Today’s post comes courtesy of Gareth Murran, ThirdForce innovation Team

Social media is real life and no longer considered a passing fad. Look no further than the hotels you stay in, the restaurants like Whitbread where you dine and the airlines you fly on for proof. More often than not, there’s a Twitter and Facebook account possibly even a Foursquare presence behind the company in question.

Because social media is a platform for the customer’s voice and that voice can be heard by anyone in the world the hospitality industry as a whole has embraced social media in a huge way.  Hospitality businesses of all sizes,  from the biggest hotel chain to the little neighborhood cafe have found their own unique ways to harness the power of Facebook and the distribution possibilities made available via Twitter.

Recent examples include

• RT @Boojum_Dublin: Did you hear that we’re havin a free burrito day once we get to 1000 members on Facebook? We need 296 more peeps pls!
• RT @HotelChatter: A reason to spend the weekend at NH Hotels this summer? Free run of the minibar: http://bit.ly/cKCy94

Because the social customer can talk to a brand through many channels at the same time, they expects everyone at a company to have the same background on an issue. For example, if I complain about an airline poor response to the ash cloud on Twitter, I want the representative who engages me there to know my itinerary and the full history of our interaction through various channels. Jacob Morgan of Chess Media has developed this pretty comprehensive diagram that explains beautifully this new ear of customer relation management:

If social media is to be part of your companies plans then everyone from the bartender to the Manager should know about it. Those in the know should make it a point to educate staff on their own social media presence and promotions, as well as encourage employees to embrace social technologies for their own personal use and become that brands super fans. Customer service is the most obvious way for the hospitality industry to use social media, and Twitter is the perfect vehicle for resolving customer issues or making a guest’s day with a simple “thanks for visiting” tweet.

The best in the business are going above and beyond the customer service arena. Companies have adopted these tools or similar ones internally to support intra organisational learning. The key component is determining which tools are appropriate to achieve a partuclar learning objective. Reassuringly for the L&D person, technology cant solve everything and thats where building a strong mentoring and support infrastructure becomes a key component of any social / informal learning technology solution.

Does your company use social learning tools internally? Do you think social media belongs more to one department or another? How is social learning managed at your company?