April Networking Session Takeaways
Because the format we tested for this session was all breakout rooms, we will not be sharing the recordings here in the Hub. For all previous program events, we have only share content that is created/developed by Udemy teams, and have never shared the breakout portion of our events.
We have consolidated notes taken from the three session topics into some key takeaways for those who were unable to attend.
Course Marketing:
- Consensus was to focus on creating high-quality courses rather than spending a lot of time on marketing
- Discord was seen as a useful tool for promoting courses
- Some instructors have tried YouTube with mixed success
- Google ads were effective if the right keywords were found
- Some instructors used their own websites, blogs, and email lists to promote their courses
- Some instructors recommended creating a personal brand rather than focusing solely on marketing courses
- Upgrading and updating courses was seen as important for staying relevant, with different instructors devoting different amounts of time to this task
Course Creation and Lessons:
- Some IPs hire freelancers to script and edit (sourced from Upwork) or for writing and graphics.
- Another IP hasn't seen a correlation between their personal effort/input and students' satisfaction or sales. They update slides without revising the course if student feedback indicates it's warranted.
- One IP shared that they used to try to trim out what they thought was unnecessary content, but learners told them they liked hearing their personal experiences as real-world anecdotes.
- Students want to know that instructors are real human beings, which leads to better review scores. One IP appears in the intro and perhaps the closing of a section but leaves the core of the section as editable content. Appearing on camera is an opportunity to help the learner like you.
- One IP is moving more toward shorter courses for the UB learner and focusing on the quality of his slides. They balance investment because a shorter course won't earn as much.
- One IP shared that their approach to increase earnings is to lengthen popular courses.
- Lesson titles need to be descriptive (not just "lesson 2") because there's a subset of learners who skip around.
- One IP has a hard time updating their courses because of the references between lectures. Another IP recommended not referencing other lectures from another section and scrubbing any internal references.
ChatGPT & Generative AI Takeaways:
- ChatGPT is being used for accelerating course creation tasks such as course descriptions, titles, and subtitles.
- Instructors also use ChatGPT for proofreading, making content more formal, creating quizzes, generating topics for mind maps, and condensing long explanations into beginner-friendly language.
- ChatGPT responses can be repetitive, and inaccurate so require careful attention to ensure credibility.
- Instructors are interested in using ChatGPT to improve Udemy's Marketplace Insights by incorporating Google search trends and social media data.
- AI avatars in videos and having them engage in dialogue with each other could be a potential use case.
- ChatGPT is just a tool and quality is a concern. It's not a replacement for instructors, but there is a worry about low-quality content flowing into Udemy.
- Some instructors use ChatGPT to create course content and exam questions, but it requires crafting the right query for higher quality results.
- Generative AI can also be used for course promotion, such as generating images and writing course descriptions for SEO.
- Some instructors are concerned about the impact of ChatGPT and AI on their business strategy, but others see it as just another competitor.
- Quality is a top concern for integrating ChatGPT into Udemy, and sources should be fully available before integration.
- ChatGPT is seen as a useful tool for brainstorming and generating ideas, as well as for making content more formal or educational in nature.
- There are concerns about relying too heavily on AI-generated content and ensuring its quality.
- Participants also discussed the potential impact of generative AI on their business strategies and how to differentiate themselves from competitors.