Netsquared has another Think-Tank coming up later this month. The question is related to social media training:
What are the key questions nonprofit organizations should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?
Before we get into the nitty gritty of learning a particular social media skill, you need to make sure that you have identified a social media strategy. And, as part of the strategy development you asked this question first:
- Our social media strategy is designed to accomplish x. Is that a priority for staff time and training investment? Why?
- Professional development and training budgets are not unlimited in nonprofits. The cost of training is time - time for the initial learning and the time to put the skills into practice or what we call the "challenge of transfer." Given all the professional needs your organization might have, what is the value of this investment compared to other training investments?
So, let's say that as part of your social media strategy - you've hashed out those questions and you've been green lighted for a social media training. What's the most effective way to do it?
Yes, training seminars, workshops, or taking a class can be helpful to get a good introduction and overview for a social media strategy and execution, but where the rubber meets the road is putting what has been learned into practice. This requires ongoing professional development and the skill or knowledge required should be part of the job description.
People need time to reflect on their technology use, share what they’ve learned, and experiment with various technology tools so they can easily incorporate them into their daily working life. If your technology plan will have long-term sustainability, you must include many strategies for technology professional development.
- What is the best way to deliver this social media training so that we build our organizational capacity?
- Does the delivery match our organization's culture for learning?
- Who will be hands-on? Who needs the overview?
- How will you take into account different learning styles for individuals and generational differences?
- How will staff make the time to put what they've learned into practice? Time to experiment?
Some tips for training:
- Integrate the learning with experimentation: We've heard time and time again that one of the first steps is to experiment with social media and reiterative over and over again - learn what worked and what didn't. The training should be meshed with the pilot/experiment and time for reflection at the end for the team to discuss what worked and what didn't.
- Use the tools as part of your learning process: A blog can be an excellent professional development journal - a place to record and share learnings. If you organization is considering setting up an organizational blog, why not do a group blog behind the firewall to practice blogging and record what you're learning about the blogging process? If you're just starting on Twitter, get everyone on Twitter and start having a conversation.
- Make it Fun: Training doesn't have be boring. It doesn't have go on for days and days. Why do some Brown Bag lunches -or "Facebook Fridays" -- informal trainings where that people on staff take turns organizing and where learning can be shared informally.
- Reverse Mentoring: Do you have a younger person in your nonprofit who is already an expert on using web 2.0 tools? Why not have them lead a session?
- Don't Forget Reflection Time: This is the secret sauce to success with technology training. Time to reflect on what you've learned.
What are your best tips for social media trainings?
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