Our Daily Mom team is full of incredible, intelligent women who love being creative and love to learn new ways to express ourselves and to improve our skills. We are writers, photographers, designers, and entrepreneurs in addition to our full time and favorite role as moms. When you have a lot on your plate like we do, it may seem impossible to continuing learning and try new things. Who has time to get your normal responsibilities handled, find childcare, and make it to a class somewhere when you want to learn or sharpen your skills in areas like photography, business, social media, writing, and more? We sure don’t. So when we found out about Skillshare and realized we could take courses in all the areas that interest us in a few minutes during the day, we jumped at the chance. You can enrich your mind and add new skills to your resume without finding a babysitter, and for a price anyone can afford.
Skillshare is a wonderful online community that fosters an environment of learning with over 2 million students taking classes in more topics than you can imagine. This community was created with the vision of closing the professional skills gap, and provides universal access to high-quality learning. Skillshare wants to empower people in their professional and creative lives. Unlike randomly searching for answers to the questions you have, with Skillshare courses, you can trust that the information presented is reliable, accurate, and actually helpful. Not everything you find online can be trusted in that way.
In case you want to try it out yourself, Skillshare is offering Daily Mom readers two free months of Skillshare Premium.
Classes are available in topics like Design, Photography, Business, Entrepreneurship, Film, Fashion, Music, Technology, Writing, and more. There are over 15,000 classes in total! Each class averages around 30 minutes in length and includes a class project in addition to the video course. The class project helps you practice the skills as you learn them.
We’ve been trying out Skillshare as a team and want to share our experiences with you. Here’s what we’ve been up to and what we’ve learned as new Skillshare students.
Hand lettering classes
If you’ve been on Pinterest in the last year you’ve come across the countless ways you can use a chalkboard or handwritten sign to display an inspirational quote, birth stats, or event information. If you’re like me, and don’t feel your handwriting is up to snuff, there are plenty of places you can purchase pre-made or custom signage, but that gets expensive after the first couple of buys. Skillshare has teamed up with some of the most in-demand hand lettering artists (Pigeon Letters, HomSweetHom, and Every Day Tuesday to name a few) to make creating your own handwritten works of art easy. With a full gauntlet of illustration tutorials and classes that start on paper and progress to digital design, you can start with hand lettering and become a full blown artist (with practice) in just a few months!
Before starting classes on Skillshare I’ve admired artists on Etsy and Instagram who have the ability to create beautiful handwritten pieces of art in minutes not thinking I could replicate their style for myself. Now I can personalize my decor with my favorite quotes without having to order a customized project off Etsy. – Annie
Business Skills
Ever wanted to learn a skill set at home in a way that isn’t competitive, boring, or like a lecture? Whether you are a SAHM or a business savvy woman (or both, like I am) who has this inner passion to expand your greatest YOU out into the world, now’s your chance. However, take this to the next level – go beyond yourself. The business learning classes presented by Skillshare will give you all the tools you need.
One class I focused on was branding: Transforming your unique identity into a successful personal brand. Identify who you are within your brand, develop audience-captivating content, seamlessly automate and design your email marketing to tell your best story, and turn it into a profitable business. This universal platform is the birth of your business and the businesses of those you bring up – your children. The easy-to-follow and understandable videos are not only conducive to adult learning, but the little innovators in your home can benefit as well – the leaders of our future are right in your lap. With the plethora of business-building tutorials within Skillshare, all you need is an idea to start.
Skillshare – business learning tools – with options – you gotta love that! The only question is, how far do you want your business and its purpose to go? Use Skillshare to give you the knowledge, tools, and wealth of information to propel you forward. The only thing stopping you is the login page (and that’s pretty easy to bypass)! – Andi
Photography for Beginners
For those who are not familiar with the art of photography, it may seem like photography is a relatively simple skill to acquire. Just pick up a camera and snap, right? Wrong. There are so many facets to photography – from the layout to the styling to the composition of a photograph – that professional photographers are skilled in knowing before they even hit their shutter. And this is in addition to knowing exactly how your camera works (and yes, it’s more than pushing the button!). But if photography is a skill you are interested in learning more in depth, Skillshare has all the information, tutorials, and classes you could possibly need.
I have been interested in photography since I was young, but my mind isn’t naturally creative. My biggest roadblock when it comes to photography, especially in my work as a freelance writer, is creating a captivating image. Whether that means styling a photo or getting the composition correct, I have a hard time nailing down what my mind’s eye is telling me.
Skillshare offers a wide variety of videos to help fine-tune these skills. They offer basic DSLR tutorials helping you in different areas of photography like:
- Getting to know your camera
- Creating the perfect photo in different lighting
- Staging different settings for lifestyle or product photography
I watched several videos on how to properly set up photo shoots and how to compose photos properly, and they were so easy to follow! I was able to learn so many new skills to use in my photography such as setting my camera in low lighting settings, how to create natural-looking lifestyle photos, and how to use my photographs to market on social media. And bonus: they are all fun and casual, making the learning easy to do. – Kristen
I recently took over Daily Mom’s Instagram account. If you aren’t already following us, find us @dailymomIG.
While I am a professional photographer (in addition to the work I do with Daily Mom), I hadn’t taken the time to use Instagram until it became my “job.” Part of my hangup with using Instagram in the past is that I thought you always had to use your phone, which I now realize is not the case. Nor did I realize that there were so many other apps that I could use along with Instagram (such as Boomerang, Priime, and Ripl). Clearly I’m old or just way out of touch. Either way, I was excited to expand my knowledge using Skillshare.
One of the things I was most interested in getting out of my Skillshare experience was to better build Daily Mom’s brand and further build our community beyond our website. I quickly signed up for “Instagram Best Practices: Grow Your Community, Work with Brands.” While I found some of the class to be pretty obvious, the instructor took things a step further by showing you how to better apply the tools.
For example, if you’re on IG, chances are that you’re into photography at some level. Therefore, you want to share beautiful images. That part seems obvious. However, the instructor pushes for you to pay attention to your grid and to consider the types of images you are posting. He encourages you to build on colors and themes, while remaining genuine. While Daily Mom is an online magazine and you’d expect some level of advertising within our images since we regularly work with brands, that doesn’t mean that our grid should look like one giant commercial. The point is simple, but it really resonated with me as I am actively trying to engage with our followers in a personal way. I certainly wouldn’t want to turn off our community by seeming disingenuous in any way.
Since this class, I’ve taken some time to join a few other classes. I love that I can follow along at my own pace. It’s almost as good as a live class, but I have the advantage of fast-forwarding and rewinding. I can also watch on my phone versus having to sit down at my computer. I often found myself watching while waiting for my daughter to get out of preschool or while my son was taking a nap. The convenience of being able to pick up new skills as I have time is invaluable for this busy mom on the go. – Ashley
Writing and Freelancing
I am an editor at Daily Mom but my first love is and always will be writing. I have loved writing as long as I can remember, but when I sat down at my laptop to look at Skillshare classes to take, I realized I had never focused my writing specifically for a large audience online, so I knew I had some lessons to learn. How can I express who I am and what makes me unique in a way that is relatable and interesting to Daily Mom readers?
My first Skillshare class was about creating blog content that readers actually want to read. I am just beginning to dip my toe into the world of freelance writing as well, so I have several classes saved about freelancing. Skillshare makes it easy to take lots of classes by letting you save the classes you are interested in until you have time to watch them. When you first create your account and login you can scroll through, and I bet you will save at least 20 classes just like I did. I know I will get through them all because I can simply swap out the time I would watch junk on TV for watching a valuable Skillshare class. This online learning community really is enriching my life, and I can’t wait to start my next class. – Kristen
Social Media Management
As our resident social media manager, I was eager, yet skeptical, to see what Skillshare had to offer. Believe me, I’ve taken plenty of online courses, watched YouTube videos, attended webinars, and read articles, and have always found the tips for social media come up short – I haven’t been able to find much information of value, or different from what I’m already doing. I’m constantly looking for ways to help our posts reach more moms, but searching for the training, and actually completing it, takes so much time.
Using Skillshare was a total treat because I could easily hone in on the videos I needed, save them to a watch list (which is ridiculously long at this point, because there’s so much available!) – and – want to know the very best part that blew my mind? You’re able to watch the videos at a fast pace! You can watch them at standard speed, 1.5x, or 2x. Do you know how much time and frustration that saved me? TONS! There’s nothing worse than watching a tutorial, and feeling like you want to pull your hair out because the speaker is going more slowly than you would like. Skillshare has removed that frustration entirely, and I could finally watch the trainings at my own speed, which much more easily fit within my limited schedule. I was able to find videos with new tips and tricks, which I have already implemented and seen success with. That has made the experience totally worthwhile. – Heather
Content Marketing as a Freelancer
I’ve always been an avid writer. I excelled in English Literature throughout school and went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in English Lit and a Masters in Teaching English Education. Not only do I love to write for myself, but I also love to teach others the power of the written word. When I became a member of the Daily Mom team, my love for writing grew even more, but in a different direction. No longer was I writing research essays or scouring over creative drafts; I was finally putting my talent to use in a functional way. And I fell in love all over again.
My hope is to start applying my skills by starting my own freelance business. Skillshare has opened the door to providing me with great information that I otherwise wouldn’t have access to, while also allowing me to learn at my own pace, during my free time – which as a SAHM of three, is minimal. My favorite course so far, Writing for Brands: Freelancing in the Age of Content Marketing, gave me a great deal of insight into the field I hope to break into – subtopics like what is Content Marketing, what brands are looking for, how to market myself as a freelancer, the basics of writing for brands, and much more were covered. The class is taught by a leading expert in the field and given in an informative and entertaining style. Even though the course is only 32 minutes in length, it’s broken up into nine videos, making it easy to listen in small increments, whether I’m playing with my littlest one or relaxing in bed after the kids have all gone to sleep. Mom win! – Stephanie
Whether you are looking for a new hobby, want to sharpen your skills for your job, or just need a creative outlet to decompress from the stresses of parenting, Skillshare is the online community for you. The possibilities are endless. Enrich your mind, excite your spirit, and learn how to do what you are passionate about with the help of all the knowledge available at your fingertips with Skillshare.
We’re offering two free months of Skillshare Premium to Daily Mom readers, so make sure to take advantage!
If you are interested in photography, we strongly encourage you to take some Skillshare classes and then come back to Daily Mom for some other fantastic how-to’s in our Photography Guide.
Photo Credits: Cookiesforbfast, Rocky Mountain Bliss, Andi L., Kristen D., Ashley Sisk, Stephanie
