Last night, Chris Brogan asked whether Social Media can be taught based on a post by Adam Cohen, which got me thinking. My initial reaction is yes, of course, people are fairly intelligent (for the most part) and they know how to have conversations in person, so having conversations with social media shouldn’t be too much of a jump. Using social media to have conversations just requires understanding the technologies and the techniques needed to keep track of what’s being said.
Some social media is more intuitive than others. I think a lot of people understand blogging and judging by the increase in usage of Facebook, that’s probably fairly easy for people to understand as well. Twitter is a bit more difficult – mostly because it can be used in so many different ways. I think Adam is correct in that there isn’t a set formula for teaching people how to use social media – mostly because what social media to use varies so much based on end goals, industries and familiarity.
I do think that there are some social media basics that are fairly easy to teach in courses and workshops. Introducing blogging, Facebook, and Twitter can be standardized in a way that shows people exactly what they need to do to use each and have conversations. Social media that’s more specific to an industry may be more difficult to understand or teach, but with the understanding of how to use the basics, some people could probably figure it out with a bit of help.
The problem with teaching many people how to use something new is that they’re set in their ways. If you’ve been in the business world for a long time and are used to doing things a certain way (that’s always worked before), it’s difficult to motivate yourself to learn something new. A lot of people just don’t like to work any harder than they have to, and learning something new can involve thinking and hard work.
So, is it possible to teach people how to use social media? Yes, definitely. Can you standardize a course that works for every type of social media in every type of situation and industry? Of course not. But the basics definitely can be taught, and with the basics people would have a better chance of being able to grasp more specific uses of social media for their organization.
What do you think? Can social media be taught?
(photo by atomicjeep @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: social media, social media usability, social networking, marketing, strategy, business
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