Social Media: The Social Media Bubble

The Harvard Business Review had a blog post recently that has caused quite a stir but really has some interesting points about relationships created through social media. Check out the article below. Your thoughts?
Although the article is not targeted towards recruitment some of the points can be applied. When it comes to brands online through the social networks I actually believe there is the potential to truly strengthen and build your audience as long as a brand maintains an active role rather than merely having a presence. Staying active and involved is key.
http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/03/the_social_media_bubble.html

SOCIAL NETWORKS - Privacy, Data and Social Networks

Passing this article along that covers how social media users are responding to their information and privacy and where social media is heading. Adrants also points to articles by CNN and the New York Times that cover data sharing and cross-platform utility. What are your thoughts on privacy and social networks?

http://www.adrants.com/2010/05/data-advertising-privacy-key.php

Social Media - Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

via: http://socialnomics.net/

College Recruitment - Betzalel: Grab a Chair, Sit Down & Let's Talk

As we have mentioned before, part of integrating social media into your recruitment campaign is about creating a dialogue with active and passive candidates whether they show an active interest at the time or not. Betzalel, a design college, created a great campaign to initialize the conversation with potential candidates to it's college. People we asked to design a chair and in response people from the college would review the pieces and send feedback on the people's work. This created an active dialogue between the college and the potential students before other colleges even started their initial recruitment.
Garnering that first relationship with the company or brand greatly increases loyalty, recall and recognition of what you offer your candidates in comparison of your competitors. When it stops appearing to be a straight sell and shows that you are more interested in the people involved rather than candidates just being another number in the long list of CVs/resumes, it changes the perspective the potential employees have towards your company. It may have the appearance of a long-term soft sell but at the same time, the quality and loyalty of the candidates you attract may be greatly increased.

http://www.yri.co.il/e/2010/betzalel/

SOCIAL MEDIA - Integrating social media into HR processes

I stumbled across an interesting article today on Personnel Today's website about what the goal behind social media recruitment is.

It seems like many HR professionals may look at the different social networks as a way to find candidates like job boards; but in truth, it is more about developing strong bonds with them and developing relationships with stronger and more fitting candidates by allowing them access to a social network already deep within the company culture.

It is true that many times the amount of people in these groups is vastly reduced in comparison with what kinds of reach you could have with the job boards or a simple newspaper ad but what separates the people active on the social networking sites is the fact that you are reaching directly into you niche target and speaking directly to your candidates.

Take a look at the article to see what John Ingham has to say about "head farming" versus "head hunting."

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2010/04/20/55263/social-media-week-integrating-social-media-into-hr.html

SOCIAL MEDIA - Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn … Somebody Stop the Music! - ERE.net

There is a great article on ERE.net today that talks about the steps and how they are managed towards having a company start into social networking. They cover time, understanding, preparation, show-and-tell and evaluation.

http://www.ere.net/2010/03/25/facebook-twitter-myspace-linkedin-%e2%80%a6-somebody-stop-the-music/

CEO Gina Bianchini leaves Ning

Ning.com CEO Gina Bianchini has stated that she is leaving after 5 years for personal and family reasons. For more updates in regard to this change check out the following articles:

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100315/ning-ceo-gina-bianchini-to-step-down-becomes-an-eir-at-andreessen-horowitz/

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/15/gina-bianchini-replaced-ning/

http://gigaom.com/2010/03/15/ning-new-ceo-jason-rosenthal/

http://www.findmysoft.com/news/Social-Networking-News-Ning-CEO-Steps-Down-After-Half-a-Decade/

http://pulse2.com/2010/03/16/ning-ceo-gina-bianchini-quitting-to-become-eir-at-andreessen-horowitz/

JOB POSTING - Wanted: Social Media Guru Ad writer—the problem with social media help wanted ads.

Make the Logo Bigger made a nice post about things to address when a company is hiring for a social media position. Most of the job descriptions out there are rather broad and generalized in their nature and I really like his idea about tossing out a problem for the candidate to identify and offer solutions to on the spot. It really would give you more information than reading through a resume and seeing where they worked for the past couple years. They also addressed the understanding that a person developing a social media campaign needs to know the brand and industry well enough to know whether that brand even belongs within a certain network.

It was a nice, short and sweet article that brings up a few things to keep in mind when you are developing your job postings and even when it comes to what you are looking for.

Check out the article here.

CANDIDATES - Hey Facebook, Hire Sarah Sultan for the All Online Operations position!

The way candidates are reaching out to their potential employers is increasing in their visibility. Sarah Sultan created a Facebook Group in order to call attention to her proactive nature in vying for the All Online Operations position. Before her, there have been a few other that have taken the route of creating a website to help bolster their efforts. www.Hiremeheadblade.com chronicled Eric Romer's campaign to be hired and continued updating upon being hired to keep his following involved in his company's activity. When it comes to Sarah's approach she is also involving her following by allowing others to offer up support and reviews of her on the wall of the group. It almost seems like she is taking the attributes of LinkedIn (like former employer and coworker reviews) and applying it to Facebook in an alternative manner. I'm interested to see if any other pages like this pop up for more of the Facebook positions.
Check out her group here.

SOCIAL NETWORKING - Social Networks, Recruiting, and Achievements

I came across this article about keeping your social networks updated as you hunt for new recruits.

http://www.silicon.com/management/hr/2010/02/12/hiring-new-staff-best-update-your-linkedin-facebook-twitter-39745462/

As the playing field changes, the candidates are trying to find new ways to stand out, whether it be a video displaying their attributes to keeping an updated Twitter account about their interests and showing how they actively seek out information in their field.

Candidates will be hunting for companies that share their interests and match up in their social field as well. Times might be tight right now and candidates might jump at any opportunity that shows up, but once the market levels out and more options arise, it is important to maintain and build loyalty among your recruits so as not to lose them once the economy feels safer.

Some people are saying the "ME Generation" is starting to fade due to the economic situation but there are things that remain. Candidates are looking for a company that cares and rewards their efforts but also shows an outward acknowledgement of their achievements and the achievements of the company. Keeping employees and candidates (even your customers) aware of what is going on builds the bond that they may be seeking right now.

SOCIAL NETWORKING - Foursquare

We have been looking around for any new advancements in social networking and we may have found it. It is called Foursquare and it integrates your daily routine and locations you visit with social networking and rewards. You tie your account with your phone and notify the network when you are in a specific location. (You are able to hide you location if you chose to.) The more you visit locations or write notes about the locations the more you are able to be awarded with badges and potentially coupons. This creates a bit of a game out of your daily habits while interacting and creating a dialogue with those in the network with you. The network also integrates with FaceBook to show friends where you are and what you are doing. Right now the program is only available for the iPhone but it will soon be branching to the Blackberry. Perhaps this is the first true step in mobile networking.
We'll keep you posted but for now, try and think of ways to integrate this with recruitment.

NEWS - How to Use Social Media to Acquire Staff

Baselinemag.com posted a pretty good article covering the attributes social networking can offer your staffing efforts.
It covers LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter.
Check the article out here.
Let us know your thoughts! Has your company started using social networking?

Social Networking - Is your company on this list?

TweepML has compiled a list of employers that recruit on Twitter and made it easier for people to add the companies and follow them by simple checking what companies they want to logging into Twitter. With the constant growth of Twitter, more and more companies are posting their positions, giving an inside view of their company, or at least opening the door for communication between HR and potential candidates. Where does your company currently stand? Are you already on Twitter? Or is someone posing as you?

Check out the link below for the TweepML list:

http://tweepml.org/Employers-Recruiting-on-Twitter/

Social Networking - "At My Wedding Twitterring and Facebooking at the Altar"

Just in case you hadn't seen it yet...

Social Networking - The 7 Do's and Don'ts of Social Networking

This is written more for general people who are on social networking sites but the information listed is important for people who are running the corporate social networking sites as well. If you are running a networking site for your company you also need to be mindful of what you are posting on your personal accounts as well. Take a look at the article and tell us what you think. Also, on the legal side, what position does your company take in regard to viewing a candidates social networking page before hiring them?
http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=1957

HR - ERE.net - Understanding the Available Social Media Recruiting Strategies — Leveraging Your Employees’ Time

Dr. John Sullivan posted two interesting articles about how to use your HR department when it comes to social media and what they should be involved with and what they should steer away from. It is important to understand it is much easier to manage when you are able to stretch the responsibilites over several people and also involve people outside of HR when it comes to recruiting. Before diving into social media it is also important to create a strategy and not rush into the various sites available.

Check out the articles and let us know what you think:

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/16/understanding-the-available-social-media-recruiting-strategies-leveraging-your-employees%e2%80%99-time-part-1-of-2/

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/23/understanding-the-available-social-media-recruiting-strategies-%e2%80%93-leveraging-your-employees-time-part-2-of-2/

Social Networking - Twittering and Job Fair Alerts

How are you alerting your candidates that you have job fairs approaching?
A newspaper placement is great and so is radio but what about something that is on their own time and under their own control? This is where Twitter can play a major role.
Check out Kroger's Twitter page where they include information on upcoming job fairs, local articles written about stores to be opened and other events that are going on with Kroger.
http://twitter.com/KrogerWorks

They also use their Twitter page to integrate their text campaign along with their recruitment page krogerworks.com.

What are your thoughts about using Twitter for recruitment?

Social Networking - ERE.NET: The Many Benefits of Social Network Recruiting: Making a Compelling Business Case

Times are tight and your budget's even tighter.

One of your challenges: What is a way that you can help build your brand and bolster the word about your brand among your audience and potential candidates? Social media. That's one answer.

Now here's another challenge: How do you convince your higher-ups that it is a reasonable investment of time and money when the return could be so valuable but it is still considered somewhat "new" media?

ERE.net posted a great article a few days back that offers up some great points that you might want to bring up the next time you have to defend working social media into your marketing mix for your recruitment campaigns. These range from the ROI to candidate quality to cost per hire.

Even if you are already sold on using social networking for recruitment some of these points might make you stop and rethink how you are using your resources. It is a quick and great read for those new and experienced in social networking. Check it out!

From ERE.net:

http://www.ere.net/2009/11/02/the-many-benefits-of-social-network-recruiting-making-a-compelling-business-case/

INTERNET - 6 Ways to Succeed With Social Networks

Here is an interesting article from ere.net, that talks about improving traffic to your social networking sites providing a few tips on how to engage your audience. ere.net - 6 Ways to succeed with social networking. Are there any other methods you have used for social networking that has been successful? Please share your ideas!

INTERNET - The agency site reborn as YouTube channel

Agency BooneOakley took a bold and creative approach by directing their website to their YouTube channel. Check out the links on the side and watch the videos that follow. What do you think of it? Would you rather go to a website or do you think a YouTube channel is enough?