Content about Facebook

See what's new in Training this week!

Training’s 2012 New Year’s resolution is to expand its presence throughout social media. This January, you will see rich content published on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Google+, all linking back to our new “Daily Update” tab on www. Trainingmag.com. To help you join the conversation, here are a few tips for a positive social media experience.

Digital natives have a different set of habits, standards, expectations, and social norms that stem from being raised in a culture deeply immersed in technology, writes Brynn Evans in Chapter 1 of “Dancing With Digital Natives.” While their differences may not always clash with non-natives, their work practice is unique and demands patience and compromise from non-natives to understand it and make the most of it.

More than half (51 percent) of chief information officer (CIO) respondents said they permit employees to use social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook on the job as long as it’s for business purposes, according to a Robert Half Technology survey of more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the U.S. with 100 or more employees. This is up from 19 percent in 2009.

The answer is a resounding “Yes.” The Internet and various social media platforms give us the ability to interact with anyone who chooses to engage with us. There are many tools available today to use in communicating with your customers. Consider asking members of your team who are already knowledgeable or engaged in social media to assist you by being a voice of the company.

Technology is like air—we only become fully aware of it in its absence. If the Internet is down at work, we wander around aimlessly until it comes back up. If we can’t get a signal on our Smartphone to check out our Facebook page, our blood pressure rises to peak levels. Today, technology has become so pervasive in our daily lives that we have become desensitized to how much it is influencing how we connect, communicate, collaborate, and learn.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking social networking is all about telling the world what you had for breakfast. Or only an obsession of geeks. Just the opposite: Social networking has reached a tipping point. It’s transforming the way managers gather information, inform, negotiate, motivate, inspire, instruct, empower, forecast, and sell. Here are 14 principles you can use for effective networking.

Prior to the training, create a forum for communication between participants and trainers. For example, create a Facebook Group with restricted privacy settings or member-only LinkedIn Groups. Continued communication after training allows you to assess participant attitudes and hear about successes or frustrations. The relaxed feel of these sites overcomes the challenges of finding time for a conference call as a post-training activity due to conflicting work schedules.