Social media plays a vital role in internal and external communication of organization. Let see how it impacts e-learning.
According to a leading consultant McKinsey, “72 percent of the organizations are using social media for business networking and are benefited by it. The report also projects that organizations can improve their productivity by about 20-25% by enhancing social media communication and collaboration. Social media helps promote online trainings and allows knowledge transfer by using its different tools.
Today, social media plays a vital role in the way companies communicate internally and stay connected through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media platforms, within and across organizations. However, as the Social Networking sites are growing vastly, so are the complexities rising with them. The risk is associated based on employee’s actions such as sharing improper views on social sites which otherwise they may hesitate to share in person. Inadvertent comments may lead to sharing sensitive information which may result in adverse effects. In order to handle such unpleasant situations employees need to be trained on the use of social media. This type of training should be made mandatory in organizations so that employees get to understand the dos and don’ts of the social networking sites to make it more useful.
Now, Let’s take a look at the benefits of Social Media to e-learning:
- It helps to have an informal learning
- Improves productivity as it is available on demand
- It shortens the training time as information is rolled out much faster
- No investment is needed as it is available free of cost
- Responses are quick to different queries posted. Different contributors have different perspectives that relate to content which are posted on the social sites. So, you get answers to specific challenges.
- Users develop shared understanding as interaction between peers and groups increases, in this way learning continues to grow.
- Social Media can be used as supplement for various training purposes
- It may also draw learners to a formal instruction
Social networking in organizations is all about achieving the set objectives and improving constantly. Let’s take a look at how Social Media impacts e-learning:
- Post blogs to educate audience on latest trends of e-learning, its importance and imparting cost effective training. Webinars, whitepapers on Instructional Design strategies, theories, and discussions on rapid authoring tools build e-learning solutions. This helps to have a wide spread of knowledge faster.
- Become members of LinkedIn and participate in industry specific forums and contribute to various discussions related to e-learning
- Use YouTube to impart learning through smaller modules that demonstrate your products features
- Offer free courses so that the users experience your product quality and worth
- Use Twitter and Facebook to inform your users about the knowledgebase created such as blogs, free courses and more.
- Present success stories and case studies on Social sites
- Encourage notes and share views about various courses that may be posted in focus groups of your learners.
- Consolidate the tweets of learners attending training and share them among other learners to add more.
Thus, implementing these strategies can bring about bigger impact of Social Media on e-learning. What do you say? Do share your thoughts with us.
