A PRECARIOUS GAP IN SOCIAL MEDIA SKILLS
The workforce is woefully underprepared for the challenges, writes Ryan Holmes.
After initial skepticism, businesses have raced to social media, chasing the estimated three-quarters of consumers who say social media influences their buying decisions. Nearly 90 per cent of U.S. companies are currently using Twitter, Facebook and other networks — jockeying for their share of McKinsey + Co.’s estimated US$1.3 trillion in value that social media stands to unlock.
Just one small problem: The contemporary workforce is woefully underprepared for the challenges ahead. A social media skills gap of epic proportions has opened up, as social media surges forward while formal training and education programs lag seriously behind. How bad is it? Among 2,100 companies surveyed by Harvard Business Review, a meagre 12 per cent of those using social media feel they use it effectively, stats echoed in research by Capgemini and other industry consultants.
Reports of social media gaffes and blunders in the workplace are, of course, commonplace. Yet, the real price of the skills gap often goes unnoticed: billions of dollars in lost opportunities and revenue.
THE CHALLENGES OF KEEPING UP
The reason for this skills shortfall? The easy culprit is the growing number of networks and their ever-evolving feature set. Last year, for instance, Snapchat was still a toy for teens to trade disappearing messaging; this year, it’s the latest way to reach young customers on their own turf. As more platforms incorporate more and more sophisticated features, even the most pluggedin users struggle to keep up.
At the same time, how social media is used in the workplace is fundamentally changing. Just a few years ago, social media in the office was the domain of specialized social media managers, gatekeepers who owned a company’s social responsibilities. In a short time, however, social media duties have been radically democratized and decentralized. Now, social media is everyone’s responsibility.
The real price of the skills gap often goes unnoticed: billions of dollars in lost opportunity.
Employees are being asked to apply social media in new and unexpected ways. The familiar marketing functions, in fact, are just the tip of the iceberg. Social tools are being used to streamline customer service, for sales and HR and as part of employee brand-advocacy programs. Meanwhile, such social platforms as Facebook Workplace and Slack (which boasts millions of users, from NASA to your corner coffee shop), are quickly changing how we collaborate inside companies.
In short, social media has become less a discrete thing that people do on the job and more an integral component of everything they do.
But this approach only works if employees are on board and up to speed. “The real problem is that we expect people to know these skills without providing any training,” says William Ward, professor of social media at Syracuse University, with whom I spoke recently. Contrary to perception, acquiring social media know-how isn’t something that just happens on its own. Both older employees and millennial hires alike are often in the dark.
FINDING WAYS TO UPGRADE YOUR SOCIAL SKILLS
Fixing this social skills gap is no short order. In the long term, social media coursework is slowly being incorporated into university programs, and not just for students pursuing marketing and communications degrees. In a unique industry partnership, for example, we at Hootsuite developed a social media syllabus used in hundreds of universities around the world. Programs like these offer a foundation of social media skills for the workplace and may one day grow as commonplace as introductory college writing and computer skills classes.
But what about those employees struggling right now with the growing demands of social business? The good news, Altimeter reports, is that almost half of companies surveyed are planning on some kind of internal social education program for employees, while spending overall on corporate training is on a serious uptick (rising 15 per cent in the U.S. in a recent year to US$70 billion), largely a reflection of how fast the digital workplace is changing and everyone’s desperate quest to keep up.
The challenge, however, is how to teach social media when the terrain shifts so quickly. In the past year alone, for instance, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of “social video” and a whole new crop of one-to-one messaging apps. Not to mention, few employees have time for in-depth courses or boot camps. Ultimately, the right training solution needs to be on-demand and mobile friendly. While free and paid options abound, lots of the materials are either incomplete or out of date. To that end, we at Hootsuite have created an up-to-date portal where anyone can access free social media training.
At root, however, any investment of time or money in upgrading social media skills in the workplace is likely to be well spent. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other networks aren’t going away. Indeed, social media budgets at companies are expected to double in the next five years. Social business has become business as usual.