“Seeding” Social Media for Engagement

The other day someone emailed me with a question of how to get social media usage going in an organization.

Here are a few suggestions,

First, I often “seed” the use of a social networking tool with a basic question like “What do you think [this tool] can do for us?” or if the group is more concrete in their thinking (like engineers) I use the question “What problem will [this tool] solve for us?” These types of questions help start a discussion and I suggest using the tool to ask and answer the question. The people have to answer the question about using the social media tool with the social media tool (Discuss the use of a wiki, within a wiki).

Another question I use is “What knowledge do you think you should share with others?” or “What knowledge do you wish others would share with you?” I also like “What problems are you trying to solve?” or on a Twitter like app something like “What are you thinking about?” or “What resources do you find valuable on a regular basis?” or “I am working on [answer here] what are you working on?” or “Does anyone want to collaborate on a project involving [project]?” or “Provide the URL of your most useful link”

Specifically class related:

Before class:
“What would you like to learn about in [this class]?”
“What topics in the area of [this topic] are of most concern?”
“What do you already know about [topic]?
“What questions do you want answered in [subject] class?”

After class use to continue discussion.
“What information are you using from [this class] on the job?”
“What questions do you still have about [subjectt]?
“What was the most valuable thing you learned in [this class]?”
“What obstacles are you encountering implementing [idea] on the job?”

These types of questions can help seed interesting conversations using a variety of social media (Blogs, Wikis, instant messaging)