Owning Your Organization’s Social Learning Experience

“Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.” – David Alston

Social media has become such a mainstay of modern life that it is inevitable that online communities of team members from your organization will crop up over time. Employees will naturally seek out spaces to share experiences and interact with others going through the same things. Within these communities, team members will share job or industry-related humor, tips, tricks and best practices, vent to one another, ask and answer questions and share news and gossip from the far geographical reaches of your company and across departments and levels.

To get the most out of your companies social media presence, leaders and facilitators should think about creating the community in which you would like to see your team members interact. Providing a safe space to express views and seek information and support not only shows that the organization cares about its team members but also encourages networking, interaction, feedback and discussion. By including the presence of leadership and facilitators, you can work to ensure the accuracy of information being shared as well as monitoring for confidentiality and appropriateness of interactions.

Providing a company new source with commenting ability is another great way to implement a social learning culture within your company. Sharing timely and relevant news articles about things going on within the organization allows transparency and understanding of initiatives. Allowing team members to comment and discuss company changes and other things that are happening shows that the company values their opinions. Providing timely and inclusive responses to comments and feedback will encourage your team members to continue to interact and share views.

Finally, using an e-learning platform that supports discussion can help your organization enhance and deepen understanding of more formal lessons and information sharing. Having the option to comment on, ask questions about and share thoughts around e-learning modules with peers can help to take the learning experience to a new level.

All of these opportunities to interact with peers in different online communities, in addition to fostering an inclusive and collaborative environment within the physical workplace, will increase team member engagement and involvement by showing them that they are indeed a valued and supported part of the team and that their feedback and input can make a different.