Do I Really Have to Share?

Sharing is a life skill that most of us learn as young children. It typically begins when siblings are introduced into the household, at play dates, or at school. You learn how to share your mother’s time, your toys, your books, and countless other things. It may have seemed painful at first, but it was something you had to learn in order to make friends and play cooperatively.

Fast forward to a few years later, you find that that sharing is easy. It’s a daily occurrence. For those who are active on social media, sharing is essential. Some share words of wisdom and information about their companies or the products they sell. Others share what they had for dinner, personal viewpoints, news and everything in between. They also share interesting content posted by their friends, colleagues, celebrities and bloggers. This type of sharing helps us build relationships online and keeps us connected. It also helps us learn from those around us.

One of the things I enjoy about working at Cisco is that I get to share what I’ve learned with others. It’s rewarding to help someone else – to exchange best practices and to help spark new ideas. I also have the unique privilege of being able to benchmark with many of today’s leading social media experts, sharing and learning from each other. John F. Kennedy once said, “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” It’s true. Good leaders should always be learning and then sharing that knowledge with others.

Training transforms people. It’s with this in mind that we developed social media training courses and certifications for our employees, but we didn’t stop there. Last year, we decided to share some of our award-winning training publicly so others could benefit from what our teams have learned. We now offer several learning opportunities at no cost. You can access on-demand best practices courses or schedule one-on-one team consulting with our subject matter experts.

Social media skills are becoming increasingly more important for marketers, and it’s exciting to help others develop these essential skills. Since our Social Media Training program began less than two years ago, more than 18,000 internal program courses have been taken by people located in 51 countries, and almost 800 social media certifications have been awarded. Externally, more than 700 courses have been completed by customers and partners from across the globe. How’s that for sharing?

To learn more about the Cisco Social Media Training program and to take advantage of our free on-demand courses, visit http://cs.co/SocialMediaTraining. To chat about how you are sharing your social media expertise, leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your stories and social media tips.