Social media can serve as a new learning tool but requires careful marketing to ensure adoption among various user groups. Users typically go through five stages of adoption: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption, with innovators and early adopters leading the way. By targeting these groups with free workshops and success stories, organizations can facilitate wider acceptance of social media as an effective learning medium.

1. Social Media as New Learning Tool

2. Social media represents universal wisdom, present on such platforms that are moderately accessible, despite most IT departments’ reluctance to open them up for lesser mortals like us. Social Media

3. It is advisable to keep in mind that educating people on new innovation takes time and effort. To better understand, take a quick look at adopter categorization on relative time taken. How to Market the use of Social Media as a New Tool of Learning?

4. Research shows that when any new innovation is presented, potential users go through five distinct stages of adoption: Awareness Interest Evaluation Trial Adoption Stages of Adoption

5. Diffusion of Innovation We should also keep in mind that, people vary in the time to adopt new things. This process of “Diffusion of Innovation” was first popularized by Everett Rogers (1962) in his text book, Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers 1964). He defines diffusion as “the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.”

6. The normal curve distribution below shows people differ greatly in their readiness to try new products or services. Adopter Categorization

7. Innovators are adventurous and take risks. Innovators

8. Early Adopters are guided by respect. They are opinion leaders who adopt early but carefully. Early Adopters

9. Early Majority are deliberate in their choice, though not leaders. Early Majority

10. Late Majority are skeptical and wait till the majority have tried. Late Majority

11. Laggards are traditionally the last set of people to adopt change. Laggards

12. The graph shows that after a slow start, thanks to the innovators and the early adopters, an increasing number of people will adopt the innovation. The number reaches a peak and then drops off, as the innovators and early adopters rush off to try some new alternatives. But, how can this knowledge be used in popularizing Social Media as an innovation in learning methodologies especially in Corporate Training. How to popularize Social Media?

13. First target the Innovators and the Early Adopters through free workshops and contests. They are risk takers and get attracted by anything new. Present success stories and case studies collected from the Innovators and the Early Adopters to the Early Majority. Once these groups are behind you, the others (Later Majority and Laggards) will automatically follow. Suggestions

14. Social media, with all its shortcomings, is still a very powerful medium that can really empower people with Just-In-Time learning on anything under the sun. Conclusion

15. Hence, it is our responsibility to present this medium to our ‘customers’, so that they benefit from it and thereby benefit our organizations.