The Bedaya Center for Entrepreneurship and SME Development, in cooperation with social media expert and trainer, Ammar Mohammed, organized a two-day course last week on how to market yourself on social media websites. The event took place on April 14th and 16th at Katara, the cultural village.
Aiming to offer entrepreneurs and businesses a deeper understanding of how to promote themselves on key social media websites, the Bedaya Center course also presented a comprehensive strategy of how to make an effective online imprint by identifying business goals and planning a campaign accordingly to leverage social media websites. The course featured the steps needed with excellent ideas thrown in, to guide attendees through the process of effectively publicizing themselves online by disseminating their ideas and spreading their influence.
Ammar Mohammed tackled the basic principles that could help businesses market themselves, and the best ways to identify the most suitable social media websites to do this. Mohammed also addressed a number of key issues such as the necessity of marketing oneself online in today‘s world, how to handle people with differing points of view and how to gauge the extent of one’s influence on social media websites. Crucially, Mohammed also pointed out how to raise the number of one’s followers and the importance of developing a 30-day plan for online self-marketing.
Trainer Ammar Mohammed mentioned that it was the second time the course was held in Qatar to walk business people through the process of promoting themselves via the most popular social websites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. “The special thing about the course was the 3-month action plan aiming to monitor people’s interaction, the level of their influence, and the nature of the content they provide via social media,” added Mohammed, who also explained that the course was held over two nonconsecutive days so attendees could assess how they were interacting with their followers. Significantly, the influence of some trainees grew within 48 hours of the first lecture, and their followers also increased on Twitter and Instagram.
Mohammed commended those on the course for their active participation. Attendees, who were mostly businessmen and entrepreneurs, made sure they maximized the benefits of the techniques they were shown to market themselves – and their enterprises – by effectively expanding their influence online, leading to a boost in their sales and income.
Describing the strategic partnership with Bedaya as “special”, Ammar Mohammed said he was glad to cooperate with the Center, knowing what social media currently represents and how influential it can be for entrepreneurs and the owners of pioneering projects. This partnership reinforces what Bedaya has already been doing to help young people realize their career and entrepreneurial ambitions by developing the set of skills and abilities they need, as well as setting goals and developing business plans.
“Thanks to the social media course, we have been able to identify, understand and apply the basic principles associated with online marketing and have learnt self-marketing skills which will positively affect our businesses. Now I can develop a marketing plan and know ways of displaying content precisely when it will attract the best levels of interaction by the public. Undoubtedly, carrying on with uninterrupted self-marketing enhances our influence, helping to increase sales and income. We were also able to familiarize ourselves with ways of embracing the market’s new ideas and how to use them. Ultimately the course made us realize the importance of communicating online with the public which can only enrich our entrepreneurial work,” said one of the female trainees.
