In mid-December 2007, I established three objectives for the Social Media Training Wiki:

• More than double the number of site members by the end of January 2008
• Double the number of contributions by the end of January 2008
• No existing pages with content placeholders by the end of January 2008

Results

Well, it’s the end of January; how did we do?

• More than six times the number of site members (113)
• Almost three times the number of contributions (374)
• Some pages do still have content placeholders

Two out of three. Not bad, given that the site also has seven new topics since the last post, including the beginnings of an RSS primer (in response to Shel Holtz’s helpful comments).

New Objectives

Time for some new objectives.

Last time around I set some areas of focus:

• Recruiting new members (you can sign up here)
• Encouraging renewed contributions from existing members
• Fleshing-out existing topics
• Adding advanced topics

I think these remain valid, so my new objectives are also based on these:

• New members: 175 total members by the end of February 2008
  • Roughly a 50% increase
  • Why am I happy with such a small number of members? Because you don’t need to sign up to read and learn from the wiki. 175 experienced social media folks contributing to the wiki would be awesome
• Renewed contributions: 500 total contributions by the end of February 2008
  • A 34% increase
• Fleshing-out existing topics: Zero placeholders on existing pages by the end of February 2008
• Advanced topics: New section of advanced concepts in place by the end of February 2008

Key Topics

To help people focus on the key topics, here are the gaps I see on the site right now:

• Blogs – we need details on the pros and cons of blogs as social media tools
• Blog Monitoring – this page needs populating
• Micro Blogs – this page is short on pros and cons
• Podcasts – what are the drawbacks of podcasting as a medium?
• Social Browsing – I’m still not sure if this deserves its own page. If it does, it needs more content
• Social Media News Release – what are the drawbacks of this format?
• Social Networks – this page is short of content on general features as well as the pros and cons of using social networks from a marketing perspective
• Video Blogs – This niche topic needs fleshing out
• Case Studies – this isn’t one page, it’s every topic. I wrote yesterday about the lack of social media case studies out there. This is a chance to help correct that.

How You Can Contribute

Spread The Word

A big thanks to Lee Hopkins, Shel Holtz, Donna Papacosta, Dirk Shaw and everyone else who has written about the wiki already. The more people that know about this, the more will get involved in strengthening this resource.

Add To Existing Pages

Are you an experienced user of any of these tools? Why not take five minutes and add a few notes on one of these topics?

Add New Topics

If you spot a gap in the topics on the wiki, go ahead and fill it!

Help Others

There’s more to the site than just the wiki content. Every page on the site feeds into a site-wide discussion forum. If you have questions, post them! If you have answers, help people out.

Let’s add to this momentum. Let’s make the Social Media Training Wiki an even more valuable resource for the community.

Check out the wiki.

(photo credit: -murilo-)

Technorati Tags: training,social media,education,wiki,collaboration,social media training wiki,Donna Papacosta,Lee Hopkins,Shel Holtz,Dirk Shaw

Just over a month ago I threw out a challenge to the online PR community:

[...] As a community, let’s develop a best-practice social media 101 training program.

Let’s create a one-day, scratch-the-surface program that will help employees who are new to this social media thing to find their feet.

Let’s put it out there for the good of the community.

Let’s encourage people to adapt it and adopt it.

Let’s see if we can raise the bar for social media knowledge in our organizations.

Check out the wiki. [...]

So, what’s happened since then?

Progress:

• A total of 135 contributions
• 17 registered contributors, including some experts I respect greatly and was very happy to see
• 12  useful ‘social media 101′ topics, including current talking points like ethics, blogger relations and the social media news release

Challenges and Opportunities:

I don’t think the site has yet gained the momentum it needs to, in terms of visitors, topics or depth of content. This isn’t entirely unexpected, as I’ve been otherwise occupied recently and haven’t given the site the attention it deserves.

So, where to take the site from here?

I plan to focus on four areas:

• Recruiting new members (you can sign up here)
• Encouraging renewed contributions from existing members
• Fleshing-out existing topics
• Adding advanced topics (Colin McKay suggested an open source business case, for example)

A Renewed Challenge

First up, I’m renewing the challenge to you.

Do you have expertise to share? Then join the community and help to create a resource for the benefit of everyone.

Are you new to the scene? Tell us what you want to know – either in the comments here or on the wiki discussion forums.

Objectives

I’m also setting some specific objectives for the short term, transparently, for everyone to see:

• More than double the number of site members by the end of January 2008
• Double the number of contributions by the end of January 2008
• No existing pages with content placeholders by the end of January 2008

As a community, let’s develop a best-practice social media 101 training program.

Check out the wiki.