Read time: 2 mins
Meet Shaun Thomas | Student Success Story
Meet Shaun Thomas, a Social Media Manager who took the University of Cape Town Social Media online short course to boost his skill set and improve his organisation’s online presence.
“After the course I wanted to implement what I’d learnt, so I used about R200 behind an ad, and through the demographics and the targeting, it reached over 100 000 people. The boosting of ads impacts my organisation in a really positive way, because we are able to reach more people with what we’re doing.”
Want the confidence to lead digital change and direction within a business?
Set yourself apart with the UCT Social Media Marketing online short course.
My name’s Shaun Thomas, and I’m the assistant communications officer for HPCA. We are the umbrella organisation for 146 member hospices in South Africa. We’re working in the community, we’re helping out hospices and patients.
So for us an NGO, it’s very important to be on a platform like Facebook because we are able then to reach out to all those people and to show them exactly what we do and the impact that we are making.
I chose to take the UCT Social Media online course because of the credibility that UCT holds. Also because of the content that’s in this course – it really covered everything that I wanted. I loved the flexibility of the online experience. The modules were very helpful and informative. The coaches were also really helpful and informative throughout the week.
The most valuable thing I learnt on the Social Media course was the boosting of advertising, and really the backend of it and how to actually make sure that what you are advertising gets shown to the public that you want to see it. So after the course I wanted to implement what I’d learnt, so I used about R200 behind an ad, and through the demographics and the targeting, it reached over 100 000 people.
The boosting of ads impacts my organisation in a real positive way, because we are able to reach more people with what we’re doing. And in terms of events, campaigns that we are running, we are able to then reach those people with very little money as well.
It’s important to constantly add to one’s skill set, because things are ever-changing and in terms of marketing, 10 years ago something like social media was not relevant, and now it’s extremely relevant. So, in my opinion, short courses like the GetSmarter one are what I want to continually do, and I want to continually learn as well.