At first glance, Snapchat isn’t the first medium you’d reach for when planning training strategy. After all, a social network which sends pictures to individuals to view for a paltry few seconds is hardly conducive to knowledge sharing. With the 2013 addition of the Snapchat Stories feature, however, the app gets a facelift that makes it more relevant and a favorite way to increase interest, share progress, and yes, even teach learners a thing or two.
Think beyond the memo, and you have an innovative new way to keep your team connected and your learners in the know, all from your smartphone.
Snapchat Stories 101
Before you can harness their eLearning power, you’ll need to understand how Snapchat Stories work. Unlike regular “snaps,” which are one-off pictures you send to an individual to view for a predetermined amount of time (up to 10 seconds), Snapchat Stories are essentially slideshows made up of both 10-second videos and pictures.
Created as a way to show followers a visual account of the day, you can add as much media to your Story as you want and it will be shared with your followers for 24 hours only. After that, the slate is wiped clean and it’s time to create a new Story.
Snapchat Stories offer a significant benefit for L&D applications: They show who on your friends list opened and viewed each Story. Therefore, if you want to ensure that everyone is getting your message, you can create a story and then monitor who is viewing that Story until it expires (viewers enjoy unlimited access to the content until the 24-hour timeframe is up).
Obviously, Snapchat Stories aren’t going to be the way you show learners a complicated new technique or send out information that needs to be saved, but Snapchat definitely has its place in L&D and team communication. Check out these ideas for adopting Snapchat Stories into your strategy:
- Time Sensitive. Is it time for your team to begin their annual compliance training? Is there a conference coming up? Use Snapchat stories to film quick reminders and then monitor which team members received that update.
- Increase interest. Whether you have a mandatory training meeting on deck or a voluntary lunch-and-learn scheduled, Snapchat Stories can help drum up interest for your events. Create a slideshow of some of the stuff learners can expect, from speakers to sushi.
- Work updates. Various departments can keep their team in the loop by creating Snapchat Stories to show what they’ve been up to. Project updates, new accounts, and a behind-the-scenes peek can help boost morale and teamwork.
- Learning preview. You can personalize learning by using Snapchat Stories to preview what you’ll be teaching during a training session. Learners can check it out and gauge whether or not they need to attend according to their knowledge and skill base.
Increasing interest in training–be it compliance or leadership–requires all the help you can get. If learners are already using Snapchat, it makes sense to add it to your arsenal for updates and reminders. Who knew that 10 seconds could be so effective?
