Maximising the use of Social Networking sites for HR
Posted By: Thomas Shaw, 11:25pm Thursday 04 June 2009
Because of the effectiveness of online communities in disseminating information, social media/networking websites have become indispensable tools for HR professionals. HR can use these sites for recruitment, employee engagement, increasing retention, management, monitoring and more.
Recruiting and brand building is social media's biggest use for HR currently. It's not uncommon to find organisations recruiting through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
HR are applying the same principles that marketers and advertisers use to attract a particular targeted audience. HR can maximise the use of social networking given the right strategies.
Go to the right networks
It doesn't make sense to explore social media site that do not meet your targeted demographic.
Take the time to search
It's going to take a bit of practice to learn the ropes for social networking. Use basic profile searching to begin with and over time you will learn boolean and x-ray search techniques.
Move or lose!
It's also important to note that you're not the only organisation or recruiting through these sites. Others would have begun tapping into the site long before you have started exploring it.
Be professional
Even in a social environment, appearances are everything. If you're going to put up a profile on Facebook or Twitter for recruiting, you want to maintain a certain degree of professionalism in your pages.
It seems obvious to say it, but it's also important to be nice. Don't treat people rudely. Word of mouth works fast, especially in a diverse online community. You don't want to be the subject of a blog post or YouTube video making the rounds of how you were unprofessional to a particular applicant.
Use social networks to promote employee engagement
When employees feel passionate about the company's products and services, sales improve. Social networks can have a huge impact on employee engagement, and more and more organisations now use it to increase involvement and commitment among workers.
These are just a few of the many tips that you have to keep in mind when working with social networking websites.