These are my live blogged notes from a webinar presented by Brandon Hall on Wednesday, April 26 2011. (I joined about 10 minutes late, so missed a bit!)

Tom Werner, Chief Research Officer, Brandon Hall

http://www.brandon-hall.com/

LMSs are adding social features – including RSS feeds, peer ratings of content. In Brandon Hall’s research, haven’t talked to a single LMS vendor who is NOT adding these tools.

Social media allow:

• Conversations to continue after training
• Peer-to-peer interaction in groups – so learners can continue to learn
• Find individualized answers (by approaching instructors and fellow learners)
• Share your own content

Makes training more efficient

• Can shorten formal training, because the conversation continues.
• It’s now available on demand as it’s needed.
• More content can be created by more contributors.
• Can get more feedback about what’s working!

Social media can reach different audiences:

• New employees and recently trained can now connect with each other
• Expert employees who got missed by training – now have a way to contribute and can become mentors and coaches.
• Social media communities can now create communities for external learners – customers, resellers, technicians.

Best practices of social media for learning: (these 3 examples one Brandon Hall Awards of Excellence):

Chrysler Academy 2.0

• Doing more real time certification and performance support for dealer personnel.
• Customers are now so knowledgeable about cars using the Internet.
• Wanted to make learning “an everyday event”.
• Draw knowledge from dealerships.
• Used Ektron (www.methodfactory.com) a content management system – which allowed search, tagging, RSS, links, blogs, polls, surveys.
• Everyone has their own profile like they do on Facebook.
• Reduced time to deliver info to dealers from 2 weeks to 1 day.
• Reduced cost of new-vehicle launch kits from $100,000 to about $15,000.

Cisco Learning Network

• Cisco wanted to support certifications around the world for technicians who service their networks.
• Wanted to increase # cert holders worldwide – the network experts – wanted more resources and options.
• Traditional one way web pages weren’t enough.
• Wanted more collaboration and conversation, so people could access already certified people’s expertise.  Wanted to move away from certification as in individual pursuit.
• Video, podcasts, discussion forums, games, mentoring programs (Partner new learners with those already certified).
• Polls, blogs, search (similar to chrysler).
• Measured results in terms of usage – 7 million site visits over 20 month period.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Sales Fitness Center

• Sales professionals.
• Wanted to minimize formal training to minimize time spent out of field.
• Wanted to connect sales training with day-to-day selling (if sales people don’t immediately apply training to their real-world experiences, they tend to reject it quickly).
• Create a safe place for people to ask their questions
• Sales people could share their own content.
• Used Microsoft SharePoint – blogs, wikis, messaging, polls, surveys, RSS feeds (get alerted when content is updated).
• Want sales people talking about real-world sales experiences with their peers.
• Saved $7,500 per learner (over formal training).
• Survey findings (level 1 evals) showed positive reactions from the learners.

3 key take-aways from these case studies:

• Don’t rely on “if they build it they will come” – still use some ‘push’ technolgoy – like email – to draw learners in so they start to see the value
• They don’t obsess about measurement.  They try lots of things.
• They don’t worry if not everyone loves it.  It’s not going to work for everyone.  Not every single tool needs 100% participation.

Ann Shea with Quick Lessons http://www.quicklessons.com/

Social media tools for learning

Risks and concerns:

Biggest challenges for orgs – benefits are not clear

To start using social media…don’t need to be as big as HP or Chrysler!

Tools that you bring in to your org.  What considerations?

• Costs – both of tool and the opportunity cost
• Look at terms of use and legal implications (who owns the content created in a site)
• Does the site let you export your content?
• Can you control access and create private groups?
• Is it easy for learners to use? (Everyone’s familiar with Facebook – people wouldn’t have the same resistance to FB as with a new tool).
• Are these tools being built into your LMS?

Intranet:

What can you do on your Intranet already? (e.g., SharePoint) – profiles, tags, ratings

Private social networks:

• yammer (widely used in corporate world – over 100,00 corporate users!)
• edmodo (originally  developed for teachers and schools – includes grading features
• social go – sharing features, including video, blogging and works with Wordpress
• allow microblogging, profiles, groups, messaging, questions, polls, tagging, search

Public social networks:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Ning
• Yahoo Groups
• Google groups
• Some of these have member control and private groups

Facebook

the most accessed site in 2010! 1/8 minutes online is spent on FB! Why companies consider blocking it, but should also be a place for companies to consider going…  40% of users are 35+ – the demographic has changed!)

Jane Bozarth! – Trainers can use FB to fill the gaps and keep learners engaged between formal events.

90% of facebook users don’t return to a fan page once the click the like button

The most popular types of content on FB:

• image with text
• image
• video
• text
• external links (put actual link not a shortened link – people on FB want to know where they’re going.
• polls
• keep these in mind when you design…

LinkedIn

a new linked in user every second!

A more business-oriented environment.  But it’s not as user friendly as FB.  Good for external training, partners, vendors.

Members only groups on LinkedIn for training – set up a private group (members have to request to join or be invited – and then approved by the manager)

Reminder – anything posted on the Internet can potentially be viewed by anyone…

Twitter

Very real time oriented – the pulse of what people are talking about

Use hashtags # on topics and @ signs for people

Can share links, take online notes

File sharing for collaboration:

• As trainers work to develop content – share with each other and share with users
• Drobox, Google Docs, Box.net

Video Conferencing

• Skype, ooVoo, Google Voice,Vuroom, Vonage
• Good for more immediacy, for more expressive training, can do screen sharing
• recording sessions so they can be shared later
• Can also create user groups within a conference call so you can have chat

Presentation Sharing Sites

To share PPTs, PDFs, videos, etc.

• SlideShare
• Prezi, SlideSix, SlideRocket, mybrainshark

Online Polls & Surveys

Mix polls ad surveys with social media for more engagement and better material

• LinkedIn
• PollDaddy
• SurveyMonkey
• (Facebook has just added this to groups)

Video Sharing

• Trainers can use video sharing sites to post videos…
• demo a product, present lecture-type content, share tips, etc.
• YouTube, Vimeo

Wikis

Share text, images, hyperlinks

Social Media Policy

The list goes on…blogs, RSS feeds, whiteboarding, etc….

Product Pitch for Quicklessons http://www.quicklessons.com/

collaborative online course creation in the cloud

Lots of connection with facebook and Izzui– invite people to courses, share them, people can like them..”an entire social network surrounding your content” – it’s still in beta.  They will be at ASTD ICE in Orlando.  Izzui is SCORM compliant.

Image by Ben Sutherland

Everyday, more and more businesses are refocusing their marketing investments to craft marketing campaigns that leverage on the social Web. Rightfully so, the Web offers a fresh atmosphere organic enough for nurturing brands and open enough to cultivate creative and ingenious campaigns. And because of its vast, interconnected expanse, brands can reach out to a wider audience and target specific markets, allowing better focus on customer engagements and potentially more positive results.

While big companies with established national/global recognition seem to have it made online, they still need the continuous news and marketing strategy, and regular engagements to stay relevant. Startups and small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), on the other hand, are offered a level playing field and the opportunities to grow—provided that they’re armed with the right attitude, a slew of compelling strategies and the best tools online marketing has to offer.

The following can help your brand to be easily discoverable online and can even advance your branding efforts and social engagements.

Establish Your Online Presence

Image by JaseCurtis

To get the ball rolling, you need to establish your brand’s online presence by creating profiles for your brand on the social networking channels. Popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer a brawny networking muscle with their huge user base and messaging capabilities. These are powerful sites that should be in any business social media tool kit .

Because conversations and news are carried out differently per social network, it’s best for your brand if you sign up in more than one site. The more platforms you take on, the more opportunities to reach out and engage with potential followers. Aside from these, you may also want to look into other social media sites that cater to specific niches, interests and media platforms. Determine which ones you can indeed make use of and find the right channels for your business based on the goals you intend to accomplish, the nature of your business, and your demographic.

Develop Your Identity

Image by betsyweber

As with the nature of social media to put interactions between individuals at the forefront, setting up an identity your brand will embody can really be helpful. This gives your followers an actual character they can relate to, and that is crucial in both branding and developing relationships with your demographic.

Consider heavily the image you’d want your brand to embody and how you want your followers to see you as. Take a moment and assess what it is exactly you want your potential followers to think about when they read your profile. Do you want people to look at your brand like a best friend type, the class clown or the attentive parent? Whatever your chosen identity, it should be evident on your social profiles’ bio, page design of your Web site and blog, the user pics, and both the language and tone of your every social media updates.

A human personality affords brands better engagement opportunities, allowing you to cultivate it further with constant interactions to gain your demographic’s trust. And when you play your cards right, that can lead to brand loyalty.