The hidden digital skills gap at work that no one talks about

Disclosure: Ryan Holmes is the CEO of HootSuite.

Photo credit: Bethany Legg

On Feb. 4, 2004, the first handful of users at Harvard University logged onto the newly launched thefacebook.com, the predecessor to Facebook. Just a dozen years later, 2 billion people — nearly one-third of the planet — are on social media. The speed at which adoption has spread is almost certainly unprecedented in the history of the world.

No wonder companies, and their employees, are struggling to keep up. After initial skepticism, businesses have raced to social media, chasing the estimated three-quarters of consumers who now say social media influences their buying decisions. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. companies are currently using Twitter, Facebook and other networks – jockeying for their share of the estimated $1.3 trillion in value that social media stands to unlock, according to analysts McKinsey and Company.

There’s just one small problem.

The contemporary workforce is woefully underprepared for the challenges ahead. A social media skills gap of epic proportions has opened up, as social media races ahead while formal training and education programs lag seriously behind. How bad is it?

Among 2,100 companies surveyed by Harvard Business Review, a meagre 12 percent of those using social media feel they use it effectively, stats echoed in research by Capgemini and other industry consultants. Reports of social media gaffes and blunders in the workplace are, of course, commonplace. Yet, the real price of the skills gap often goes unnoticed: billions of dollars in lost opportunities and revenue.

What’s behind the social skills gap?

The reason for this skills shortfall? The easy culprit is the growing number of networks and their ever-evolving feature set. Last year, for instance, Snapchat was still a toy for teens to trade disappearing messaging; this year it’s the latest way to reach young customers on their own turf. As more platforms incorporate more and more sophisticated features, even the most plugged-in users are struggling to keep up.

At the same time, how social media is used in the workplace is fundamentally changing. Just a few years ago, social media in the office was the domain of specialized social media managers, gatekeepers who owned a company’s social responsibilities.

In short time, however, social media duties have been radically democratized and decentralized. Social media is increasingly everyone’s responsibility.

 Social media is increasingly everyone’s responsibility.

Employees are being asked to apply social media in new and unexpected ways. The familiar marketing functions, in fact, are just the tip of the iceberg. Social tools are being used to streamline customer service, for sales and HR and as part of employee brand advocacy programs. Meanwhile, social platforms like Facebook at Work (in beta now and expected to roll out in 2016) and Slack (which boasts millions of users, from NASA to your corner coffee shop), are quickly changing how we collaborate inside companies. By bringing social messaging inside the office, these technologies are breaking down silos and boosting productivity.

In short, social media has become less a discrete thing that people do on the job and more an integral component of everything they do.

But this approach only works if employees are on board and up to speed. “The real problem is that we expect people to know these skills without providing any training,” explains William Ward, professor of social media at Syracuse University, whom I talked to for a recent article.

Finding ways to bridge the social skills gap