Social Media Strategies to Find Awesome Talent or Find a Job

 

Finding quality people is difficult. Even in this economic climate, where the advantage is certainly in the hands of those looking for talent, hiring managers still want to find the best fit.

 

Social media tools are being employed to find quality talent and the hiring managers who use them increasingly have an edge over those who don't.

 

I was asked to speak at HR Houston about social media strategy for the HR professional. I brought along my friend Natalie Gonzales from Clearpoint Creative, a talent agency that specializes in creative professionals.

 

Here were three touchpoints for HR professionals looking to break into social media.

 

1. NETWORK: for your own professional development and to find the right tools for the job. LinkedIn Answers is a good place to ask questions about tools and techniques. Twitter is a great place to build community. Steve Boech has put together a couple of lists of HR professionals on Twitter to get you started, and of course you should follow my co-presenter Natalie @natatclearpoint

 

2. SEARCH. You can search for keywords in LinkedIn, and you can also search LinkedIn from Google in the advanced search (one of the attendees uses this technique). Almost all of the professionals agreed that if you are a talent scout a $20/month paid account is essential.

 

3. BUILD. Look for where your potential hires generally hang out and start building your online presence there. For management professionals look to LinkedIn, marketing and PR like Twitter and women tend to hang out in Facebook in higher proportions than men.

 

There are a lot more tips and tactics in the Slideshare presentation.

 

If you are looking for a job check out Sarah Evan's Mashable post on Finding a Job in Twitter, one she wrote on MyFoxChicago about using social media to find a job, and also look at Twitter Job Search, a pretty cool tool for finding jobs posted on Twitter (recruiters can use this post jobs too).

 

Social Networking For HR Professionals

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The 5 Ws of Social Media Strategy

One of the things that I find really difficult to overcome with clients is the tendency to focus in on tools. Some of the questions I often get:

• Do you think we should have a Facebook page?
• Can you walk us through some best practices for YouTube, Twitter, Ning, etc.?
• Whatever happened to MySpace, will that happen to the hot tools of the moment?

Not that these questions aren't good ones but they miss the point. I recommend starting with these questions instead:

The 5 Ws of Social Media Strategy

• WHO are you trying to reach?
• WHAT are your objectives, what are you trying to accomplish?
• WHERE do these people hang out online?
• WHEN and HOW is the best time and way to reach them?
• WHY will they care about what you have to say? What is the value that you bring to the table and the conversation?

What are some of the questions you think are important to start with when looking at formulating a social media strategy?

Strategic Social Media Management 2009

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This presentation was given as a PRSA teleseminar.

Case Study: Making Legislative Activism Fun? Live Earth Gives it a Try

Having lived in Washington D.C. for thirteen years, eight of which I worked at a trade association, the one thing I learned about legislation is that it is a long, messy and serious business fraught with partisan land mines.

 

Any of you that have spent any time in these endeavors at the national or local levels know exactly what I mean.

 

Fun generally doesn't enter into the equation, unless you count a "Hill Reception" as fun (I don't).

 

Having Fun with Legislation

 

That is why when Geoff Livingston, a well-known blogger and author (and oftentimes a partner of mine), asked me to help out with a campaign to use humor, fun and creativity to encourage the Congress to pass climate legislation, I was all ears.

 

This year it will be exceedingly difficult to break through to legislators about climate change with health care consuming all of the time. It is up to the Senate to come up with a bill that can garner broad support. That sounds hard, not fun.

 

So, along with Live Earth, which is a an organization dedicated to using entertainment to solve environmental issues, Geoff and the team came up with the idea to imagine the world as it would be if all the environmental problems were solved and send a message to Congress. Here is a link to a video explaining the campaign. The campaign started yesterday and will continue through Friday September 25th. And there are also great prizes. LiveEarth asks that you contribute some kind of content and then sign up for the sweepstakes, which includes some pretty cool prizes.

 

What I like about the campaign is that it aims to be creative and fun, plus there are a number of ways to participate.

 

• Facebook Message: Post a message on the Facebook page or link to one from your blog that is support of climate change - be creative
• Voice Mail Message: Send a voicemail to 347-422-6392 or send one from our Facebook Tab
• Share a Photo: Add your photo to the Love, The Climate group on Flickr, we already have a number of photos and they are stunning.
• Submit a Video: You can supply a link or embed code, or upload a video at the LiveEarth website

Here is an example of the type of submission Live Earth is looking to get from TV and online host Shia Lazar. (This video really cracks me up). Of course it doesn't have to be this professional.

 

 

I am not sure yet what the outcome of this campaign will be, but I will be sure to update it here. If you have any ideas how we can punch up the campaign, leave them in the comments.

 

Live Earth is also participating in social media and building a community through their blog, in their Friends of Live Earth Ning page and also on their Twitter account @LiveEarth

 

Here is a pretty good explanation of what the climate bill entails and a post from Live Earth about the legislation.

 

Credts: The cool logo is by David Armano.

Beyond Personal Brand to Character

 

I think that we might be losing our way.

 

Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln's Own Stories
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Public relations and social media tools are powerful ways to communicate character. The character of a company or an individual. But it seems that more and more people are trying to use these tools to manipulate the shadows of brand and reputation.

 

Venn diagram by Steven Leckert

 

It is one of the reasons I am so uncomfortable with a focus on personal branding since it leads to an undue focus on the self rather than developing and communicating character.

 

It is sending the wrong message about what matters.

 

In a survey of 1,068 college students by SDSU Psychology Professor Jean Twenge and Youth Pulse 57 percent agreed that their generation are self-promoting, narcissistic, overconfident and attention-seeking and 40 percent agree that being so is helpful for "succeeding in a competitive world."

 

The youth of America are looking at each other and us and determining that the only way to get ahead is by navel gazing.

 

A better model is for the company (or individual) to develop strong values that they can live into and put all of their focus on that. Instead we seem to focus on our BRAND or REPUTATION -- which should instead be evident through living out our values.

 

I recently heard someone make the point that your values are what make you unique.

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

By authentically living these values "out loud" you can differentiate yourself in the marketplace.

 

We need to stop manipulating the shadows and start working on the tree.

 

How can we live our values out loud online? What does that look like to you?

 

(via Mashable)

Inside Out: Engaging External Audiences With Internal Culture

 

I always find it interesting that so many companies have amazing internal cultures that somehow end at the firewall. In many cases there is amazing content and information just inside the company Intranet but outside that barrier communication suddenly becomes a bunch of legalese and marketing-speak.

 

Now if your internal communications tend to be as uninspired as the typical press room, then this post may not be for you. However, I have seen a few examples of companies that have some pretty entertaining and educational internal communication vehicles.

 

Some of this content could be used externally, or be modified, to give customers, and possible future employees, a sneak peak into what makes the company so great—it's people.

 

The big hurdle to overcome is usually management resistance to sharing. The major concerns often sound something like this:

• It isn't targeted to customers, they will find it boring
• It isn't targeted to customers, there is no "call to action" and thus no purpose to the communication
• Our competitors will steal our ideas
• It's never been done before
• Add your favorite concern here....

All of these concerns, plus many more that I haven't listed, are legitimate but the risks can be mitigated.  Even simply repurposing some of the better internal communications material can give your external communications more warmth and personality. It can also save you money to put together both internal and external communication at the same time. You can use the same video footage and just slightly tweak the message.  You can write an article or blog post that both your internal and external stakeholders would find interesting, And as for competitors stealing your ideas, you obviously have to take care not to reveal things that would be illegal (insider trading for example) or that are truly proprietary.

 

Unfortunately, I think many businesses err on the side of extreme caution when determining what is proprietary. I have always thought that if you are sharing something, you better be on to figuring out the next big milestone or you will be obsolete—especially in today's fast-moving environment.

 

Here is the most recent version of WAVE-TV, an internal video program produced by SeaWorld San Antonio. Last year the park started to share this program on its You Tube channel in a WAVE-TV playlist (Disclaimer: client). They have served these out interspersed with other video that is more targeted, but often they are favorites with fans who are eager for a behind-the-scenes look at the park.

 

 

What are some other ways that internal communications can be repurposed for external communications?