Ogilvy Launches Social Media Course Online Devised by OgilvyRED’s Thomas Crampton

Following the global success of the Behavioural Economics course with Ogilvy Change and Rory Sutherland, Ogilvy & Mather has created an interactive digital course sharing the fundamentals that underpin the world of social media via OgilvyRED’s Global Principal for Marketing Transformation, Thomas Crampton. This is the first time an agency in the UK has published full online courses devised by thought leaders from the agency, available to anyone and everyone.

The majority of online courses on social media are purely theoretical and platform-centric. Rather than focusing on specific platforms, the course takes a strategic look at how the internet has changed the way people and brands think, act and communicate. Those enrolled in the course will learn about planning, building an audience, and even crisis communications on social media.

Learners will also discover how emotion, curiosity and storytelling can help create content that will make people trust, care about, and ultimately share a message in the digital world, as well as where social media could be heading in the future.

There are few people better qualified to impart social media and digital brand building wisdom than Thomas Crampton. He is no stranger to teaching in the classroom: Having lectured at numerous universities, including Stanford University, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Hong Kong University, Keio University in Japan and the National University of Singapore. Before he entered the advertising world, Crampton was a correspondent for the New York Times and International Herald Tribune.

With more than 2.1 billion people and counting on social media, Crampton explains why these skills are so crucial to the workplace of the future.

“In this increasingly online era, social media has become a key tool for getting your business out there and liaising with your customers in good times and bad. Social media is vital but, with the sheer number of platforms and the lack of formal education available on the subject, it can be a minefield. This course will help people navigate it safely and come up with creative ways of marketing their brands and themselves.”

So far over 300 people from 46 countries have successfully completed a course from either Rory or Thomas. While the majority of e-learning courses have a completion rate of about 6%, this has been getting an 80% completion rate. 42courses founder Chris Rawlinson, and co-founder of the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy, explains how the courses are pioneering a new form of learning where users can be educated by leaders in their field in an enjoyable way.

“We have taken lessons learned from advertising and extended the play and gamification aspects of elearning to make it fun and more sticky. There is no waiting for answers, we give people immediate feedback, you can climb leader boards and earn points and badges for doing well. When you play as you learn you retain more information. The knowledge people gain from this social media course will not only help businesses, but anybody who wants to develop their personal brand too.”