Can Social Networking Train Tech Pros?

Professor James Messer delivered a fantastic session at our EMEA Member Conference on the use of social media in the current training market.   Professor Messer has been creating free online training support videos for CompTIA certifications for several years and built his brand through the use of social media.

Professor Messer offered insight on what has worked for him and how best to utilize social media for maximum impact within the technology training industry.  One of the many key tips that the audience came away with was that that you need to be where the users are. Professor Messer started out hosting his content on Blip.tv due to its HD capabilities.  Although Professor Messer saw it as being essential that his content was in HD, he was not having the maximum impact that he could have.  When he moved his content to Youtube, his viewing numbers doubled.

Another tip was that you can’t just use one social media site to spread your message; your favorite site may not be your users’ favorite site, in fact they may not even be members of that site.  Your users and customers will be spread across multiple sites and services, thus you need to be too.

To quote Professor Messer, the answer to the session’s title “Can social networking really help train technology professionals?” is both “yes and no”.   Social media is a viable means of delivering training to the technology industry, but it has to be done correctly and in a way that you know you are having maximum impact with your user base.