Originally posted on the NetSquared blog.
This month’s Net2ThinkTank Question was: What are the key questions nonprofit organizations should ask to help them determine how to prioritize social media training and experimentation as they do their technology and organization-strengthening planning?
Below is a roundup of your answers!
Beth Kanter reminds us to choose a social media strategy before selecting or committing to specific training. She also explains
If your technology plan will have long-term sustainability, you must include many strategies for technology professional development.
- What is the best way to deliver this social media training so that we build our organizational capacity?
- Does the delivery match our organization’s culture for learning?
- Who will be hands-on? Who needs the overview?
- How will you take into account different learning styles for individuals and generational differences?
- How will staff make the time to put what they’ve learned into practice? Time to experiment?
Beth also includes some tips for social media training. Read more…
Britt Bravo provides 9 great questions nonprofits can ask to help identify organizational goals, internal resources, level of interest, and measurement mechanisms. Read more…
d1st4nc3 posted four key questions for nonprofits, including “What are the key factors that determine whether someone will become involved in our cause? Do they vary according to the social networking site/group page/amount of advertising and promotion/etc.” Read more…
Emily’s World provide three areas of questions: those nonprofits should ask before adopting social media tools, when putting social media into action, and when evaluating social media usage. Read more…
Gregory Heller of the CivicActions blog focuses on the main questions nonprofits can ask to identify if social media tools are a good fit. He reminds us: “It is important to remember that the social media landscape is continually evolving. When developing a social media strategy or deciding whether to train staff on the use of social media remember that the tools are different than the techniques. Training should focus far more on the techniques of using social media, not the specific tools (websites and services) because they will always be changing.” Read more…
lnorvig lays out a couple questions for nonprofits, the first of which asks to identify staff already using social media tools. “Getting involved in social media as an organization should not feel like a chore. Let staff who already have a passion for this take the leadership in ways that work for them.” Read more…
JYStewart emphasizes the importance of identifying staff members already using social media tools, as well as the inherent opportunity with social media to let your staff ‘play’ and engage in the game of it all. Read more…
Nancy White brings up a great point to consider:
Why are you doing social media training? I rarely recommend that organizations do pure social media training, but instead weave it into preparation and execution of real work. If you are planning a social action, ask how social media can contribute and build the training into the campaign training. In isolation, this stuff takes up time and attention without the crucial element of context and purpose.
As to experimentation, this is a very different and important activity. Again, it can be woven into existing activities (15 minutes play with Twitter at a staff meeting) and/or it can be something a smaller group takes on. This “scanning the social media” landscape can be informal — the key is the communication of what is learned back to the other members of the team and the organization.
Thanks to everyone who participated in the Net2ThinkTank! If you want to participate in the next round, stayed tuned to the Net2 blog for the next Net2ThinkTank question, or join the Facebook group.
What do you think? Has your organization included social media in technology training? What worked best?
Flickr photo: Siebuhr
I have a very quickly growing list (list = delicious tag) of recommended reading for myself. This is mostly blog posts that came through my RSS reader but I didn’t have time to read fully and then blog about myself. Well, it seems the list keeps growing and I’m not reading and blogging quick enough! So, here are some of them in a condensed version of what I would have liked. 
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