8 Creative Ways To Use Your Favorite Third-Party Tools In Your Online Course

If you missed our recent webinar run by our legendary Coassemble team member Rosalie, watch it here and read on to learn the highlights. We're sharing 8 creative ways you can use your favorite third-party tools when creating online courses.

Interested in bringing your favorite music apps into the course or want to share a social media post without having to take a screenshot? Maybe you're getting inundated with so many emails from your learners or customers, and you need to have a delegated space for them? You can enable it all into your Coassemble course with ease, so you can stay organized.

In this article, we're going to share some of the most popular third-party tools and creative ways our customers are using them by mostly using our embed screens.

Before we get started, just a heads up that this article is not about Zapier integrations. You can watch the Automating Your Coassemble Workflows With Zapier webinar if you're interested to learn more about it.

8ways you can incorporate third-party tools into your Coassemble course

1. Forms

Third-party form examples: Typeform, Paperform, Google Forms, Survey Monkey

The benefits of incorporating forms into your content are endless! This is a fantastic opportunity to collect information from your learners or customers taking the course. Choose your favorite third-party forms tools, and you'll be able to incorporate them into your online courses.

Why would you use forms in your course?

Here are some of the ideas you can incorporate forms into your course.

Onboarding new employees

For example, if you're putting together an onboarding training course, you can easily incorporate all of the forms the new hires will need to fill out into your course instead of emailing them. This is a great way to consolidate them all in one place where your new hires will already be and it also saves you a lot of time. It will also make it more accessible for the new hires to fill out all the essential details without being sent various emails.

It will also save you so much time as you won't need to send a follow-up email to ask them to fill the forms out.

Tip - have you tried using our Onboarding templates yet?

Selling courses

Add a form at the end of the course to get the customer's information if they're interested in purchasing another course from you.

Lead generation form

Ask the customer to fill out their contact details to share more content with them.

Course feedback

At Coassemble, we have a course about How To Use Coassemble, and at the end of it, we always have a form asking for our customers to give us feedback so we can continue to improve it.

Survey your learners/customers

Instead of including an email at the end of your course so your learners or customers can ask questions, incorporate a form into the course, and you'll be able to collate the answers altogether.

You might like to ask a series of questions, but we recommend testing it out by asking open-ended or closed-ended questions, as well as short or long surveys. If there's one thing you do, make sure you make it super clear and ensure your learners or customers fill it in.

2. Maps

Third-party map examples: Google Maps

Bring visual elements to your course and incorporate maps so your learners or customers can easily understand where the location you're mentioning is in the course.

Why would you use maps in your course?

Rather than writing the address of a location into your course, you might like to embed a maps tool such as Google Maps instead to make it more engaging. When using Google Maps, you'll be able to see the Google reviews, and of course, you can zoom in and out gain a quick understanding of the address you're talking about.

Here are a few ideas you might like to add a map to your course.

New employees

When building your onboarding course, you might like to add in a map of the address of the office or offices around the world. You also might like to share where to buy coffee, get lunch, or the local pub so your new hire can get their bearings straight away.

Store locations

If you've got a physical shop, you might like to embed a map so your customers will be able to come into the store. This is the same if you have multiple stores, you can add multiple embedded maps onto the same screen using one of our interactive screens.

3. Calendar Bookings

Third-party calendar bookings examples: Calendly, Hubspot

Calendar bookings are among our customers' most popular third-party tools when creating their online training courses. It opens up many possibilities to connect on a deeper level with your learners or customers, making it a fantastic call to action without coming across as too salesy.

Why would you use calendar bookings in your course?

Onboarding

Your new hires will need to book meetings with relevant stakeholders to better understand the company. Instead of organizing this task yourself, let the new hire organize it by incorporating a third-party tool like Calendly into the onboarding training so they can easily set up the meetings at a time that suits them.

Connect a customer with the sales team

If your customers need more time to discuss the product with the sales team or are looking to upgrade, embed a calendar booking tool, and they can set up a meeting when it suits them best. This excellent call to action will help you see who is really interested in your product.

4. Social Media Posts

Third-party social media examples: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc

Incorporate real-time social media posts into your course rather than screenshots to encourage your learners or customers to interact with the various platforms you use, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.

Why would you use social media posts in your course?

Company culture

Want to highlight company brand and tone, share updates, or simply the business's social media presence? Simply share the live feed to encourage your colleagues to comment and like the posts.

Tip

All social media platforms have their own way to grab a link or embed the post into your course, but make sure you decide if you want to include the caption or want the video to start playing straight away etc.

5. Podcasts

Third-party podcasts examples: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio

Incorporating podcasts into your course adds a new level for online training. It's the perfect opportunity for people to learn while on the go who might be commuting to work that won't require them to interact with a screen. Embed your favorite podcast platform into your courses, such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and encourage your learners or customers to listen to your content.

Why would you use podcasts in your course?

Unsure how to use podcasts in your online training course? Here are some options.

For employees

If your company has started creating podcasts, you might like to include relevant episodes into your content for your team members to learn more about the company in the onboarding process or even in the sales playbook.

You might like to ask open-ended questions after listening to the podcast so they can reflect and drive more discussion in the office.

Make sure you check out this podcast to learn how we helped Volt Athletics!

For customers

Maximize your content and share your podcast episodes during the course so your customers can see value in the product, which will help you build loyalty and help you grow a community.

6. Video platform/screen recording

Third-party video platform/screen recording examples: YouTube, Vimeo, Loom

While video grows more in popularity, you could help your learners or customers save time by watching videos during their training to help speed up the process. If you're unsure how to present a technical topic in your course, it might be easier to film short videos to explain more complex content instead.

Why would you use video platforms/screen recordings in your course?

We personally love to use Loom videos at Coassemble because it gives us the option to add our face, which takes it to a personal level, so it feels almost like you're there in person to go through the course. You can choose if you want your video to include your face or not, but it offers an option to guide your employees or customers through the course.

For employee training

If you're putting together a sales playbook for example, and need to explain various sales techniques, you can easily put together a screen recording to go through the processes. This will help you save a lot of time when you're putting your course together.

For customers

Want to stand out and add a personal touch if you're selling a course? Take your customers through various sections and let them know that you are guiding them, which will help you build a connection with your customers.

7. Meeting/webinar platform

Third-party meeting/webinar platform examples: Zoom, Live Storm, GoogleMeet, Goto

Although you can't embed a webinar directly into your Coassemble course, we have some valuable tips on how to build your audience or engage with employees on a deeper level.

Why would you use meeting/webinar platforms in your course?

For learners & Customers

If you are running a 10-week blended learning program where your learners need to complete a module each week, add in a link to your live sessions inside your course to remind them of the date and time they will be taking place. This makes the experience smoother for your learners, since you’re putting what they need all in one place. This works well for customer or employee onboarding, as well as any paid for educational program.

You can set up automated workflows in Coassemble, so your learners or customers automatically enroll into the meeting or webinars each week.

If you want to, you can use the same webinar link each week if you need to, but you might like to use separate links, especially if you plan to save the recorded webinar. If you intend to put the recorded webinar on your site like we do at Coassemble, your learners or customers can watch it at any time after it has taken place.

8. Collaborative Tools

Third-party collaborative tools examples: Google Docs, Tribe, Mentimeter

You might like to use a few excellent collaborative tools, especially for employee training when you need your team to work on a document together.

Google Docs

Although our Assignment tool is very popular for the learner to submit documents to the trainer, you may need a tool that allows all learners to submit work or questions.

For example, you might be going on a team retreat and need employees to collaborate on various tasks. Embed a Google Doc into your online training course and ask your learners to fill out required tasks.

Or, you might encourage your learners to ask questions in the Google Doc, and then you can answer them as well, which could be a continuous learning document. It's up to you if you want your learners to edit the document, as you can set it to View Mode only if needed.

Tribe

Tribe is a community platform, so if you're addressing various topics, you can embed Tribe so your learners or customers can continue chatting about it.

Mentimeter

Mentimeter is a fantastic third-party tool to use when wanting to set up polls. If you're going to present using Coassemble and know your customers or learners will be interacting with you live, embed Mentimeter to gain valuable insights during the presentation.

Bonus! More third-party tools

OK, we're going to share a few more third-party tools with you, so you've got some valuable insights on how you can make the most of using Coassemble!

Ego Audio Tool

Do you feel it would be worth adding your voiceover into the course to explain various screens? Why not embed Ego into your course or the Instructor Tip? You might also want to use this tool to add in background music.

Images and GIFs

Use our GIPHY library to add in your favorite GIFs and our Image library, which is full of stock images from Unsplash. If you're going to create your own GIFs, you need to upload them the same way you'd upload an image in your Coassemble course. Here's a tip though; if your video is less than 30 seconds long, you might want to convert it into a GIF and have it playing on a loop to increase engagement.

Live Chat using Intercom

Did you know when you talk to our team on our Live Chat, it's through the Intercom chat feature? You might like to incorporate Live Chat into your online training course using Intercom so your employees or customers can reach out straight away. When using Intercom, you'll need advanced features access to embed it into your course.

How to incorporate the third-party tools into your Coassemble course

Now we've discussed the various third-party tools you can use to highlight your course content, here's how you can include them in your course.

Embed screen

The embed screen is where you use a URL or embed code. If you want to use the full screen to embed the tool, you'll be able to add your copy above or below it to explain what it is.

Embedded line

You can use our inline text editor to add a hyperlink, and when learners click on it, it will open up a new tab on your web browser, which is perfect for meetings or webinars.

Hyperlink inline

The hyperlink line is a URL that will click outside of the course into another page on your web browser, which is perfect for meetings or webinars.

Cover Screen

The cover screen is a fantastic new screen best used if you want a strong call to action which will be clicked on using a hyperlink. The difference with a hyperlink is that there is an actual ‘button’ to click on.

Image / GIF uploader & inline

We've made it easy for you to upload images and GIFS with our Image Uploader, so you don't need to embed either.

Instructor tip, audio or inline

You can easily add your audio content from Ego into the text editor or instructor tip.

Video screen or inline

Want to know how to incorporate video screens? Simply check out our dedicated How To Use Video In Coassemble course.

We hope our tips have inspired you to incorporate your favorite third-party tools into your course! What are you waiting for? Go try them out now!

If you missed our Third-Party Tools Webinar, watch it on-demand here.