{"id":138,"date":"2017-05-29T21:02:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T04:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0008\/?p=138"},"modified":"2017-07-09T07:58:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-09T14:58:46","slug":"leverage-today-and-engage-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0008\/leverage-today-and-engage-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Leverage today and engage tomorrow."},"content":{"rendered":"

Where I began:<\/strong><\/span>
\nStarting in 2009, I began to consider my strategy and purpose in participating in online communities. My personal and professional online worlds were beginning to collide and I found that I was hesitant to use online platforms. I was unsure where I would present the professional side of my life and where I would present my personal side. There were a few occasions where I had contacts from both sides and I wanted to make a clear delineation between these two groups. Since these online platforms were accessed by people from around the world, I began to reflect on how my images and comments could be perceived by users who didn\u2019t know me, and thereby didn\u2019t understand the context of my contributions. It became increasingly difficult when my learner groups began to send me friend requests on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, as I had professional responsibilities around confidentiality and privacy. Additionally, in my work at the time, I sat on multiple committees and task forces so I wanted to ensure that my digital footprint didn\u2019t negatively impact my professional growth. It felt complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since I was working in a medium that was unknown to me, I read Start with why: how great leaders inspire everyone to take action<\/em> (Sinek 2013), and determined that I wanted to choose a few tools, all of which had a clear purpose and desired audience. I was inspired by Sinek\u2019s \u201cGolden Circle\u201d concept (Sinek 2013), and determined that my purpose, my \u201cwhy\u201d, was to participate in a community of professional trainers who were dedicated to developing their ability to engage and support learners. Based on this preliminary work, I decided to focus my efforts on LinkedIn to develop and leverage relationships with fellow trainers, participating on Facebook to keep in contact with personal connections, using Twitter for research around training and development and, later through Instagram to explore my interests and community connections. In the following sections I will outline my online presence as it exists today and reflect on how I can\u00a0refresh my approach. I aim to better engage my intended audience and to encourage myself to participate as a resident, as opposed to a visitor (Le Cornu & White, 2011).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My digital technology presence today:<\/strong>
\n<\/span>To date, the tool that I have purposefully spent the most time developing is LinkedIn. I update my LinkedIn presence more mindfully than any other tool, thereby making my profile one that I am confident to share. Being a passionate Career Developer, I understand the value that LinkedIn allows in providing the online community with a snapshot of my background. Currently, LinkedIn is a practical application that I use to research companies and key players, to follow the careers of past and present colleagues and to connect with groups of people with professional interests similar to my own. I recently joined a new industry am keen to uncover new connections; LinkedIn provides a robust source of contacts which are easily uncovered. I particularly enjoy reviewing the profiles of people that I plan to meet at conferences or other networking events.<\/span><\/p>\n

The overwhelming access to users that Facebook provides keeps it in my life.\u00a0 Having 1.94 billion monthly active users in March 2017, (Facebook Newsroom, March 2017) Facebook commands my attention. It is the place where I can cultivate connections from all aspects of my life. Originally, I earmarked Facebook as a place where I could keep in touch with my personal network. However, I quickly found myself curious as to how I could leverage Facebook Pages in my professional life. In my experience, the most challenging part about building out Facebook Page presences is generating and continually populating a fulsome content calendar.\u00a0 Engaging users, often in concert with a paid campaign, takes time, but has been consistently effective in practice. Now that I no longer leverage Facebook professionally due to a career shift, I find that my participation has reduced dramatically, other than to connect with friends from my past.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have been absent from Twitter since 2013, with periodic contributions in 2016.\u00a0 I remember when Twitter was my favourite source of information; I loved how I could join tweet-ups or participate at conferences virtually by following hashtags. In 2013 I faced a 30-minute commute to work each day and I leveraged this free time to explore Twitter. When building my presence, I decided to use a 3:2 ratio for those I followed to those who followed me. My theory was that I could keep abreast of the tweets of those I followed, while still working to cultivate a network with greater breadth and depth.\u00a0 As I review my outdated profile, I realize that approximately 60 per cent of those who I follow are still relevant today, buoying my commitment to re-prioritize this tool.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I critically examined my contributions in Instagram\u2019s space, I determined that I connect with my existing community frequently, but my message is dilute. Currently I leverage this platform for inspiration and to uncover local news in my community. As I walked through the exercise of exploring my current online presence, it became clear that my preferred tool is Instagram, likely because I choose to follow users who feed my creative side. Upon reflection, I realize that I feel good every time I launch Instagram, causing me to decide to continue leveraging Instagram as a source of inspiration, but to include a focus designed to help expand my community of contributors who are passionate about open learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Near-term priorities:<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Dissecting my current digital technology presence helped to align three near-term priorities, all of which will be completed in May 2017:
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01.\u00a0Support my online identity (or brand) through consistency,
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02. Leverage my blog as a landing page,
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a03. Refine my participation in each community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Support my online identity (or brand) through consistency:
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span>What stood out me the most when reflecting on the exercise of reviewing my profiles was that I had different user names, contact information and profile pictures throughout the various platforms that I use. To help support consistency on my chosen platforms, I will align my user name, contact information and profile picture on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. I will continue to use Facebook for fun and won\u2019t include it in my near-term priorities, but will continue to consider how I may leverage Facebook Pages in the future, based on my past successes and experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Larouche, Habibi and Richard\u2019s article (Larouche, 2013), they found that social media platforms can result in increased loyalty and trust from community participants. I aim to facilitate information sharing among the members of my online communities with my newly unified online identity (or brand). I aim to garner trust and loyalty from my online community through active and meaningful contributions and shared connections.<\/span><\/p>\n

Leverage my blog as a landing page:
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span>Another key learning was that I do not have a clear direction of information-flow to connect my various profiles. My blog will provide me with an opportunity to intentionally connect information from one conversation to another and from one group of connections to another. For example, I will intentionally drive traffic to my blog using #RRUMALAT on Twitter. The idea of having an online space where I am in charge of the content is both harrowing and exciting. My biggest challenge will be to have the confidence to contribute meaningfully and consistently to my blog. My goal is to contribute at least twice per month throughout the duration of this program, with posts designed to describe my journey of developing a place where I explore the e-learning community and develop deeper relationships with key stakeholders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Refine my participation in each community:
\n<\/span><\/strong><\/span>My LinkedIn profile is well-developed, so I will continue to leverage it as a repository of my professional experience. Having been a visitor in most LinkedIn groups to date, I plan to mindfully shift to the resident zone (LeCornu, 2011).\u00a0 First, I will join the conversation through the comments sections, and ultimately, I will contribute fresh content.\u00a0 To help shift my focus and expand my reach, I have chosen five new groups to explore, all of which focus on trends and leading practices in learning, focusing on e-learning. In addition, I will commit to commenting on at least one article per group in the first three months of joining.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have not prioritized any changes to my current Facebook use. As described above, I know that Facebook provides access to data, tools and users, so I will continue to consider how I can build in the use of a Facebook Page in my new role. There are opportunities to leverage a group of 1,200 active industry users in my community, but I will first need to define why and how we can engage these users with meaningful content. We are currently working to refine our communication strategy and I will purposefully include Facebook as a tool to consider,<\/span><\/p>\n

During our virtual symposium, I was inspired by Dr. Roland vanOostveen\u2019s discussion around Developing a Fully Online Learning Communities (FOLC) Model (vanOostveen, 2017), where he used the analogy of a derailment of dangerous goods. The role that each person plays in a situation is partially defined by their perspective, leading me to decide to better define my role on Twitter. After all, if I don\u2019t define my role in this community, I won\u2019t be able to participate authentically, which will lead to a lack of a clear perspective and may break the trust of community participants. My priorities include self-identifying as a Royal Roads University MALAT student and participating using #RRUMALAT. In addition, I will review my current list of those that I follow and prioritize following at least 10 new profiles per month, with the goal of adjusting the ratio described above to 2:1 (following to followers). These simple steps will help me to expand my scope and to define my role as someone who strives to expand my knowledge and connections in the online learning community.<\/span><\/p>\n

As described above, I participate in Instagram as a form of self-care and will continue to do so. One commitment that I will make is to make my profile public, as opposed to private. Perhaps taking a less closed position will help to expand my \u201cdigital sandbox\u201d (vanOostveen, 2017) so that I may encounter unexpected learning. As it stands, I only allow certain tools (users) in my sandbox, which is likely reducing my potential learning opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n

My next blog posts will focus on the actions I took in each platform, including any outcomes uncovered.\u00a0 Look forward to my journey on LinkedIn next!<\/span><\/p>\n

References<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook Newsroom. (2017, March). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https:\/\/newsroom.fb.com\/company-info\/<\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., & Richard, M. (2013). To be or not to be in social media: How brand loyalty is affected by social media?\u00a0International Journal of Information Management,<\/em>\u00a033<\/em>(1), 76-82. doi:10.1016\/j.ijinfomgt.2012.07.003<\/span><\/p>\n

Le Cornu, A., & White, D. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement.\u00a0\u00a0First Monday, 16(9)<\/em>. Retrieved from http:\/\/firstmonday.org\/ojs\/index.php\/fm\/article\/view\/3171\/3049<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

Sinek, S. (2013). Start with why: how great leaders inspire everyone to take action.<\/em> London: Portfolio\/Penguin.<\/span><\/p>\n

vanOostveen, Roland. (2017, April). Fully Online Learning Community Model.\u00a0 In Elizabeth Childs (Chair), MALAT Virtual Symposium, Symposium conducted at the meeting of Royal Roads University, Online.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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