First Interdepartmental Social Media Bootcamp

Owing to digitalization on the one hand and the Coronavirus pandemic on the other, cross-media collaboration within a company is now more important than ever. As working from home and social distancing become the norm, Social Media are also helping our colleagues with communication tasks and strengthening the feeling of togetherness — regardless of location and time zone. The Social Media Team at Uniper, consisting of Tim Krasenbrink, Thierry Tiquant and Benjamin Olabamidele, quickly recognized the relevance of communicating digitally and launched the first interdepartmental social media bootcamp. Between January 29 and February 26, 2021, our entire Digital Finance Knowledge Department learned about what's important when working with social media, particularly LinkedIn and Twitter, and got the opportunity to hone their existing skills. All 20 employees from the five finance teams successfully completed the Social Media bootcamp.

The close collaboration between the two departments has boosted participants' self-confidence in using Social Media — in both their personal and their professional lives. "Even if you though you already knew a lot about social media, this month has taught us a great deal. With coaching and unwavering support from the Social Media Team, we were given advice on how to use Social Media confidently. The way I interact with the platforms has changed significantly since then," said Thorsten Scharr, Senior Digitalization Expert at Uniper.

The Social Media Team used a channel on Microsoft Teams to give participants digital learning materials such as guidelines, articles, visuals and videos. The balance between presentations and interactive tasks, for example in the form of weekly challenges, provided even greater motivation. Colleagues worked together in small groups to develop and implement ideas and concepts for accounts and posts — with team spirit the top priority all the while. Points were collected and prizes were awarded for the most outstanding achievements. For the entirety of the bootcamp, the experts Tim, Thierry and Benjamin were on hand to help participants via a hotline where they answered questions, gave feedback. They were also available for discussions and to talk about personal progress.

"The project was a great opportunity to bring teams within Uniper together even during these times of social distancing. This method of learning has helped many participants develop from Social Media amateurs into experts. I'm proud of the great results our dedicated colleagues have been able to achieve," said Tim Krasenbrink, who runs the Social Media training courses at Uniper. Following on from the four-week-long voyage of discovery, the Digital Finance Knowledge Department has optimized personal accounts and can now create its own posts on pre-decided topics, identify the appropriate channel, interact with existing Uniper posts and use hashtags effectively. Maja Nikolova, Digital Finance Expert at Uniper, firmly believes in what she has learned from the bootcamp: "Posting useful and engaging content is critical to Social Media visibility. And behind every successful story (on Social Media) is a great team!"