Facebook Marketing: AI Strategies for Course Creators from Mari Smith

Mari Smith, CEO of Mari Smith International, Inc., and renowned Facebook marketing expert, widely recognized as the “Queen of Facebook,” delivered an outstanding presentation at the Worlds of Learning 2024 online summit.

In her talk, Mari revealed her top strategies for selling digital products through Facebook, specifically focusing on how to sell online courses. She explained the types of posts course creators should share, and how to engage and nurture your audience and guide them through each stage of the course marketing funnel.

Packed with actionable advice and real-world examples from course businesses, Mari’s presentation was brimming with energy, expert tips, and inspiring insights!

5 Steps to AI-Powered Facebook Marketing Mastery

As one of the leading experts in Facebook marketing, Mari Smith has developed an innovative, AI-driven approach to help course creators boost sales and grow.

In this tutorial, her step-by-step strategy for AI-powered Facebook marketing mastery is designed to aid your digital marketing efforts, amplify your reach, and increase conversions and brand awareness:

The first step is to choose the right AI assistant for your marketing strategy. With so many options available, you’ll want to understand what each tool offers and how it can benefit your course business.

💡 Why do you need to choose the right AI assistant?

• Enhance your marketing efforts: AI tools can help you automate tasks, brainstorm ideas, and optimize ad sets and campaigns, saving time and increasing efficiency.
• Improve audience targeting: AI helps you identify and engage with your target audience by analyzing data and predicting behavior.
• Boost your content creation: AI-powered assistants can help you generate relevant, engaging content that resonates with your audience, even beginners.
• Streamline performance tracking: AI tools allow you to monitor your metrics and adjust strategies based on real-time data to maximize your marketing ROI.

So, how do you choose the best AI assistant for your marketing needs?

Here are some tool options to consider:

• Meta AI: Ideal for Facebook and Instagram marketing. It’s free, integrated directly into these platforms, and perfect for active users already familiar with Facebook’s tools and algorithm.
• ChatGPT: With its versatile use cases, you can use it for brainstorming, outlining your strategy, writing your Facebook advertising copy, or even for course creation.
• Other options: Tools like Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Jasper also offer unique features, from content generation for your landing pages, and content for your Facebook campaigns to data analysis.

When it comes to integrating AI into your Facebook marketing campaigns, having a clear strategy is key. Let’s hear some of Mari Smith’s insights:

As outlined above, it’s important to first choose the AI assistant that best suits your needs. Popular options include Meta AI and ChatGPT, both of which are powerful tools for Facebook marketing.

Mari recommends giving Meta AI a try since it’s integrated into Facebook and offers seamless functionality. However, ChatGPT tends to provide more detailed and thorough answers, making it a strong option for comprehensive brainstorming and ideation.

Once you’ve chosen your AI, think of it as a brainstorming partner rather than just a content generator. Use your AI assistant to come up with new ideas for marketing strategies, ad campaigns, and audience engagement techniques.

💡Mari also uses artificial intelligence to:

• Create content: Meta AI and ChatGPT are particularly helpful for drafting compelling Facebook posts for your Facebook groups, Facebook ad campaigns, lead magnets, captions, call-to-actions, and content tailored to your target audience. You can ask them to optimize your messaging for engagement, virality, and course promotions, helping you build a stronger online presence on the social media platforms organically.
• Optimize audience targeting: This helps with driving student enrollments and improving your conversion rate through targeted ad campaigns.
• Analyze performance and metrics: Track key metrics such as engagement, click-through rates, and conversions, helping you make informed decisions to optimize both your paid and organic marketing efforts.

From visuals to videos and written content, Mari Smith explores how she uses AI for different types of organic content creation:

Visual content

Tools like Meta AI and Canva are excellent for creating images for Facebook and Instagram posts that will get in front of potential customers. These platforms allow you to build everything from carousel posts to header images for your social media or website.

Meta AI, for example, can generate square images, which work well across most social platforms. For more customization, you can prompt AI to create specific sizes, such as 9×16 for Instagram Reels or Stories.

Prompt example in Meta AI

While it’s ok to use AI to quickly create visuals that will speed up the sales funnel, Mari stresses the importance of not relying solely on automated content, emphasizing the need for a personal touch to foster genuine connections or highlight testimonials and social proof:

Mari Smith also points out that AI tools like Meta AI may struggle with text overlays. For more precise text-based designs, she recommends using platforms like Canva that offer a variety of dimensions and customization options.

Video content

One of the most efficient ways to generate video content is by repurposing longer videos like webinars, podcasts, or Facebook Lives into shorter, more digestible formats such as Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Or video ads.

💡 What tools does Mari recommend?

• Opus Clip: This AI tool allows you to take your long-form content and turn it into short, vertical videos (9×16) perfect for social media platforms. It automatically pulls key moments from your video and transforms them into concise clips.
• Descript: For more control, Descript offers a more comprehensive approach. Upload your video, and Descript will automatically transcribe the content. You can then use AI to identify the top highlights that would work well as short-form videos, like 30-second Instagram Reels. Select the key moments you want and Descript will generate individual clips for you.

AI assistants like Meta AI or ChatGPT can be your brainstorming partner for creating video content too, offering script suggestions or generating clip ideas from your long-form content.

Once your video is transcribed, you can use AI to identify the most compelling moments.

Prompt the AI to pull out 10 highlights or the most engaging segments, which can be turned into short videos. AI can also help you create effective video scripts or captions, making it easier to stay consistent with your posting schedule.

Written content

One of the most popular uses of AI in social media marketing is to generate captions for posts. AI can create engaging, relevant, and optimized captions for your images or videos, even adding emojis and hashtags for better audience engagement.

For instance, you can prompt an AI like Meta AI or ChatGPT by simply providing the context of your image or video, and it will generate a caption for you. This can save time while ensuring consistency and creativity in your posts.

ChatGPT prompt example for image caption

Mari further makes a bold recommendation of using AI to assist in creating course outlines and content—even helping you choose a course topic that will do wonders for lead generation. Start by inputting basic concepts or objectives and AI can help structure a course from scratch, including detailed lesson plans and module outlines.

For course content, AI can generate detailed explanations, case studies, and even quizzes. However, it’s crucial to review and customize this content to maintain your personal touch and uphold the trust and integrity you’ve established with learners.

Whether you’re looking to promote your courses, generate leads, or engage directly with your audience, Mari bets on Meta’s AI to simplify the entire process of your running ads:

💡 Mari’s suggestions for leveraging Meta’s built-in AI capabilities

• Create Lead ads directly in Ads Manager by selecting “Leads” as your campaign objective. This simple setup lets you gather contact information quickly and effectively, making it perfect for growing your course audience.
• Use instant forms to allow potential students to submit their information directly within the ad, making the lead capture process seamless.
• When you use Facebook ads from Meta, initiate conversations directly on Facebook, Messenger, or Instagram, supporting real-time engagement with your audience.
• Use Meta’s AI-driven audience targeting options to automatically pinpoint your ideal audience based on their pre-existing data sets.
• Generate ad copy variations for your headline or primary text. Meta will provide multiple copywriting versions, allowing you to test and optimize your Facebook ads and retargeting to see which resonates most with your audience, ensuring your campaigns deliver top results.

Here’s what to pay attention to when using any AI assistant to analyze and better understand your audience and metrics.

For online course creators looking to go above and beyond, Mari recommends an AI assistant like ChatGPT. While Meta’s Ads Manager is powerful, it currently doesn’t allow you to upload files like CSV or Excel for deeper analysis—something ChatGPT can help with.

By uploading your Facebook Page Insights, Ad Performance Data, and Audience Demographics into ChatGPT, you can bundle this information with your business goals, strategies, and challenges.

This allows ChatGPT to analyze all your data, uncovering trends or patterns that may not be immediately obvious from Meta’s native reporting.

💡 How to analyze your content and ad account performance

While you might already have access to engagement reports through Meta Business Suite, uploading your data to ChatGPT allows for more advanced analysis.

For example, you can ask questions like:

• What types of content are performing the best?
• Which audience segments are engaging the most with your Facebook ads?
• Are there any underperforming areas where adjustments can be made?

💡 How to contextualize your business goals and challenges

By including your business goals, current strategies, and challenges, ChatGPT can provide personalized recommendations for optimizing your campaigns and content. You can ask questions such as:

• How can I improve my ad performance based on current trends?
• Are there any audience segments I should focus on for better engagement?
• What future trends can I prepare for in my course promotion strategies?

Mari Smith’s Free Resources for Course Creators & Entrepreneurs

1. Join Mari Smith’s Social Scoop on Facebook for leaders of all types. Mari and her team regularly share social media trends, news, tips, special offers, and more. Keep an eye out for additional member benefits directly from Mari! You can also ask relevant questions at any time, and you are prompted to ask for -and provide wherever you can- peer support.

2. Join Mari Smith’s Superstars, a new online community for fast-moving people in an accelerated culture. Mari’s superstars are people from all walks of life seeking guidance, mentorship, clarity, direction, evolution, leadership, development, mastery, training, expertise, skill building, and practice to transform themselves and their communities.

Watch Mari Smith’s On-Demand Presentation for More Insights

If you enjoyed the insights from Mari Smith in this article and prefer a more visual learning experience, don’t miss the opportunity to watch her full presentation on demand for free.

It’s packed with even more tips, strategies, and real-world examples tailored for course creators, giving you a deeper understanding of how to effectively promote and sell your online courses using Facebook.

Access Mari Smith’s free on-demand presentation and supercharge your Facebook marketing today!

Alexandra Cote

Alexandra Cote is a SaaS growth marketer and online instructor who's worked with dozens of brands in the MarTech, HR tech, and productivity space. She's also a strong supporter of staying happy at work and choosing a healthy career path.