Warning: A bit of a straight commercial post here.

If you’ve subscribed to the Duct Tape Marketing newsletter or read this blog for any amount of time you know I use social media, talk about social media, and generally love exploring it and finding very practical ways to use this new toolset.

Now, not everyone has the same passion I do, but most small business owners have concluded they can’t sit it out.

So here’s what I’ve done to help.

I’ve created a 5-week online course called Social Media Pro that will take you by the hand and guide you through the entire process, step-by-step, of getting going with social media.

This is not an exercise in theory, it’s a proven road map that includes a logical 5-week path for you to follow and 40 or so actual videos of me setting up the steps included in the course. You get to look over my shoulder while I do things like set-up a WordPress blog, create Facebook Fan Pages, set-up Twitter searches, and design a one-page social media dashboard.

The video below is a sample of the type of content and approach covered in the course. (Facebook Fan Box from Session Four)

If any of this sounds interesting then you’ll want to click here to go to the no-hype description page and read more. A few weeks back I enrolled 20 beta testers who loved the course, but who also gave me some great suggestions for making it even better. Now I am opening the course up to 100 participants only in this first round at a greatly reduced price of $99. (Sold Out )

Update: The special phase one – 100 slots are sold out. We will reopen the program again in Jan 2010 however . . .

You may enroll in the Social Media Pro Coaching Program by contacting a participating Duct Tape Marketing Coach to learn about group and 1-on-1 coaching options. These programs use the same online materials but give you the tremendously powerful advantage of working in person with a Duct Tape Marketing Coach.

This is not a sales ploy, we’ve beta tested the entire course and it’s ready to go, but I want to keep making it better so I am also going to take this first group of 100 and conduct weekly live video chats so that I can answer all your questions and be 100% certain that we deliver the ultimate course in social media.

Social Media Pro is part one of a larger effort to create an entire set of marketing related training modules under the umbrella of Duct Tape U. These courses will be available as self-study or guided by a Duct Tape Marketing Coach. I have to tell you that I’m as excited about this new tool as anything I’ve ever worked on.