Bloomfire Marketing

While the physical 3-inch binder is on its way out as a training tool for most companies, I guarantee that 90 percent of people reading this received some sort of digital equivalent as part of their onboarding process. A lengthy pdf doc perhaps? Or maybe a 50 slide PowerPoint deck? Here are 10 reasons to replace your training manuals and tools with a social learning solution: Update materials in real time. How frustrating is it that training materials are out-of-date almost as soon as they are in your employees’ hands? With an online social learning solution – materials and answers can be updated in real-time. This means that employees will always find the most current and accurate information. Make information easier to find. By making your training materials available in an online social learning tool instead of a document, employees can easily search for the documents and answers they are looking for. Allow employees to ask questions. By moving the training process online and making it social, employees can ask questions and the experts within your company can reply. The advantage here is that not only does the original employee who asked the question benefit, so does the rest of your organization. Share stories. One of the strongest advantages of using a social learning tool to train employees is that training comes to life with shared stories and experiences. People can comment, interact, and connect through the tool in ways that a standalone document simply doesn’t allow. Ongoing connections. Instead of just filing away a training manual on a bookshelf or a file folder, putting all of this information online means that it is an ongoing resource for employees. And because the information is constantly updated, questions are asked and answered, and stories are shared, there is an incentive for the employee to check back and see what is new. Interaction with everyday experts. Social learning solutions give new and existing employees the ability to connect with experts throughout your organization – even beyond the initial training period. This is even more important if your experts are spread across multiple geographies. Different file types all in one place. People learn in different ways. Some like to read text descriptions, others like a diagram or video. With a social learning tool, you can share videos, PowerPoint decks, images, posts, and more to engage your visitors. Smaller, digestible pieces of information. Rather than an overwhelming document, social learning tools feed information to employees in bite-sized chunks that they can easily consume. You can even take these smaller pieces of information and create a series for people to work their way through. Single point of data. A big challenge at most companies is knowing where to go for critical information. Knowledge sits spread across the company’s various laptops and servers. An online training hub becomes THE place where employees know they can find the most accurate, up-to-date information. Access content anytime/anywhere from any device. A social learning solution puts training information in the hands of employees when they need it most. Knowledge becomes accessible 24 hours a day from any device. Want to learn more from a company that made the move to social learning for their training and onboarding initiatives? Click here to read how Agile Staffing replaced their training manual and saved $75,000.

At Bloomfire’s User Conference in May, I had the pleasure of listening to City of Austin’s Chief Innovation Officer Kerry O’Connor present on how government knowledge management is changing. The Innovation Office focuses on internal and public service innovation, as well as open government. O’Connor has worked in the public sector for many years – at the U.S. Department of State, the Office of Management Policy Rightsizing and Innovation, and several U.S. Embassies. She talked about seeing firsthand that the government is changing from a “need to know organization” to a “need to share organization.” O’Connor argues that disruption is inevitable, and will come whether in the form of opportunity or threat – and there’s no script. “When there’s no script,” O’Connor says, “we have to be intentionally improvisational.” O’Connor defines innovation as any project that is new to you and has an uncertain outcome. She talked about how important knowledge is in supporting innovation. As the first person to ever fill this role, her goal for her first year in office was to set up an innovation infrastructure. This included putting into place the processes, teams, and skills and information to create an environment that fosters innovation. O’Connor recommends that to facilitate intentional improvisation, you must frame the problems you want to solve first. Once you know the goal, look for innovation technology infrastructure that helps you manage contacts, relationships, projects, knowledge, ideas, and insights. We live in a world that is increasingly interconnected and disrupted, and O’Connor says that organizations are naturally becoming more networked, human-centered, and improvisational. She encouraged attendees to “use what you have; we must connect, coach, mentor, share, and experiment.” To ensure that citizens can interact with the knowledge that city employees have, the City of Austin created online public spaces. These spaces, created on Bloomfire, offer the opportunity for citizens to participate in a conversation with employees around innovation, data, and city orientation. I was inspired by O’Connor’s presentation, and proud to live in a city that is so forward thinking about how information is shared. It made me want to get more involved in finding ways to solve some of problems Austin is facing as a result of our rapid growth. As a result of her talk, I’m going to try to make it to this weekend’s ATX Hack for Change. If you would like to watch O’Connor’s entire presentation, you can access it on the Bloomfire Community. Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.

We’re happy to share some of the most interesting recent content we’ve come across about social business, the future of work, and customer experience that we hope you’ll find interesting and valuable. Benchmarking Social Business Tools A complete social business strategy requires more than publishing social media guidelines for employees. This ComputerWeekly article argues that leaders need to change their thinking and understanding of the enterprise as a social ecosystem. Four Tactics to Become More Responsive Businesses must be continuously adaptive and innovative in order to be successful. However, when shifts in the marketplace occur, many are still reluctant to adjust. In this Forbes article, Reuven Gorsht shares four tactics companies can use to be more responsive to opportunities and challenges. Social Business Application Market Growth According to 451 Research, the social business applications market is expected to more than double in revenue from 2014 to 2019. Meet the Boss of the Future The makeup of the U.S. workforce is changing dramatically; as of 2014, one in every three working Americans is some kind of freelancer. In this Fast Company article, Jane Porter explains how management must adjust to ever-changing teams mixed with full-time and freelance employees. How to Use Social Media in Sales In this Huffington Post article, John Rampton gives examples of how successful salespeople are using social media to connect with difficult-to-reach buyers who ignore cold calls and beat their quotas. Scaling Customer Experience Consumers and small business owners alike are enjoying the benefits of today’s sharing economy. However, the industry is lacking a consistent, positive, customer experience due to the fast growth of services like Lyft, Favor, and Uber. In this Forbes article, Blake Morgan talks about the importance of training, onboarding, and coaching to scale customer experience. Tech Hacks for a Balanced Life As companies are paying more attention to work/life balance by implementing new policies, employees are also finding their own ways to balance their careers and personal lives. This Mashable article by Eli Epstein offers 6 Tech Hacks to Master Your Work/Life Balance. We’ll continue to share these roundups every few weeks, and would love your recommendations. The articles included here have all been shared on our Twitter feed, @bloomfire, and we would love to connect with you there also.

Business leaders today are becoming more aware of the many ways social knowledge networks can bring value to an organization. Communication is enhanced, knowledge is organized and accessible, products and customer service are improved, and business culture is strengthened through team collaboration. However, what many business leaders are failing to remember is that finding the right technology is only the first step in implementing a successful social knowledge network. The technology must be paired with smart planning and a well-thought-out structure. Elizabeth Lupfer, social collaboration and HR expert, claims, “A social knowledge network is one part technology and two parts process. The technology is only an enabler, and may only be worth 20 percent of the total value of the intranet.” The other 80 percent of value is created through effective structure and long-lasting employee engagement. We have researched and created a 10-step social knowledge network success plan that if implemented properly can maximize the value of any social knowledge network. Have a plan. Taking the time to create a social knowledge network implementation plan for your organization ensures managers and employees are motivated and committed to maximizing the value of the network. The network will only become as valuable as managers and employees plan to make it. Setting expectations for productivity and engagement ahead of time is important. Give employees a detailed explanation of how the social knowledge network connects to the organizational purpose. Communicate the value and purpose of the social knowledge network. Employees must clearly understand how the social knowledge network will contribute to the organizational purpose, long term and short term goals of the organization, and their individual role. Set up the organization and structure of the intranet at the beginning. Understand the priorities of each department, region, and team within your organization and how they connect. Who communicates with whom the most? What knowledge is of most value to each team? Your social knowledge network structure should enhance easy collaboration between individuals who value the information being shared. Thinking about the structure of your social knowledge network in advance will allow for easier search capabilities in the network and less time wasted sifting through information that is not relevant. Define roles and expectations around engagement for employees. Collaboration can be encouraged by asking employees to share projects and knowledge on the social knowledge network so that all team members are on the same page and no question is asked twice. Create and announce objectives with time-specific deadlines. It is important to create quantitative and time-specific objectives for your social knowledge network, such as “60 percent of users will have contributed some knowledge to our social knowledge network by June 30th.” Creating measurable engagement expectations will encourage employees to actively work towards the objective and increase network participation toward a common goal. Assign key social knowledge network ambassadors to start and maintain collaboration. Have people in your organization serve as the “ambassadors” of the social knowledge network. The ambassadors will be the network’s support, taking care of employee questions and concerns about the social knowledge network and asking the correct individuals for answers when they don’t know the answer themselves. Get the CEO and top level management involved. CEO and top-level involvement in a social knowledge network is very valuable, as employees pay special attention to what leaders have to share. Top level management should post openly about company activities to keep employees inspired about the broader picture of the organization. Management contributions should push brand, company culture, and core values. Industry and competitor news, trends, and expectations should be shared by management as well. Determine and reward achievement of Key Performance Indicators. Financial and non-financial benefits are important ways to encourage employee engagement in your social knowledge network. Gift cards, time off, or simple acknowledgment given to active users are good ways to inspire employees to participate more. Rewards given to the most active team or department will encourage group involvement and can be a great way to spark participation. Upload company documents and shared files. Ensure that your social knowledge network is the main place to access information, forms, presentations, and documents of all kinds. Keep all documents updated and organized so that they are accurate and searchable within the platform. Onboarding information, required customer forms, sales presentations, marketing tools, company calendars, and price lists should all be easily accessible on your social knowledge network. This will immediately spark network participation because these documents are needed by many people in your organization who will now access them through your social knowledge network. Be social! Although your social knowledge network should be a valuable business tool, there are many benefits of adding social, non-business related activity. Social activity on your network will create increased openness, allowing employees to get to know each other better and become more comfortable with sharing thoughts and opinions. Adding personal employee profile contributions, weekly peer-to-peer shout-outs for special accomplishments, employee group activities outside of work, or even posting something humorous once a week can help your social knowledge network become more open and fun, drawing employees back to check and use the network more often. Finding the right social knowledge network software for your organization is only the start. Research from the 2014 Social Business Global Executive Study shows only 17 percent of respondents see their organization as having mature social business practices. Following these steps will help you successfully integrate your social knowledge network into the flow of work. Once your organization becomes a true social business, you’ll see measurable value in improved innovation, talent management, and operations. If you are interested in learning more about how a knowledge base can break down silos within your organization, check out our white paper, Proving the Value: Getting Internal Buy-In for a Knowledge Base. Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.

Think about the last time something really aggravated you, whether it was a slow Internet connection, long store lines, or a rude cashier. Did you vow to go home and call an 800 number, punch through a bunch of option keys, and wait to talk to a customer service rep? Or did you take out your smart phone and hammer out your frustrations in 140 characters or less? Odds are you’re like the millions of consumers who express their grievances with friends, family, and colleagues on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or a host of other social sites. With more than 230 million people on Twitter and a billion or more on Facebook, companies now understand the importance of providing customer service over social media. According to a 2014 Forrester report, 62 percent of businesses believe they will lose ground if they don’t adopt social customer service technologies. Companies slow to embrace social media for customer service, also known as social care, are missing an opportunity to build their brands and customer loyalty. Ignoring customer problems on social media can spark a raging fire of discontent. But by connecting with customers on social media, you can quickly respond and resolve issues in front of thousands of other prospective clients. A study by the International Customer Management Institute shows 61 percent of consumers who received social care were more satisfied with their support. And 58 percent said social care increased their customer loyalty. Are you ready to advance your customer support program to the social community or are you willing to sit on hold while your customers begin looking elsewhere? We’ve created an eBook, “Social Customer Care: How to Use Social Media to Improve Customer Support,” to explore the reasons for adding social care to your customer service programs. It also provides tips from industry experts on how to get there. Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.

We’re excited to share a new infographic on the importance of social media for customer support. As more consumers are looking online to resolve customer service issues, companies are increasing their investment in social media. Adopting a social customer care policy isn’t optional anymore – it’s critical to staying competitive and relevant. Click on the image below to open a larger version of the infographic for easy viewing. You can also download the eBook: “Social Customer Care: How to Use Social Media to Improve Customer Support.” Like this post? Click here to subscribe to our blog and receive the latest content on social learning, customer support, sales enablement, or all three.