Social Media Curriculum
Role: Instructional Designer
Timeline: 3 months
Tools: Articulate 360, Final Cut Pro X, Google Workspace
Stakeholders: Knowledge Management, Social Escalations Team, CS Social Leads
Problem: The 5-day onboarding curriculum for new Social advisors involved a dozen slide decks and over 900 slides. It was entirely lecture-based. Advisors were taking 30+ days to reach proficiency in their roles after onboarding.
Outcome: I delivered a 5-day blended learning experience that incorporated hands-on activities and surprise engagements throughout the week. We saw a 25% decrease in time to proficiency.
Prep
Before I could redesign the training, I needed to see it in action.
I was new to Spotify, and redesigning this curriculum was one of my very first projects. So I flew to Phoenix, Arizona and shadowed the existing training. Here are some of the things I observed:
Advisors had access to the training materials and would skip ahead, distracting themselves (and others)
It also wasn’t clear to the advisors what their objectives were during training other than “learn”
The material didn’t have a clear narrative flow or reasons from moving to one module to another
The entire training was presentation-based and had very little hands-on engagement for the learners
Advisors I shadowed in production were using the training decks as a source of truth instead of the internal knowledge base, which was more accurate and up-to-date
The Re-design
Before I could redesign the training, I needed to see it in action.
I was new to Spotify, and redesigning this curriculum was one of my very first projects. So I flew to Phoenix, Arizona and shadowed the existing training. Here are some of the things I observed:
Advisors had access to the training materials and would skip ahead, distracting themselves (and others)
It also wasn’t clear to the advisors what their objectives were during training other than “learn”
The material didn’t have a clear narrative flow or reasons from moving to one module to another
The entire training was presentation-based and had very little hands-on engagement for the learners
Advisors I shadowed in production were using the training decks as a source of truth instead of the internal knowledge base, which was more accurate and up-to-date
Daily Decks
To streamline the trainer’s experience in the classroom, I created a single deck for each day of training. It simplified the experience of moving through content—and made it easier for the trainers to share links with advisors, since they were included in the decks!
Daily eLearnings
Advisors also have a daily eLearning that corresponds to the trainer’s deck and reviews key learnings throughout the day. Advisors are also able to reference the courses after training rather than having to access the training materials.
Emoji Bingo
An example of a hands-on, Social-centric activity:
I created a short video that explained which emojis we can use in Customer Support, followed by a game of Bingo. To win, advisors had to link to public support tweets that utilized our approved emojis.
Emojis
I scripted, voiced, and edited this video about which emojis were approved for advisor use on our official social accounts.
It replaced a 30-minute presentation with a significantly more engaging 2-minute video and 28-minute hands-on activity.
This video doesn’t have burnt-in captions, but here is a transcript:
Emojis. For many of us, they’ve become a part of our everyday lives. We use them in our texts, tweets, and statuses to express happiness, sadness, anger, love, and—well, lots of other things.
If you want to express a feeling, there’s probably an emoji to help you get your point across. [Gina from Brooklynn 99:] “The English language cannot fully capture the depth and complexity of my thoughts, so I’m incorporating emoji into my speech to better express myself. Winky face.”
But as a brand that’s interacting with users on social media, we need to think carefully about how and when we’re using emojis. Some emojis are appropriate, like when someone tells us how much they love us. Or when we want to add a little positive flare. Maybe we’re joining in the jam session. And sometimes, there’s even a reason to celebrate.
Emojis enhance our tone of voice and humanize us—and our users seem to appreciate it. To help us navigate how to use emojis from the point-of-view of a brand, we have a list of emojis and scenarios for when you’d use each one in the social style guide.
But there are also some emojis you’ll never see us use on social media. As a general rule, we want to keep our interactions positive. So no matter how cheerful that poo might look, we’re gonna keep it simple so there’s no room for misinterpretation.
When in doubt, check the style guide or ask for help.
An example of one of a self-paced activity built into the daily eLearnings.
An optional, self-paced activity to help advisors eliminate extraneous words and phrases from their tweets.