Don’t be afraid to bring social media into your training! There are many tools out there – from Twitter and Periscope to Google+ and YouTube – that provide endless opportunities to increase engagement, provide resources, eliminate barriers, increase retention and get real-time feedback. Becky Pike Pluth shares five of her favorite reasons teachers and trainers should use social media for development and training.
5 Easy Ways to Use Social Media in Training
- Dissolve Barriers. Wouldn't it be great if you could break down barriers such as language or location before your training even started? Social media is a great training tool to help break the barriers of participants who are out of state, virtually connected or otherwise limited before your classroom even begins.
- Pre-work. Ask your learners via Twitter to read an article, prep two questions or review terms and definition on a website. Share a YouTube video on a Facebook group and ask your members to watch the clip and be ready to discuss. The possibilities for pre-work assignments are endless with social media. You can even make pre-work tasks into a game. Give participants the chance to earn points or rewards by ‘liking’ your Facebook page or introducing themselves to five other participants prior to coming onsite. You could even give an assessment via social media rather than during training to save time.
- Introductions. Great for community building, social media allows you and your learners to get to know each other before stepping foot into the classroom. Have your learners introduce themselves by name, location and what they are looking forward to learning. Have then share one thing they already know about your topic or the best tip they have received about the content. Get creative with introductions and use the answers you receive to help structure your lesson.
- Extend the Learning Process. Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and Twitter are all great tools for helping to extend your training beyond the classroom. You can send out reminders of upcoming sessions, ask new questions or pose new topics and encourage your participants to engage online. Try including links to websites and articles on training topics or have them follow other industry experts on social media for more learning opportunities.
- Provide Practice. There are numerous real-life case studies as well as hypothetical examples of situations that pertain to your training content on the Internet. Find specific instances that relate to your topics and tweet your learners asking what they would do in that situation. You can even share a video and ask them what’s right or wrong with the scenario. There are many ways to give your audience additional post-training practice.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
