KM Insights: Can You Tweet Your Way to Improved Development Outcomes?

Maciej Chmielewski, communications specialist/digital designer with the USAID KDMD Project, sat down for a video chat with communications consultant Lindsay Levin, based in California, for the latest KM Insights video.

Back when Lindsay Levin began working on Agrilinks through the USAID Knowledge-Driven Microenterprise Development (KDMD) project over three years ago, social media was in its nascent stages at USAID. Recognizing the potential of social media to augment traditional knowledge management approaches, Lindsay, along with KDMD’s communications team, developed a targeted social media strategy to enhance the project’s outreach throughout the learning cycle. As a result, over the course of the KDMD project, social media has enabled USAID to expand its efforts in knowledge generation, capture, sharing, and application in a variety of technical areas, especially food security and agriculture.

Take a traditional Ag Sector Council seminar, for example. By introducing an interactive webinar component, KDMD extended the reach of seminars beyond a typical in-person format to engage with practitioners all over the world (read more about best practices in webinar facilitation from KDMD's Dar Maxwell). Through social media, KDMD has been able to reach an even wider network of development practitioners by (1) announcing the event and discussing findings online via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn; (2) disseminating short videos from events via YouTube so practitioners can consume content in their preferred format; (3) creating blog posts that recap events; and, (4) encouraging event participants to submit their own blog posts to further distill and share key highlights. One of KDMD's biggest successes using social media has been #AskAg Twitter Chats that bring a wide range of agriculture and food security practitioners together on a monthly basis to discuss key topics via Twitter.

Watch the KM Insights interview with Lindsay for answers to these questions and more:

How else is KDMD using social media? What platforms is KDMD currently using? How are these tools similar or different from traditional knowledge management tools? What are Agrilinks #AskAg Twitter Chats, and how does KDMD measure success for these chats? How are some other governmental organizations using social media to aid in development?

This KM Insights video is cross-posted from Agrilinks.org.