Jul 09 2007
Social-Media Training — Are You Kidding Me?
By now all the commentary (here, here and elsewhere) has died down on Google blogger Lauren Turner’s post. This incident underscores the importance of social-media training for people in your organization. I’d like to use this as an opportunity to discuss how you may want – rather need — to help your business with some social-media training. Much as you would train anyone speaking on behalf of your company, two of the more overarching lessons would be:
- if you are writing on a corporate blog, people will naturally assume you are writing on behalf of the company.
- if you are writing on a personal blog, people may still make the assumption that you are writing on behalf of the company.
Whether or not you like it, people may see you as a spokesperson for the company, and you need to weigh the responsibilities and outcomes of what you post before you publish.
One of the issues facing the corporate adoption of Social Media is the “what to do” factor. I’m asked all the time; what should I do about this or that? So, now I’m developing a social-media “training” curriculum. Basically, it’s about preparing those who are unaware of how to engage.
This “training” isn’t about how to blog, it is about helping people understand the likes of:
- what to do when the New York Times calls you for comment about what you just posted on your blog?
- someone just commented about your product and they got it all wrong — how do I respond?
- what are the potential risks of engagement?
- someone just wrote a highly critical post about my product, and it’s all true — how do I respond?
- what are the potential rewards of engagement?
- what’s the difference between the print media, online, blogs and social networks?
- etc.
This is a work in progress. I’d very much like to hear your thoughts/experiences/recommendations. Remember, the goal here is to educate those that don’t yet understand the nuances so that they too can participate effectively.
Michael,
Great idea —I know quite a few people who could benefit from this. These issues are equally applicable to both small companies and large ones.
Michael Krigsman
http://projectfailures.com
Hasn’t enough been written about this already?
Dennis, enough written about what? The “Sicko” post or social media training? If the “Sicko” post then yes I agree. If social media training? Than perhaps but, not enough people are reading what’s been written.
Sorry Mike - I meant training. There’s a ton of stuff out there but I’d suggest your point: “not enough people are reading what’s been written” is a different issue. I get a lot of requests on the points you raise. Reminds me that maybe what I need to do is an FAQ page.
Mike,
I think the training and guidelines idea is excellent. I’d also suggest a mentoring model.
Folks that blog all the time forget that feeling of fear before pressing post on your first post.
Thanks Thomas. Perhaps you would like to be one of those mentors. I can’t think of a better mentor - you’ve certainly be one to me! Sorry we won’t see you in NY this week.
I agree that either a training curriculum would be helpful or at least, as I think Dennis points out, a consolidation of available training. If there’s a “social media training review” website/blog out there I’d like to know about it. I’ve had enough of attending social media seminars and workshops that end up being “Social Media 101.” For a large software company, B2B, we’re already dipping our toes in some of this stuff–what we need are the nuances, and above all, a customized social media strategy that incorporates the elements that will bring the biggest resource ROI, as we’re not likely to grow our staff to accommodate.
Kelly, thanks for the comment.
I don’t know of any training site/blog available and I agree, most of the seminars are SM101. But, the social media training that I am going to develop will be an internal training focused on the folks at SAP. That training will need to be SAP centric in that, it has to be presented in a way that makes sense to the people I need to “train”. Generic enough for all to understand but tailored to the cultural elements of a global workorce. Japan, is different than China which is different from Germany, the US or Italy. I’m sure SAS or any other company would also need to train according to the dynamics of each individual organization. I’m going to use the Global Social Media Research Project results in part, to help with the market by market perspectives. I’ll need to write a series of posts on both the survey results and the training once they are completed. Stay tuned!
Mike,
Great idea for the training. Many people speak first and think about the implications afterwards and from the posting perspective it doesn’t seem too much different. Also agree with you that the training will need to be adjusted according to each company’s culture and organizational dynamics.
Looking forward to hearing more about how you roll this out.
Hey Harriet,
I promise you’ll hear all about it! In fact, once I get it to a point I feel comfortable with I definately plan on asking you your opinion.
This sounds like a great idea, Mike, and something that many organisations should be considering. While I understand that the focus will be on SAP, I am sure there are many organisations who will be interested in the outcomes of both the survey and the resulting training ideas.