You guys, I am so excited for this Skillshare review! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find out about Skillshare. Have you heard of it? It’s an amazing online learning center for creators, just like you and me! I’m excited to share the reasons why I love it, review a couple great classes that I took, and share an exclusive promotion for 2 free months of Skillshare Premium! How awesome is that?
What is Skillshare
Skillshare offers a wide variety of classes, allowing you to select from topics in Creative, Business, Technology, and Lifestyle. They’ve literally thought of everything from graphic design and web development to culinary and crafts. I love how many choices they provide—with my membership, I can hop onto the site and pick any class I want to take and can watch it as many times as I’d like, whenever I’d like. Gone are the days of sitting in a classroom to learn a new skill or fine-tune a current hobby (win!). I can take a class from any device (desktop, laptop, mobile), at home or on-the-go.
The classes I’ve taken so far have really helped me grow in my knowledge of all the things. Blogging is an ever-changing, dynamic industry. I’m so grateful that Skillshare has a network of experts that I can consult to keep myself up-to-date with the tools I need to succeed. It’s quickly becoming my go-to when I need to learn how to do something new, have a short gap in my schedule, or feel like unwinding at the end of the day… may or may not be pairing these classes with a sweet treat/yummy drinkat the end of the day ;)
My Skillshare review
The first class I took for my Skillshare review was Basics of Photoshop: Fundamentals for Beginners by Meg Lewis. This is a great class that really digs into the principal elements of the program. I use Photoshop a whole lot in my day to day, but found that this class was an excellent refresher course of sorts to reacquaint me with some of the tools and functions that I had unknowingly let fall by the wayside, so to speak.
Each of the Skillshare classes have a project or challenge, and for this class, it was creating a Mood Board. I really enjoyed this aspect of the class; the essence of a Mood Board is a creative graphic full of colors, images, texts that provide the creator with inspiration. The project really gave me a fresh outlook on what inspires my brand. I highly recommend anyone within the realm of branding as a career path take a peek at this class and illustrate their own Mood Board!
My next class for this Skillshare review was called Introduction to SEO: Tactics and Strategy for Entrepreneurs. The instructor, Rand Fishkin, discusses a ton of information that is directly applicable to my own brand’s growth and development as well as some helpful tidbits I plan to use in mentoring others to grow their own brands. His emphasis is on the importance of SEO marketing, getting into the nuts and bolts of how that machine really works.
The biggest takeaway for me was asking the question: “What is your audience searching for/seeking today that they can’t successfully find?” That’s a big question, right? It’s been helpful for me to dig deep and consider the answer(s) and how I can use A Subtle Revelry to provide the information you guys are looking for—whether it be how-to create a specific DIY, where to find the perfect piece of furniture to complete a look, what cocktail recipe to use for a themed party, etc. Rand talked all about giving people what they want and sticking with your dream; well friends, that’s exactly what I’m all about! I love to share my passion…in the most fun, festive, and revelrous way of course ;)
The third course I tried was, Lifestyle Photography: Capturing Inspiring Visual Stories by Marte Marie Forsberg. The heart and soul of this class was letting your digital imagery tell a story. Marte Marie made it clear that the important thing is to have fun, which you know I’m totally down for, so we definitely started off on a good note. She explained that it’s ok to pause if you get stuck, regroup, and start over. I certainly don’t enjoy when a project I’m working on isn’t going according to plan, but I appreciated her reminder not to get caught up in the mistakes, but to enjoy the journey…and realize that’s why we have editing tools!
While shooting, I learned that it’s important to observe all of the sights, sounds, textures, smells, etc. that you want the viewer to experience when they look at your visual. By engaging in this sensory exploration, you as the artist are really able to paint the picture and tell the whole story when capturing an image. Another point she made that I liked is being consistent. I really try to deliver a consistent message and theme in my branding.
The last class I watched for this Skillshare review was, Getting Started with Email Marketing | Learn with MailChimp and it is a class I fully intend on watching a few more times at least. Email marketing is a huge part of what I do, and Alyson Van Houten, who is part of the MailChimp team, did a great job explaining the ins and outs of a program that I use almost daily. The goal here was to write a successful email campaign and I was able to apply her tips to the campaigns that are currently active in my business.
Alyson really underlined the importance of your email marketing strategy directly reflecting and contributing to your business goals. Email marketing is such a tricky thing to master; what time of day should I send? How long should it be? How frequent? And the questions keep coming…This class gave an expert’s point of view on the answers to these and more.
My challenge from this class was to spend more time analyzing the metrics provided on MailChimp. Did you know you can look at a Click Map, which shows you where people are clicking throughout your newsletter and how many times? This provides some great insight into the success of your “call to action,” if people are reading the whole message, and what the most popular links are. This is some good stuff that I’d like to spend some quality time on.
Although this post is sponsored personally, I am a huge fan of this program and this Skillshare review is straight from my heart. Just because you’re awesome and because I love it so much, Skillshare is giving my readers 2 Free Months of Skillshare Premium. Yes, it’s for real! Dive right in: pick long classes or short, something familiar or brand new, watch/pause/play/repeat…the world is at your fingertips with just a click of the mouse! Share with me what your favorite classes are and maybe I’ll check ‘em out too.
