UPDATED FOR 2024
Ready to turn your "business" into a sustainable brand?
Get a step-by-step process for producing, amplifying & monetizing content that attracts a loyal following & generates consistent growth.
In this streamable*, 13-module course you will learn the same 5-step I.C.O.S.A. Social Framework that Laura Palladino used to help build a $125 million brand.
*Recorded from Train My Social Media Manager's most recent live semester (Summer 2021).
Updated Curriculum
Get 13 modules of freshly updated strategy sessions, how-to tutorials and Q&A recordings.
New Resource Library
With step-by step worksheets & templates to guide you through every module.
Set Your Own Schedule
And go at your own pace with on-demand access to the most recent semester of Train My Social Media Manager.
Pay 50% Less than Train My Social Media Manager
For the exact same training videos, Q&As, worksheets & more.
Ready to unlock the next level of scale?
Social is the key.
You might be wondering, "Is social media still relevant to a modern digital brand?"
Social isn't just relevant; it's probably the most important part of a sustainable marketing strategy, and it's usually the missing piece of the puzzle for brands that have plateaued and want to reach the next stage of growth.
A solid social strategy will help you:
Make Facebook your friend.
Did you know social sites don't like you taking users off their platforms? That's why they make it so hard to scale those ad-to-offer campaigns you run to cold traffic. So instead, use our Engage & Filter Method to segment your fans with content (which social sites love) then monetize them with offers. That's how we dropped our CPA by 50% and got 2,000,000 free impressions.
Stand out from the competition.
The more crowded the marketplace gets, the harder it becomes to offer a product or service that's truly unique. Most competitors can match you on price, shipping and features, but if you use content to establish your authority in the marketplace and build a community of loyal fans — like BOOM!'s 355,000 Facebook fans and 700,000-person email list — that's something they can't copy.
Future-proof your brand.
A brand without content is just a "business", and a business can stop working at any time: they have no way to get repeat purchases or grow a customer base, making them vulnerable to platform updates and algorithm changes. A real "brand" has a strong email list, authority in their market, and a community of loyal fans who buy their products again and again. This makes them practically bulletproof to changes in the marketplace.
Supercharge every part of your marketing.
The results of good social marketing don't stop at your Facebook page; it helps every part of your business including your ads, emails and website. These all rely on a stream of fresh content, and a good social strategy produces those for you. Not only did BOOM!'s social generate $2.4 million in directly attributable sales, it also provided the content for our most profitable ad and email campaigns.
But to do any of this, you have to consistently create content that engages your audience. Then you need a process for turning all those likes, shares and retweets into real dollars for your brand.
Unfortunately, most businesses don't know what to make, how to make it, or the best way to leverage the content after it's been created.
That's where the ICOSA Framework comes in: it's a system that gives any team a reliable way to create an unlimited amount of content that drives engagement and generates loyal customers.
Here's the framework we added to our social strategy to generate $7.5 million worth of sales & visibility in just 12 months.
Last year, we used the I.C.O.S.A. Framework to generate $2.4 million in direct sales from organic social.
But, by leveraging this same social content in ads and emails, we generated an additional $5.1 million, bringing social media’s total impact to $7.5 million in value across the business — not bad for a 5-person team!!
- 5-Step I.C.O.S.A. Social Framework
- STEP 1: Define Your Brand Voice Ideation: Start by listening to your customers (and your data) and join the conversation they’re already having.
- STEP 2: Identify Major Content Themes Creation: Produce content that drives that conversation and captures customer attention.
- STEP 3: Maximize Campaign Visibility & Impact Optimization: Optimize your creative so it's easily accessible on every platform your customers use.
- STEP 4: Leverage All Platforms Syndication: Post content on all relevant channels and in all media formats.
- STEP 5: Scale the Winners. Upcycle the Losers. Amplification: Use paid ads to amplify your content to engage more customers and grow the conversation. Repeat for scale.
I.C.O.S.A. is a simple, 5-step process that turns scattered Facebook posts and ineffective tweets into a high-impact social media machine.
And the value of this framework doesn't end with social media. This machine can be the engine that drives every department in your business.
Because not only do these campaigns produce measurable dollars for our brand, they also produce the content that we use in all of our top-performing ads and emails, as well as on our sales pages and throughout our website.
Now, we want to teach you (or your employee) how to master this framework so you can build a social team that drives substantial growth for your business.
All YOU need to do is commit to learning and implementing the material in this on-demand course.
INTRODUCING:
A streamable training that teaches anyone how to run social media marketing at a high level.
Smart Social combines 13 modules of updated strategy sessions, how-to videos and Q&A recordings with a brand new resource library of worksheets and fill-in-the-blank templates.
There's never been a better course to learn the complete skillset of a professional social media manager.
How Smart Social Will Help You Succeed
- Your Instructor Laura Palladino is an educator at Smart Marketer and the Marketing Director of a $46 million-per-year brand. You're in great hands!
- New Curriculum The entire course has been updated to reflect the latest changes to platforms, algorithms and winning strategies — so you know you're getting the industry's most up-to-date training.
- How-to Videos Detailed tutorials to help you implement everything you learn so you can create, launch and manage 7-figure campaigns.
- Resource Library Fill-in-the blank worksheets, templates and calendars to guide you through every module and milestone. These are the same resources Laura uses on a daily basis.
- Recorded Q&As for each module where Laura answers student questions from our most recent live semester and gives feedback on their work.
- Guest Experts To help you supplement your social skills, we brought in 4 industry pros to teach you about branding, design, project management and content marketing.
- Weekly action items To hold you accountable and help you reach your goals.
- You choose your speed All marketers are different, and Smart Social gives you the flexibility to complete this course around your busy schedule.
- PLUS $591 in Bonuses When you join Smart Social, you get our Ambassador Blueprint ($397 value) and 2 months of Zipify Pages ($194 value) for free.
"If you are struggling to figure out your social media, this is the course you want to take... my only regret is that I didn't find it sooner." - Jeremiah Allen
Course Curriculum
Over 13 modules you will learn how to implement Laura's 5-step I.C.O.S.A. Framework for growing any brand with social media — whether you run an 8-figure brand or you're building a team from scratch.
Each session mixes strategy, implementation and feedback to give you a clear path to success in your social media journey.
Course Videos
- Welcome to Train My Social Media Manager
- How to Think Like a Social Media Manager
- SaaS I.C.O.S.A. Walkthrough (Zipify Apps)
- Ecommerce I.C.O.S.A. Walkthrough (BOOM!)
- Info Product I.C.O.S.A. Walkthrough (Smart Marketer)
- Session 1 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- Forging Your Brand Identity, with Ezra Firestone
- Session 2 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Brand Identity Worksheet
Course Videos
- Why Customer Avatars Are Key for Social
- How Do I Find My Avatar?
- Getting Into the Mind of Your Avatar
- Transformation Grid
- Session 3 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Customer Persona Example from BOOM!
- The Customer Persona Canvas
- Customer Avatar Questionnaire
- The Transformation Grid
Course Videos
- Setting Social Media Goals
- Facebook Walkthrough
- Instagram Walkthrough
- YouTube Walkthrough
- Which Advertising Platforms Should I Use?
- Session 4 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Goal Setting, Achieving & Measurement Worksheet
Course Videos
- Content Strategy & The I.C.O.S.A. System
- Session 5 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Ideation
- Agora Walkthrough
- Evaluating Content Performance with Google Analytics
- Session 6 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- The Content Grid
- The Content Marketing Funnel
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Creation
- Video Formulas
- Video Gear
- Blog Process, with Colleen Taylor
- Editing for Consumption, with Russ Henneberry
- Visual Systems, with Alison Matheny
- Video Content Formulas, with Ezra Firestone
- Session 7 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Template: Blog Post, Email & Social
- Video Gear Order List
- Headline Formulas
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Optimization
- IGTV: Resizing
- Creating Quote Images
- IGTV: Converting Horizontal Video to Vertical
- Session 8 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Syndication
- How To Upload A Video To YouTube
- How To Upload A Video To Facebook
- Pinterest Pin Tutorial
- IGTV: Uploading Tutorial
- How To Upload To Instagram Stories
- Session 9 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Amplification
- Amplifying a Blog Post Via Email
- Session 10 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- ICOSA Deep Dive: Analysis & Re-ICOSA
- Engagement Data in Facebook Creator Studio
- Analyzing Content Performance in Google Analytics
- Looking at Post Data in Agora Pulse and Klaviyo
- Session 11 Q&A and Feedback
Course Videos
- Handling Customer Feedback / Protecting Your Brand’s Reputation
- Session 12 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Responding on Social: Macro Examples
Course Videos
- Giveaways
- Social Contests
- Session 13 Q&A and Feedback
RESOURCES
- Giveaway Rules
- Giveaway Checklist
Meet Your Instructor
Hi, I’m Laura!
I’m the Social Media Director for BOOM! by Cindy Joseph, an ecommerce brand that’s made over $125 million.
But I didn’t go to college for this stuff…
When Ezra Firestone hired me in 2015 I was working at Cracker Barrel — I didn’t know the first thing about digital marketing!
Back then Ezra's startup was doing $3 million per year and he was convinced that if he was going to scale further, content would be his secret weapon. After a year working customer support, he asked if I wanted to help him. That was 2016.
By 2017, Ezra's bet had paid off. Our new content attracted hundreds of thousands of new fans, and BOOM! exploded from $3.5 million to $16 million.
-
CONTINUE READING
We had forged our brand identity. Now, Ezra needed more content to keep these new customers engaged and coming back.
So in 2018, we launched BOOM!’s most ambitious social campaign to date, “The Women of the Pro-Age Revolution” — and it went viral. By 2019 we'd grown to $25 million. We also hired my first social team member (and one of your expert coaches), Marin!
But in 2020, BOOM! broke all the records…
Ezra took all the content my team was posting on social media and started leveraging it in our ads. Using the community we built over the last 5 years, he produced his best paid traffic campaigns ever.
By the end of 2020, BOOM! had soared to $32 million.
Today we’re on track to do $46 million, and roughly 20% of that revenue — $9.2 million — will come directly from the social content I manage on a daily basis.
Ezra likes to say I went from “Cracker Barrel to Gucci apparel,” but this isn’t a Cinderella story. Anyone with a passion for learning can become a world-class social media marketer — and of course the right mentor helps a lot.
That’s why I created this program.
In 4 months, I will help you master the skills I use every day as a professional social media manager, so you'll be ready to drive massive growth for your own business or any brand who hires you.
Guest Instructors
Ezra Firestone
ECOMMERCE EXPERT
Ezra is the Founder of BOOM! by Cindy Joseph, a $125 million ecommerce brand. He is also a world-renowned marketing educator and a growth consultant to 9-figure brands.
Colleen Taylor
CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER
An expert Project Manager, Colleen implemented the systems necessary to triple Smart Marketer's productivity in just 12 months, while steadfastly supporting work-life balance for the entire team.
Russ Henneberry
CONTENT EXPERT
Russ is the founder of Modern Publisher and theCLIKK, and the former Director at DigitalMarketer. He’s an expert content creator who’s trained thousands of professional marketers through his courses and coaching.
Alison Matheny
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Alison Matheny is the Creative Director of BOOM! By Cindy Joseph, Ezra's $125 million ecommerce brand, as well as the Owner and Creative Director of BEST, a Creative Studio specializing in brand experience. Alison helped Ezra rebrand BOOM! and take their content and aesthetics to a new level as they scaled.
“Should I Join Smart Social?"
This training is for anyone who wants to learn the art of organic social media, or sharpen the skills they already have.
All Business Types
The I.C.O.S.A. Social Framework works for ecommerce, info products, SaaS, agencies — you name it.
All Team Sizes
Whether you're a do-it-yourself business owner or you have a social media manager like me, this is the most efficient system for leveraging content to drive growth.
All Skill Levels
Depending on your experience level, ICOSA can help you start from scratch or improve the skills you already have. Either way you will get a copyable, repeatable plan for producing profitable campaigns week in, week out.
All Budgets
Over the years we've used this system to run campaigns at all levels of production value — from recording content on an iPhone to staging $100,000 photoshoots.
ENROLL NOW TO GET
$591 in Special Bonuses
Member Bonus #1Ambassador Blueprint
BOOM!'s Ambassador Program has been the driving force of our content marketing strategy as we've scaled. It now generates over 80% of our new customers, more than $10 million in revenue in 2020.
In this 18-video training, you will learn exactly how to:
- Mine Your community for brand ambassadors
- Use our application process to find the best candidates
- Onboard ambassadors quickly
- Give ambassadors creative guidelines to help them produce the best images & videos
- Turn their content into "Love-Demo-Love" Facebook ads
- Leverage their content organically (via blog posts, emails & social)
- Manage this project so it runs like clockwork
$397 Value
Member Bonus #2Zipify Pages: 2-month Membership
To help you launch social campaigns quickly and easily, we're giving you a Shopify page builder loaded with all of the templates you'll need to host a variety of different content types.
- Get all of our best social templates, including pages for blog posts, long-form articles, social giveaway contests, product launches & more.
- Easily build pages from scratch with our drag-and-drop builder.
- Enjoy all of Zipify Pages’ premium features like split testing, Shopify blog integration & a full data dashboard.
$194 Value
Enroll Now
Smart Social
The Most Up-to-Date Social Media Training Available
- On-demand Training with Laura Palladino
- 13 sessions of in-depth training videos and how-to tutorials and Q&A recordings
- 5-step ICOSA Framework for planning, launching, and monetizing social media campaigns
- Resource library of step-by-step worksheets and fill-in-the-blank templates
- 4 guest instructors who are experts in their field
- BONUS #1: Ambassador Blueprint ($397 value)
- BONUS #2: Zipify Pages - 2-month Membership ($194 value)