, we first think of Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Twitter. But Mohammad Nayab Khalil, Digital Marketing Leader at eCdemy Nepal, tells us that the list doesn’t end there. There are endless platforms available for businesses to promote and market themselves online. He mentions Quora as an example, the community-based question-and-answer site is used by many people to showcase their expertise in a particular field, letting people on that social networking site know about them and their business, just by answering questions.

Because of the increase in popularity of social media and digital marketing, there’s a greater demand for its knowledge. Many students and professionals are looking to learn about the inner workings of digital marketing. And eCdemy Nepal, in collaboration with White Hat, an IT investment company, offers digital marketing courses to marketing professionals, students, entrepreneurs and anyone looking to enhance his or her skill set. 

Two professional courses offered at the Kathmandu based eCommerce and eBusiness education initiative, are Digital Marketing Management and Facebook Marketing. The Digital Marketing Management course is eight weeks long and has an extensive curriculum that consists of basics of digital marketing that are needed to build integrated marketing plans to bring in a successful return. And the Facebook Marketing course is four weeks long and is specifically aimed at those looking to market through Facebook. Both courses incorporate various projects to improve real-life understanding of social media marketing and are priced at Rs.60,000 and Rs. 35,000, exclusive of taxes, respectively.