Thinking of hosting a webinar? This might be the right time!
The interest in online study materials and courses is through the roof in Romania, an online research by Neticle, a media and text analysis company has found.
Most of us have been stuck at home for weeks now: some luckier with simply shifting to home office and keeping up a steady income, others less fortunate and forced to take a break from working. Either way, many have more time on their hands and have thought to utilise that by taking advantage of the multitude of online study courses available.
To get a clearer picture of how the personal development opportunities have been received during the pandemic in Romania, Neticle searched the Romanian web for public mentions using three keyword groups. They were online courses (including online resources & webinars), ebooks, and brands that offer online courses (Udemy, edX, Skillshare & Coursera).
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started becoming serious around the end of February, Neticle looked at data from the 1st of February in order to be able to compare time periods.
As schools closed down, mentions skyrocketed
On March 9th, the decision was made to close all schools (and kindergartens) in Romania, and this caused the first large peak in the mentions of online courses on the web.
Of course, it is not only adults who now have to study online: most school and university students also have to have their classes via video call services.
The second, even larger peak in mentions came around the 23rd of March: that is when serious curfew restrictions were announced throughout the country.
Beginning at the middle of March and continuing until now, there has been a decent rise in ebook mentions as well, even if it is not as booming as online courses & webinars.
There is also a smaller, but definitely detectable rise with the four online study brands: the number of their mentions has basically doubled compared to the beginning of the year.
Free courses are the most popular
The number one topic for all three keyword groups was free materials and gifts: that is what everybody seems to be looking for.
Other than that, the conversation mainly revolved around the framework of the courses and the teachers. The platforms where the classes are offered were also mentioned a lot.
Facebook posts generated the most interaction
What kind of posts inspired the Romanian internet users to interact the most? Neticle collected the ones that gained the highest number of likes/comments/shares, which were by Primăria Municipiului Aiud, Andreea Berecleanu, Simona Gherghe, Ministerul Afacerilor Interne and Lorand Soares Szasz, all of these were posted to Facebook. Some of the posts offered personal perspectives on studying at home, others were official statements and one offered a free webinar.
Online studying was absolutely a hot topic: the content on the internet mentioning it potentially reached at least two million people per day, but on some days this number even rose as high as 5-6 million.
As we have seen from the most engaging posts, Facebook was the number one platform to discuss courses and ebooks, however, articles also played an important role, and they also took over the first spot in case of the four online course brands.
Blogposts also played an important role for all three keywords, so this platform cannot be ignored when thinking about advertising online study materials.
The end of the boom in studying online is nowhere to be seen just yet, so it is worth to keep an eye on the topic at least as long as the pandemic lasts.
