Social media at my work
I work in child welfare family work. I use different digital tools a lot in my work. We mostly use Nappula for the recording system, where we record all customer-related information and transactions. I use the whatsapp application for communication with customers and the Teams application for remote meetings. I also use various systems related to job monitoring, such as the workforce planning software Mepco and the invoicing software ProCountor. Together with my customers, I use systems in their everyday lives, such as Päikky, Wilma or electronic appointment booking systems.
I use the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in my work. They allow us to market and bring information about our work and create a positive image of our work for people. People may often be sceptical about child protection, which may even cause people to feel negative about our work. On Facebook and Instagram, you can share photos of pleasant moments with customers and tell them what the job entails. They can also be used to share important information about the well-being of families through various information bulletins.
New social media tools for me
I chose LinkedIn, Doodle, Tik Tok, Slack and Miro as my new social media tools.
LinkedIn is a good application to support contact building and networking. It’s nice to make contacts with people in your field and read the studies or articles they share. It is nice to notice, for example, in a network meeting that the person participating in the meeting is already familiar through LinkedIn and has shared, for example, an article on an important topic. This will help establish a good working relationship. Through LinkedIn, you can find employees for open positions and find suitable colleagues. Of course, it can sometimes be challenging if you already know the person through LinkedIn and you have formed preconceived notions about the person. Linked does not always give a correct image of a person, and it is good to remember that only a certain image of oneself is shared there, just like elsewhere on social media.
Through TikTok, I could market and promote my work to user groups that Facebook and Instagram may not reach, especially younger age groups. I don’t quite know how TikTok works, but the challenge might be to create the right kind of interesting content. TikTok, like other social media, should also carefully consider data protection issues.
Through Doodle, I could arrange meetings with different actors, and especially for network meetings, it would be a good tool, because it makes it easy to schedule a meeting time without numerous email exchanges. I feel that Doodle could be a good alternative to or alongside the Teams I am currently using.
With Slack, you could communicate with your own team and discuss important themes with either the whole team or just one member. Slack could be a replacement for the apps for Teams we’re now using. Slack seems visually more comfortable than Teams.
Miro would make it easy to plan and share projects. Sometimes I work on projects that are worked on with a larger group, and Miro could be a good tool for that. With Miro’s help, you could comment on other people’s plans and proceed according to your own schedule.
When choosing these new platforms, I noticed that many of them have the same features as the platforms I use now. However, I do not believe that my team will be using any of these new platforms very soon.
the elements of successful use of digital application
In my opinion, the most important thing when using social media and digitalist applications is to remember data security issues. Especially when I work in the social and health care sector, I constantly process customer data, and I need to think carefully about how and where it can be recorded. It is also good to remember the data protection rights of your colleagues.
You shouldn’t use any digital application just because you need to use them. With each application, you should consider whether you need it and what added value it could bring to your own work. The purpose of applications is to make work easier, not the other way around.
When a new application is introduced to a working group, it must be presented well and its use must be familiarized. The working group must be aware of how and for what the application should be used. New employees should also always be well familiarized with the use of applications.