Content for Modern Learners: What L&D Leaders can Learn from Creators on Social Media

In this episode of L&D in Action, we’re joined by Founder and CEO of Anchored Training, Vanessa Alzate. Vanessa is an instructional designer with a decade of experience in the L&D space, and has made it her mission to bridge the gap between the old-school and what’s new and next in learning solutions. Top of mind for her is how social media has turned into one of the most prolific platforms for education, and the many ways learning and development practitioners can learn from new educators and content creators.

Learning and Development efforts are very rarely associated with thrilling, addictive content. In fact, quite the opposite–until recently, when the media landscape changed forever. As e-learning burst into the spotlight during the pandemic, the public also became fascinated by their favorite educators on social media. Now, L&D leaders have a wonderful opportunity to learn from future generations, not only how to make use of the historically prohibitive video medium, but how to teach in an impactful, concise manner. That’s right, we’re talking about TikTok.

To help us connect the dots between old school L&D and new-school, fast-paced social media-inspired education, we speak with Vanessa Alzate. Vanessa is an educator, speaker and consultant, and as the founder and CEO of Anchored Training she helps Fortune 500s achieve their L&D goals through creative and modern instructional design tactics, sometimes influenced by social media.

Join us as we discuss:

Why the accessibility, simplicity and pace of new social media content should be taken seriously by learning leaders
How to blend asynchronous and synchronous learning in a way that makes the most impact on the most learners
How to make sure mandatory training categories don’t set a sterile tone for the rest of your learning content
How the authenticity of the beauty content creators can inform corporate learning style and format
Understanding that while content can’t target everyone, establishing “learning personas” can help
What instructional designers can learn from social media about giving learning optionality in their content
How to address the increasingly shorter shelf-life of learning content

Episode Resources

Vanessa Alzate on LinkedIn
Anchored Training on LinkedIn
Anchored Training website
getAbstract website
getAbstract on LinkedIn

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here.

L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders releases every other Tuesday, bringing you conversations from the best minds in Learning and Development.

Previous guests include: Simon Brown of Novartis, Ravin Jesuthasan of Mercer, Michael Lee Stallard of Connection Culture Group, Michelle Weise of Rise and Design and Dr. Nigel Paine of Learning Now TV.

Check out our five most downloaded episodes: