by Jacqui Nelson
We think long and hard about how to get people, learners in our case, to actively engage, whether with content or us or with each other. So at the recent Members conference I was pleased to attend a seminar on Social Networking and Web 2.0 where I took the opportunity to ask the expert – how?
The seminar was delivered by an engaging person called Jude Habib who runs a training and consultancy company called Sounddelivery. They work with membership bodies and other third sector organisations to help with communications.
She talked a lot about how we can all use social networking tools such as blogs, social networking sites, podcasts etc to get our message out there. What I wanted to know was how do you get your audience to feedback and enter into a discussion with us.
Jude’s answers were very sensible. Firstly, and very simply, you should ask them to (see end of this blog). Other things like tone and style can encourage/discourage people from responding. But the most interesting point came from the audience. The NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) have been embracing web 2.0 and social networking to communicate with their audiences and although what they have done has been well received they hadn’t, got big numbers actively engaged or joining in the discussion.
This all changed recently when the SATS marking fiasco happened. In the main NAHT members don’t agree with SATS and they were very vocal, in very large numbers, on the association’s discussion forums and blogs.
As always there is nothing like a bit of controversy to get people animated and engaged.
I would love to hear stories of what gets your audiences buzzed enough to engage in a discussion with you. Good news stories or bad. Please feel free to share them here.
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