Before You Pay for Digital Marketing Workshops
The writer argues that digital marketing certificates from short-term workshops offer false credentiality and rarely translate to employment or business results. True competence in the field requires sustained practice, demonstrated work, and reputation-building—not credentials—and workshops serve best as orientation, not qualifications.
Two years or so ago, I saw a lady on my timeline celebrating her graduation from ‘The Content Creation Academy.’ It was all smiles and pride as she posed in her cap and gown, holding her certificate. My comment on the post was - “This is like a marriage certificate.” She gave a heart to my comment and thanked me just like she was doing for every other person that congratulated her. I do not think she quite got what I was telling her.
I compared her certificate to a marriage certificate because just like a marriage certificate, the test actually starts after you get the certificate. I still follow this lady and I am yet to see her put her content creation certificate to use. Taking a digital marketing class is like learning the rules of football. Nobody gets paid because they know the rules of football. They get paid to play. I must add that I have not seen the second batch of The Content Creation Academy which makes me ask - what good is a degree when the school that offered it has been shut down?
Essentially, digital marketing is about the creation and distribution of content around a brand, product or idea - on social media in order to attain a specific objective. That objective can be lead generation, brand awareness, public relations, sales, etc. Usually, when a small business owner is looking for a digital marketer and they reach out to me, I tell them the best use of their money is for me to train one of their employees because they cannot afford to pay me. They usually insist and I refuse for the same reason why I want to advise you not to take a digital marketing course unless you have immediate use for it.
Like I mentioned earlier, digital marketing is built on content creation. I can come up with a content strategy in a day but creating content takes time and money. For small businesses, content is created as you go (spontaneously). A barber for example can create a Tik Tok video for every haircut they do. It can be simply taking nice shots, editing to add some music and a motivational speech. If that barber wanted to work with me, it will not make sense to have me there every day to do that for him. The best I can do for him is create templates and show him the tools I use to create and edit video content faster. Larger corporations have the budget to higher a marketing consultant or a firm to handle their digital communications.
In one of my episodes of ‘Demonstrate the dangers of short Posts,’ I wrote:- “Do not pay for a digital marketing workshop if you do not own a small business.” Many people thought it was a bad piece of advice and they were right because it was an incomplete thought. I find that many people who attend digital marketing workshops do so thinking it will increase their employability. That is why they are always happy to flaunt their certificates gotten from people who just left another workshop and decided to start teaching.
A certificate from a non-accredited institution will not increase your employability. Many companies are better off paying for their marketing employees to attend that same workshop to improve their skills while maintaining them at the same salary. That will always be better than recruiting someone for those skills. Basically, if you were not employable before your digital marketing workshop, you will not suddenly be employable after that. It is a skill that you must demonstrate over and over again before people can call you a digital marketer.
Being a sought after digital marketer is much more of a reputation than a skill. You are better off learning demonstrable skills like video editing and graphic design; skills that you will hardly master in a single workshop. Workshops are meant for orientation. I usually cringe when I see people giving certificates at the end of a workshop. Certificates, I believe, have a way of stopping people from learning what they have to learn because they can just say “I got a certificate.”
In conclusion, I am not against attending a workshop. All I want you do is be clear about what you want to get from it and to be clear about what you can get out of it. Workshops should serve more for orientation.
This piece reflects a moment when digital marketing bootcamps and certificate programs proliferated across social media as quick-fix credentials for jobseekers and entrepreneurs, often promoted by former workshop attendees-turned-instructors with minimal institutional backing.
The post challenges a pervasive myth—that a certificate confers competence or employability—with calm clarity that remains urgent as the gig-education economy grows. Its core insight, that reputation and demonstrated work matter far more than credentials in creative fields, has only become more relevant as employers scrutinize portfolio over paper.