The last decade in the business world has brought out knowledge management as one of the burning concepts among both small and large sized enterprises. In the era of millennials and skyrocketing development of mind-blowing technological solutions, all serious businesses and organizations have realized that the employees’ knowledge, reflected in their expertise, has become their crucial asset.
Striving to provide superior products and services, businesses have started to invest in knowledge management. Some of the common goals of these investments are:
- sharing the value of the best workers’ expertise with the rest of the employees
- providing an accurate source of relevant corporate information in the form of a structured knowledge base, that’s available to all.
The innovation that has made these challenging processes significantly simpler is the use of social media. Nevertheless, the use of social media itself isn’t a guarantee of success. Unless you’ve made a good plan, you’ll find yourself stuck in the turmoil of vague ideas. Stay with us and read more about smart ways of obtaining real value from the use of social media in knowledge sharing.
1. Interactive and instant earning
According to Train Like a Champion, 1 out of 3 employees state that uninspiring content increases disinterest in improving their corporate knowledge. In accordance with this, it’s not surprising that businesses willing to invest in their workers’ knowledge choose more flexible online training over the traditional methods.
Following this spirit of online training and increased flexibility, social media has made a great leap forward. It inspired the latest learning trends that include spontaneous interaction using internal corporate social media groups and chat boxes. In other words, employees now have the chance of adopting new information on the go, which is provided by instant communication.
Learning as they work, they help each other out, and apart from sharing knowledge in real-time conditions, they also develop the sense of belonging and strengthen the team spirit, which is equally important.
2. Simplified and practical educational content
Yes, there will be some situations when your employees won’t be able to solve the questions on the go, by asking a colleague, and would require detailed explanations. However, instead of providing them with a thousand-page manual and exhausting guides, you can use social media to give them an engaging knowledge base built up of content that will help them learn more efficiently. Some of the simplest yet pretty attractive ways of providing engaging content are:
- blog posts
- infographics
- mental maps and tables
- Wiki-like repositories
While you can use corporate social media channels to make the content easily accessible, you can also make it easily understandable with professional preparation, that’s possible only with the help of your internal employees. This way, you will also save the money you’d have to spend on hiring external professionals, books, and other materials they may require.
3. Visual guide production
Even though the simplified reading material can be an excellent way of adopting new information, if you’re ready to invest more in creating an even more amazing knowledge base, then you should think about videos!
Having in mind the era we live in as well as the constantly increasing popularity of YouTube tutorials and similar content, just imagine the reaction of your customers if you offered them a high-definition video. No matter whether you want to explain some confusing processes or teach them about your corporate values, it’s more than likely you’ll provoke more interest by using video materials and social networks than sticking with traditional methods.
4. Internal community creation
Once you’ve let your employees learn on the go, chances are they may become passionate or curious about some specific topics. In these cases, it would be a major oversight not to provide them with space where they can discuss these topics and share their opinions, ideas, and recommendations.
That’s when social networks get to the spotlight again. You can create special groups for each of the topics of interest and let the employees get informed about them, exchange useful materials, and ask questions. Additionally, an awesome thing that you can do to help them out is to create a group led by a reliable senior member of your organization. That way, a professional will be ready to jump in if there are some more complex questions that the employees cannot answer themselves.
5. Establishing a hierarchy
Despite the fact that corporate social networks are good because of their flexibility and ease of use, you definitely won’t regret establishing the elementary hierarchy.
The worst thing you can do to your business is choosing adequate social media, create the groups, lists, and chat boxes, and then just let them be. Every efficient system requires at least a minimal level of organization. Hence, make sure to keep your social media groups and networks organized, by choosing administrators, community managers, or another type of officers. They should keep things in order by:
- collecting and classifying information
- stimulating discussions
- removing spam and irrelevant content
- rewarding the most active and knowledgeable people in the community
Social media and knowledge sharing: is it really that efficient?
According to Jan van Oudendycke, the Head of Knowledge Management at GDF SUEZ Energy International, social media used for corporate purposes has radically improved knowledge sharing. It only took six months for social media to produce the effects that couldn’t be achieved during the entire last decade in the field of knowledge sharing.
Finally, keeping this information in mind, there’s no wonder why the combination of corporate social media and high-quality knowledge base has become a must-have asset for every successful business.
Yes, it’s really that efficient!
