More and more big-brands are focusing on how they can transform their internal marketing and communications experts by training them on the meaningful use of social media and word of mouth marketing. As the recession deepens no one is pulling back on their exploration and use of social media. Most CMO's and CCO's know there is nowhere to pull back to. To be successful in this space, to go beyond executing a few tactics - dropping some videos on YouTube, adding RSS and Share This to their press rooms - brands want to integrate social media and word of mouth marketing within their teams. They know they cannot outsource all this stuff.
We have been training clients for 3 years. Now we are working with clients to build their internal capacity to plan and execute great WOM-worthy programs integrated within traditional marketing. "Building capacity" is more than a single training event. It takes a continuous program yet one that is relatively easy to apply.
6 Lessons for Social Media Training
Here are 6 lessons we learned through training our own global agency and our clients:
1. Make It Immersive and Important at First
Nothing telegraphs "important" than allowing 100 or even 35 (or even 10) marcom team members to step off the carousel at work for a 1-2 day interactive workshop into using social media and word of mouth strategically. This is often a great beginning to a new training culture.(Recommendation: a wise man taught me to always plan out the "Know/Do's" for every training - what do you want them to know and what you want them to be able to do once complete)
2. Make Sure It's Hands-on
Having senior executives set-up their Facebook profiles, open delicious accounts and, yes, Twitter, makes a huge difference. As they say "This revolution will not be televised" - you cannot learn simply through observation. We had 315 brand marketers tweeting and texting throughout a 2-day workshop. We always build in "hands-on" experiences to make it real. I believe that was the intent behind the recent P&G Tide Tweet T-shirt extravaganza - give the participants in the digital day at P&G first-hand experience with how it works.
3. Create a Training "Program" Not Just an Event
We start with immersive experiences and then segue to our Digital Oxygen program which delivers regular 1-hour, special topic sesions and now, on demand, online training modules to efficiently reach our global teams.
4. Look For "Hand-raisers" Anywhere
You want to cultivate a few, true believers no matter which department they come from. Our discipline sits in some ill-defined netherworld between marketing, communications, customer relations and strategy. Those folks who understand and have a lean-forward attitude deserve extra attention, training and growth. They will become internal experts and evangelists. (I would argue that they will also likely transform your business).
5. Connect Early Trainees as a Tribe
Our ultimate goal is to push "digital" and "social" everywhere within an organization. Still, we need to start by embracing a tribe of people who have been trained and want it. We also want to walk-the-walk of using the social tools to share knowledge, collaborate and more. We have our own Digital Influence Wiki. We have a Yahoo pipes Twitter feed. We have a lot of other connection points. The platforms you use are less important than the fact that you connect the team, share information and build community.
6. Send Scouts Out to Gather New Techniques
There are a lot of great learning events every year. There is also a lot of hot-air. You can send two team members to a workshop or summit, limit your hard cost and soft cost (aka opportunity cost) and limit risk (a bad conference no matter how much research you did). Make it a requirment for the lucky Scouts to prepare a "5 Insights/Lessons" presentation internally. They should deliver it within two weeks of their return while the enthusiasm of the trip remains high. This strategy also delivers a small reward at a time when pay raises and other compensation may be out of reach.
Suggestion to CMOs and Communications Executives: Send two marcom staff to this year's WOMM University in May in Miami (heads up: I am a WOMMA board member and I am also a true believer). They will walk away with more hands-on, applicable knowledge than any "blogging conference" or event out there. It's time to train for today's big race. If you want practical knowledge that can filter throughout your organization you will have to do a number of things and this is one of the most efficient.
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