What is the Difference Between Selling Courses Through Social Media and Your Own Website?
Selling Online Courses: Social Media or Your Own Website?
Advantages and Disadvantages of Selling Courses Through Social Media
Selling courses through social networks (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)
seems like a simple path: your target audience is already there, ready for communication. You can launch short selling posts, stories, live broadcasts. Quickly respond to inquiries from potential students.
Advantages of social networks:
- Instant access to a wide audience
- Simple start and minimal financial costs
- Convenient feedback through comments or direct messages
- Easy to launch ads without technical skills
Disadvantages:
- Lack of control over algorithms — reach can drop without warning
- Loss of part of the audience: your profile may be blocked or deleted
- Limited tools for organizing learning: it's difficult to automate access, homework, or payment
- Dependency on the platform is formed
Features of Selling Courses Through Your Own Website
Your own website or LMS platform is your autonomous space where you manage content and interaction with students. This format allows you to build a long-term promotion and scaling strategy, rather than just pursuing quick sales.
Main advantages of your own website for online courses:
- Control over the user base and your data
- Automation of learning processes: assigning homework, progress tracking, payments, issuing certificates
- Flexible access settings, statistics tracking, integrations with payment systems
- Ability to build a brand, work with SEO, attract organic traffic
Disadvantages:
- Need to develop/set up the site (but today this can be done in 1 day on platforms like UseUme)
- Requires time and resources to promote the site, gather your own audience
Where to Sell Better: Comparison and Real Cases
Many experts start with social media, but later switch to their own websites for deeper automation and improved service. For example, according to Business of Apps, Instagram media campaigns are great for generating leads, but closing sales and organizing the learning process is more effective on specialized learning platforms.
Online schools using solutions like UseUme note the simple launch of courses — from creating a school to accepting payments in less than a day. There are examples of instructors who, after their first sales on Instagram, transferred hundreds of students to their own platform within a month and gained the ability to expand their course catalog without worrying about social media limitations.
Practical Advice: How to Choose a Channel for Starting and Developing an Online School
1. Start with what you have.
If you already have an audience on social media, use it as a starting point.
2. Think about the future.
If you plan to create an educational brand and develop your own platform, invest in a website with an LMS.
3. Combine.
The most effective strategy is to attract clients through social media and transfer them to your own platform for learning. This will reduce the risks of blocking and help scale your business.
4. Automation and analytics.
Choose platforms that offer automatic access management, statistics tracking, and content protection.