The buzz around location-based social networking

For this post, I’ll be focusing on location-based social networking sites; namely, Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt (BrightKite, Google Latitude, and many other services are also in the space), as a lot of attention is being given to these types of sites. Brian Solis describes location-based social networking as “a universe where physical and online activity merge to improve experiences and relationships between people and also between people and businesses, services, and locales.” Simply by using these sites, businesses are already building relationships with potential candidates and strengthening relationships with employees — and there’s a lot of potential for the future.

Keep in mind, although we’re talking about location-based sis, you may be able to use the ideas in this post for that next “big thing” in the social media world; it’s all about getting creative and thinking about how you can use the new tools you discover in the social space for recruitment, engagement and retention. Before you know it, your business may be ready (or have a sudden need) to participate in something new, and by learning about social networking sites as they emerge, you’ll be one step ahead when you do.

Location-based social networking: What is it?

Although the sites I mentioned above all work a bit differently, location-based social networking sites, or “lo-so networks,” allow users to “check in” at venues through mobile devices, to let people in their network know where they are at any given moment — or find out where their friends are staking claim.

Essentially, it’s social networking meets gaming — users interact and compete for “prestige” through badges, points, items or other awards (both virtual and real-life awards). Right now, these sites are primarily for businesses like bars, restaurants, retail stores, and tourist destinations (TV networks, magazines, and foodie guide Zagat also make up the list of top brands on Foursquare) — but that’s likely going to be changing soon, as evidenced by Foursquare’s message to us at CareerBuilder when we tried to claim our business on Foursquare: “While we’re working the kinks out of our system, we’re trying to limit foursquare specials to places where people meet, socialize and linger. Think: cafes, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, museums, theaters, etc. But stay tuned! We’ll be expanding the system soon, and you’ll be one of the first to know when we’re ready for all types of business!”

How can businesses use these sites for recruitment?

Right now, the capabilities for granular recruitment through location-based services aren’t robust — but future possibilities are vast. And in the meantime, it’s smart to get familiar with these sites, gain a presence — and get creative. Every medium you use to promote your brand and expose others to your business equals another touch point between you and the users you want to reach.

1. Loyalty programs

If you’re like me, you get to a store counter, frantically fish for that “buy 10 coffees and get one free!” paper card in your wallet, and, after a fruitless search, dejectedly get a new paper card and start the whole process over again — no free coffee obtained. Good news — many businesses have been using location-based services to test these types of loyalty programs — but instead of a little paper card, you get your stamp by checking into their place of business.

For instance, users on Foursquare can accumulate points for checking in and become Mayor of a certain location — and many businesses are now awarding the Mayor of their location (a title that changes hands all the time) with specials or certain privileges for their patronage. Similarly, users on Loopt Star is Loopt’s mobile rewards game where users compete to become “Boss,” and are awarded with special offers and free music for checking in at venues.

Other businesses are giving significant discounts to a user’s order when they check in for the very first time — a great way to welcome new users and say “Thanks for your business.” Still, most businesses on Foursquare aren’t offering specials (only around 3 percent are) — so the potential for your business to get in the space and make yourself stand out is huge.

2. Contests and Scavenger Hunts

Contests are a great way to promote user engagement. Some companies are doing raffles, in which every user who checks in gets entered to win a prize. Other businesses are creating scavenger hunts for users — like SPIN magazine and SXSW’s recent team up for a musical hunt.

Something similar could be done as a team-building event for employees — not only are scavenger hunts a fun event, but employees can participate in a little friendly competition and get to know co-workers they may not come into contact with on a daily basis. Games like this allow employees to come together as teams or interact with customers in a new fashion. They also have a lot of potential for increasing employee engagement and recognizing employee achievements (and, ahem, recognition is one of the top things employees said they wanted in CareerBuilder’s Mid-Year Job Forecast).

Geotoko is a site that just launched for mobile-based contests and sweepstakes that supports multiple location-based services. So, if you’re a business running a contest, you can maximize your reach by opening it up to Gowalla obsessives and Foursquare devotees all at once.

Another advantage of contests? Competition promotes teamwork among co-workers, and are a great supplement to other things you’re doing to onboard new employees and help them get to know the veteran employees.

3.Listening, observing and communicating

Foursquare recently introduced analytics tools — which allow businesses to monitor activity and adjust specials or engagement accordingly (like the P.C.C. Natural Markets, who used the tools to find out a lot of their Foursquare visitors were coming in for a specific type of donut). Foursquare is also currently testing Staff pages, which will allow employees to interact directly with customers.These pages have major potential for businesses to promote their company culture, let their employees’ personalities shine, and put a personal spin on their “business” face.

Many companies are getting creative and finding ways to communicate with their users to increase traffic to their business and enrich their relationships with users and the user experience itself. Rev. Dave Davis, executive pastor of Glen Ellyn, Ill.’s Parkview Community Church, says if a person checks into the church on Foursquare, they are greeted by a message welcoming them to the church. He adds that by reaching out to the younger generation in particular, speaking their language, and trying to reach them at their spot, they are more likely to visit your spot. (And he seems to be on to something — according to recent Forrester research, nearly 70 percent of location-based service users are 19-35 years old, and 70 percent have college degrees or higher.)

Imagine what businesses could do if they were able to identify candidates specifically and reach out to them? Even at this point, though you don’t necessarily know which users, if any, are interested in a job with your company, location-based sites are a great way to start building relationships and listening to what users want. For instance, when people check into your venue, they can give feedback or leave a “tip” about it for others to see when they check in. This is a great way for you to find out what people do and don’t like about your brand and make adjustments quickly when needed. Taking this even further, some businesses see who’s checking into their business on a location-based service and then follow up with a personal message on Twitter — taking one touch point and expanding that relationship to another medium.

Quick Tip: Aside from finding a user’s Twitter handle on his or her Foursquare profile, you can search for your business name and Foursquare check-ins on Twitter to find out who’s checking into your business on Twitter by going to search.twitter.com and typing in “at Company Name” 4sq.

4. Search engines and Foursquare

Foursquare is now reportedly in talks with major search engines, which could change the game for businesses and recruitment, as businesses would be able to gain presence on search engines through more people “checking in” and causing their business to trend in search. What implications could this have? If a business attracts more Foursquare users and conversation around that business increases, more search engine users will see that business’s name — and the buzz around it — online while searching. This would help businesses build a stronger employment brand, expose it to a larger audience of candidates (some of whom may not have been aware of the business — or even of Foursquare — before), and get more people applying to jobs there. The addition to search engines would eliminate the need for people to be part of Foursquare to see a business’s activity on the site — meaning larger reach. At the same time, giving a site like Foursquare exposure on search engine results would increase their user base: A win-win.

How much of an impact would this move have? That remains to be seen — and as I see it, significant potential lies in the staff experience of a business being displayed in search results. How much information about the business would be given in results? Would users see comments made via “tips”? Would businesses have an option to show “staff” check-ins with commentary in results? Would there be filtering options? If so, candidates could see which businesses had the most positive staff comments and experiences, as well as how active the employee community was for that business. What speaks better to a strong employment brand than happy and engaged employees?

5. Employee Orientation/Onboarding

In “4 ways Foursquare can improve your workplace,” Sharlyn Lauby talks about the potential of using Foursquare for employee orientation, as Harvard and other schools are already testing out. College and universities are using Foursquare to orient new employees and get them acclimated to surrounding hot spots — so why shouldn’t workplaces try it too to help employees learn their way around the office or surrounding area? Workplaces with big campuses could orient new employees to the campus and surrounding area with an orientation “game”; employees could receive points for visiting places like the gym, cafeteria, and library, and check off various venues to complete their orientation.

Any type of business could get new employees acclimated by leaving “tips” on Foursquare or other location-based sites for hot spots to eat or grab a coffee near work, getting employees familiar with the area (and helping local merchants in the process). This could also enhance the candidate experience; those who use location-based social networking sites may not only see you as active on these sites and learn a bit about your company, but could also see you leaving tips or recommendations of other places to visit in the area. This could in turn help to make your business’s location more attractive to potential candidates (it could be that one factor that makes someone want to commute a bit farther to work for you).

6. Event Marketing

Event marketers are using location-based sites to to drive participation in their events and create lasting word-of-mouth buzz about their business; Cynthia Rowley launched a new bridesmaid collection with the help of Foursquare and gave attendees at the launch unveiling a gift when they checked in. The restaurant AJ Bombers created huge buzz and the restaurant’s biggest sales days ever by creating an “I’m on a boat!” badge and having users check into a “boat” location for a restaurant event he threw. Difficult? No, it just took a couple of days of planning, a bit of creative thinking and a willingness to experiment.

Chris Bruzzo of Starbucks says in a recent New York Times article that the company hopes to use Foursquare for things like invitations to special events, photo sharing (which some location-based sites currently support), and online reputation scores.

What kinds of events could you use location-based services to promote? One possibility may be to encourage users to check-in at your booth at a job fair, for instance. This could also be a way to quickly see who visited you, and even follow up with a short thank-you message or targeted communication.

Guidelines to keep in mind

Make sure your business is listed on each network by making an initial “check in” to your business, even if you’re not yet able to “claim” your venue (this way, others can still find and check into your venue).
Different sites have different options for customization — customize and brand yourself as much as you can depending on that site’s capabilities. For instance, you can create a banner ad on Loopt — giving you significant potential to brand your business, get your message across to Loopt users, and even insert unique messages like job opportunities or upcoming events. And on Foursquare, you can create to-do lists of places for users to explore in your area.
Make sure employees understand your social media guidelines, are aware of your social media efforts, and know how to use the tools and successfully interact with users.
Determine your goals with this, just like any emerging social media tool. Do you have the resources and the time? What is your purpose?
As Jonathan Carroll of Gowalla advises, don’t leave fake reviews or tips, don’t put up poorly designed ads, and don’t forget to monitor activity. “Chances are if someone has a gripe or praise with their check-in, it’s a real-time thing: The patron is probably still there… so the business has a chance to make the experience even better.” Good point.
Get leaders involved so they understand the platform and can appreciate the application from a communication as well as a “bottom line” perspective.
These services may be virtual, but many say the key to success is providing users with real-world value. Think about what kind of value you can bring to customers, potential candidates, and your employees.
Other advantages to participating in location-based social networking sites

Increase your brand exposure and raise awareness of your business (Note: Many user check-ins are also posted on Facebook and Twitter, not just the location-based service itself, so you’re automatically gaining exposure to your users’ entire networks.)
Show potential candidates you’re savvy and interested in engaging with them.
Give potential candidates the opportunity to notice and learn about your company.
Connect with local candidates; users are using these sites to check in at venues in the area where they live.
One more touch point to reach both potential candidates and your own employees.
Potential to increase loyalty by customers/users — and recognize that loyalty with incentives.
Communicating with consumers at point of entry, service, or sale can be very valuable.
See for yourself what your customers and potential candidates are doing.
Strengthen your brand. We know that people now are much more likely to research products and services on their own, learn from their own observations, and listen to the feedback and opinions of peers rather than experts.Location-based sites are a great example of this in action.
Empower your employees while enriching user experience. As Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology for the Brooklyn Museum, says, they used Foursquare to create a multi-faceted experience for museum goers. One of the prongs of their three-faceted campaign involved asking their staff for their opinion on the best stuff in the neighborhood, and then leaving “tips” at these venues for Foursquare users to find. It’s a great way to engage your employees, who enjoy having some input into the experience — and the users they come into contact with may include customers, potential candidates, and even other employees. Get them involved as much as possible.
What critics are saying

Ad Age points out recently released Forrester research on location-based startups that says these applications are still too small for major marketers, as only 4 percent of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt. In addition, 84 percent of respondents to the survey say they are not familiar with these apps at all. However, sites like Foursquare are adding around 100,000 users every week, and some say now is the time to make those early adapters your brand ambassadors. One commenter even argues that “early adoption by marketers will increase the quality of venue content and number of available offers, driving mainstream consumer adoption.”

As Yan-David Erlich points out in a recent Mashable post, “Ultimately, the location-based social networks that will thrive in the long-term are the ones that design their user experiences around users’ real motivations. The checkin, as a stand-alone act, is fundamentally empty. It begs to be put into context.” What that context plays out to be, exactly, remains to be seen. And a lot of what happens will likely be a result of businesses like yours experimenting in the space — and making your voice heard.

The bottom line

While many people claim to be “social media evangelists, experts, or (insert superior-sounding word here), the truth is, there’s a lot about social media that we’re all still kind of figuring out. As Sean Corcoran of Forrester Research states in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “The reality is the space is still very much a Wild West.”

It’s smart to experiment with these sites now while the user base is still relatively small (compared to sites like Twitter and Facebook), and see what sticks, knowing that the returns at this point may not be huge.

It’s important to remember that these tools often serve to complement what we’re already doing. Depending on your particular business, you may just be considering now to get involved in any kind of social media, or you may be on the cutting edge of new applications. Either way, the beauty is that you can find what fits for you, and make the most of it. Reach out to new (virtual) faces. One of those virtual faces just may become your next star employee.

Is your business getting involved with these emerging sites — and if so, how?

• Mobile is NOT a technology but a channel.
• Mobile is about personal one 2 one ENGAGEMENT.
• Mobile is about PUSH and PULL communications
• Mobile is about REAL TIME communications
• Mobile is engagement on the MOVE.

HR and Recruiting are about or should be about:

• Channels and community.
• Personal Engagement
• KIT messaging

• Internal Comms – make the intranet site an app.
• Onboarding – KIT real-time with your prospective new employees.
• Mobile Time sheets for contract staff.
• Employer Branding – no not the “recruiting element” but engaging with employees – getting real-time feedback on the “pulse” of the business.
• For Recruitment – mobile is the missing link between social media and recruitment but it is also a great database push communication tool.

Some key statistics

• Mobile will over take the desk top as the no one way we access the internet.
• It took two years to sell a million iPods, it took 90 days for the iPhone and 28 days for the iPad.
• One third of all mobile traffic is from an iPhone.

• 96% of Candidates with an iPhone use the mobile to access the internet every day.
• 100% have downloaded apps.
• 81% use the AppStore or equivalent as the main search for apps.
• 4% of candidates download apps from website links and 4% based on word of mouth.

Mobile will be huge BUT don’t please get caught up with the hype, it is not some panacea that will solve your recruiting problems but it will become part of your media armoury….and finally it is NOT a technology BUT a channel.

Next week I’ll look at what can you do with a mobile app.

Employee Referral Programs Using More Social Media

Employee referrals and social recruiting, which already began melding through Jobvite, Cachinko, and other tools, are growing even closer as new vendors enter the field and corporations test how well their jobs spread on Facebook and other sites. Jobster has tried this all before, as did H3. But their mixed success did not mark the end of an era, but rather a foreshadowing of what was to come.

A New York startup called Referrio is quietly entering this niche. On that site, Cisco, for example, lists 11 jobs and is offering about $2,500 per job for people who fill the openings by spreading the word through social media sites or email.

Meanwhile, Virginia Mason Medical Center has set up a “grab this widget” tool for employees to share the organization’s jobs. The Seattle-area nonprofit needs to fill a director of nursing informatics job, IT jobs for people with Cerner experience, and more.

Bernard Hodes helped it develop the widget, which recruiters and some Virginia Mason employees are putting on their Facebook pages and elsewhere. But a big push to get employees to add it to their sites is yet to come. First, the center needs to set up a social media policy. ”We’re a little bit new to all of this,” says strategic recruitment specialist Carol Altschul. “I think it’s kind of happening a little backwards. The social media (widget) set up, then the policy created. Right now it’s just kind of growing organically. We’re getting our feet wet.”

At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, employees are adding widgets about company jobs to their personal Facebook pages, and getting paid if the widgets result in a hire, which, I hear, a couple have. Hyatt is testing a widget developed by NAS; Hyatt employees will be listing Hyatt jobs on their Facebook pages and sending them out to friends via Facebook.

At Banner Health, the Phoenix and Western U.S. nonprofit, experienced nurses and occupational/speech/physical therapists are among the highest in demand. Michael Seaver, sourcing program manager, said there was “unreal” interest when the 36,000-employee organization moved to an electronic employee referral system two months ago. About 1,500 people referred candidates in about a month. This was not a social media campaign per se, but that’s likely coming soon. Banner, with help from CKR Interactive, is working on how it’ll incorporate its 16 Facebook pages, 16 Twitter accounts, and YouTube account into employee referrals. Banner was until recently in a transition phase, acquiring other organizations. Now, it is “focusing on the people we have,” says Seaver, and will make it easier for those people to refer others.

One sign of the employee-referral times is that SelectMinds, a company mainly known for its work on alumni networks for corporations, is moving deeper into the referral world.

Michael Mallin, the SelectMinds VP of product management, believes that “innovation stalled” a bit during the recession, which “created an opportunity to do something quickly.” That something is a tool that melds employee referrals with social media. Jobster, Mallin believes, had the right idea, but was simply ahead of its time, just before the real explosion in social media. He says that Jobvite (whose success with TiVo I wrote about in the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership) has a good handle on small and mid-size companies, particularly those that want to use Jobvite as their talent acquisition system, but that SelectMinds’ relationship with large firms, like the biggest accounting companies, will help its referral program succeed.

SelectMinds is planning on having a couple of its clients do a free beta of the referral product for two or three months, starting probably in July. For companies that pay, Mallin says it’ll cost about $2,500 per month for companies with up to a few thousand employees, and higher for the largest firms. Pricing varies based on the number of people you make “referrers.”

What happens with SelectMinds is that an automated (or manual, if a recruiter wishes to select some employees to send it to) email goes out to people who might be able to help fill a job. Let’s say hypothetically we’re talking about a software job at Nationwide, and that the job is in Dayton, Ohio. An automated email about the job opening might go out to 1) Nationwide employees in any region who are in IT jobs, and 2) all Nationwide employees in Dayton. The SelectMinds email allows employees to either email selected contacts on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to tell them about the job, or update their LinkedIn and Facebook statuses (and soon Twitter, just not on the demo I saw) with info on the job. The chain of link-forwarding gets tracked as it moves around online, and the employee either gets the whole referral kitty, or can share part of it with a second person, depending on how the company sets it all up.

The employee who’s doing the referring can tell their company, via a short form, how well they know their friend, and what they think of them. The referring employee also gets emails notifying them if their contact has expressed interest in the job.

Meanwhile, recruiters view a dashboard listing how many times a job was referred, and how many applications came in for it. A recruiter can drill down and see who’s referring who.

Mallin hopes the future versions — and he says SelectMinds hopes to release new ones monthly — are “more intelligent.” For example of what he means, let’s take that software job in Dayton. Mallin hopes that a later version will notice that a Nationwide employee may not be in the software field now, and may not even be in Dayton now, but the system knows through combing that employee’s LinkedIn profile (if privacy rules allow it) that she used to work in the software field. Because she may have friends who still work in the field, she’d get the automated job notice asking for referrals. This smart marriage of referrals and social sites is where we’re headed.

About the author

ERE’s Todd Raphael works on ERE’s conferences, the news and features on the ERE.net site, the print publication Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, the ERE email newsletter, the ERE awards, the Fordyce Forum, and more. 

About the author

Most direct sourcing and candidate development activities seem predicated around the adage: “Go where the talent is.” That’s why it’s not surprising that talent acquisition has been an early adopter of social networks. As noted search expert Glen Cathey recently wrote: “Recruiting has always been social — interactions have primarily taken place in person and over the phone. Social media simply enables a third way to communicate: online.”

It’s a wonder, then, that Facebook remains somewhat underutilized in social recruiting. According to a recent industry survey, only 6% of recruiters active in social media found Facebook to be an effective recruiting tool.

Perhaps this is because Facebook makes it more difficult than many other platforms to source and engage with passive candidates and communities. In HR parlance, Facebook seems widely perceived as the “life” in “work-life balance,” a place to share with friends, not network with connections.

The Facebook Paradox

So far, employers have largely stayed on sidelines on Facebook, consigned to career-oriented “Fan Pages” that offer much in the way of extending employment brands and advertising new positions, but little in terms of the kind of meaningful interactions required to develop and engage top talent. 

Of course, with 45% of employers performing social media background checks as part of the hiring process, many candidates don’t exactly want to be found, either. In fact, in recent source of hire data, the amount of hires attributable to Facebook seems dwarfed by candidates whose profile information revealed incriminating information that prevented an offer extension. 

Until the benefits of visibility on Facebook outweigh the potential repercussions in the employment process, there’s little incentive for top talent to engage with employment professionals or brands.

In January 2010, users spent an average of 431 minutes on Facebook, or upwards of 14 minutes a day. With over 400 million users worldwide, it isn’t hard to see that there’s a potential goldmine of widely untapped, largely passive talent that makes Facebook too powerful a recruitment tool to ignore. 

Yet effective best practices utilized on relationship building platforms such as blogs, Twitter and streaming video seem to fall flat on Facebook. To increase efficacy, employers need to stop making “fans,” and start making “friends” (and, ultimately, new hires).  

Knowing the difference between fan and friend is essential. 

Volume Versus Quality of Connection

While many businesses already have a fan site on Facebook, many approach these pages as a simple extension of an employment brand or career site. Maintaining a branded presence on Facebook generally suffices to attract “fans.” While many companies adjudicate quantity within the context of metrics analysis, attracting fans falls flat without dedicated content and a platform-specific engagement strategy.

According to Facebook’s own internal statistics, business related sites constitute just over half of the approximately 3 million fan pages within Facebook, generating an astounding 20 million fans per day; the site estimates pages have created 5.3 billion fans with users joining three fan pages a month. 

The sheer volume of these statistics reinforces the notion that there’s little inherent meaning in having “fans” to the recruiting process, essentially undeveloped candidates unlikely to match just-in-time hiring requirements for open positions that constitute the majority of most career-related fan site postings. 

Fans do, however, have significant value as active seekers; like all applicants, it’s incumbent on employers to qualify and develop those applicants into a slate of potential candidates worth additional due diligence. In Facebook parlance, these constitute “friends.”

Remember: “fishing where the fish are” only works if the “fish” are the loyal audience necessary to spread the word you want about your employment brand, corporate culture and job openings.

After all, that’s what friends are for.

Keith McIlvaine, Global Social Media Recruitment Leader for Unisys, discusses with Human Resources IQ, global best practices for using Twitter for your recruitment needs.

Best Practice #1: Be There!
ROI (return on investment) or Risk of Ignoring
The Return on Investment is always a question with internal stakeholders and an important topic to discuss. But what many individuals do not consider is whether the question is a monetary return or if it is a presence return. Conversations are occurring online whether you are there or not and whether you are a participant or not. While companies cannot control conversations, just being able to both listen and engage adds value to your brand perception.

Best Practice #2: Integrate Twitter
Everything is connected. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace, etc. are all integrated—one social strategy.
Social media is changing every day and each tool looks to leverage the strengths of other tools, a very strategic integration approach. While companies and individuals are able to select the tools that best suit their needs for their target audience, the ultimate goal is to drive people to one site and leverage all of the social networking properties to drive traffic.

Best Practice #3: Involve your Stakeholders
Identify your stakeholders, determine a police for strategy to steer employees in the right directions. Everyone should be on the same page.

1. Business—HR, Marketing, PR, Legal, any business lines
2. Strategy—have an integrated strategy, policy and governance
3. Resources—know the go-to resources

A social media strategy is not about one person or business line but about the entire organization. It becomes critical to make sure that everyone has a solid understanding of the strategy as well as what information should be conveyed and focused upon. You should also consider what to do/not do whenever negative feedback may arise. There are a number of topics to consider which also leads to the criticality of having key stakeholders in the room!

Best Practice #4: Create Handle Strategy
An often overlooked and underappreciated topic but the selection of a Twitter handle strategy is also important. How do you want to approach the market? Once you understand the four types of accounts that maybe (or have already been created), this will further allow an organization to take the next step in their strategy and help to focus the content.

Best Practice #5: Drive Cohesion
PR, Marketing and HR need to create a cohesive message, consistent voice.
A consistent voice is important in social media and on Twitter. You cannot have the company addressing one topic and have recruiting or a business line speaking about something completely different. Again, going back to Best Practice #3, by knowing who the stakeholders are makes it much easier to ask questions and seek guidance. This should not be left up to someone on their own but instead as a total strategy –especially if you choose to have more than one Twitter handle.

Best Practice #6: Publish content creatively
Hashtags, URL shorteners, SMS texting techniques, 120 character messages, Twitter search, @ or D followers are just a few ways to publish creatively but you need to continue to work and identify content that is both interesting and that adds value to the company. Posting press releases or commenting on deals won are great, but add value so that non-employees may understand more about your company. Engagement is critical and helps to break down walls to your customer base, or even better, to your potential customer base.

Best Practice # 7: Delivering Value
Listen –> Follow –> Engage –> Share –> Link –> Ask –> Repeat
Value is often overstated in social media but it is completely critical to everything we do. If a person or company does not add value then they will be tuned out of many conversations. This “process” is an excellent way to better understand and relate to those you choose to engage. Listen and Follow to hear the conversations and begin to strategically build a list of interesting people. Engage and Share to start conversations and building trust to your network. Link interesting articles so that others see you add value, and not just about your company. Ask for anything only after you have spent time building your network and proving that it isn’t only about you or the company. Repeat as this process is never ending!

Best Practice # 8: Think Globally
Regardless of the size of your company or what you perceive your geographical reach to be, social media is accessed by all. You may work for a company in Iowa but someone in Istanbul, Turkey may become interested in your Tweets. It is social responsibility and networking wrapped up into 140 characters of global impact.

Twitter is a global tool. To integrate to your organizational strategy you have to think globally.

So it’s perfectly ordinary for Brelyn Hammernik to have connected with her former colleagues on LinkedIn when she left her job as a recruiter for TEKsystems, a Maryland IT staffing firm. But TEKsystems sued her, charging she violated the noncompete provision of her employment contract by soliciting her former co-workers on LinkedIn.

The case, as reported by my colleague Jaikumar Vijayan, is not as simple as it first appears.

Turns out she didn’t just connect with her former colleagues on LinkedIn — she actively recruited them through that channel, TEKsystems alleges.

Attorney Renee Jackson, writing on the Nixon Peabody blog, posts the contents of one such message:

Tom—

Hey! Let me know if you are still looking for opportunities! I would love to have come visit my new office and hear about some of the stuff we are working on!

Let me know your thoughts!

Brelyn

Depending on how the judge rules, this case could have far-reaching implications for the professional use of social media.

If the judge decides that Hammernik violated her non-compete provision by simply connecting with her former colleagues on LinkedIn, that will be bad for every social media user. Social media is emerging as a primary channel for professional networking, and limitations on using it will make it harder for all of us to find the next job.

If, however, the case rides on messages like the one sent to “Tom,” above, then it’s really no big deal. That message appears to be clear-cut recruitment. The fact that it was sent on LinkedIn is irrelevant — it would be recruitment if it was sent by e-mail, telephone, or smoke signals.

Jackson has legal advice for employers:

Employers should address these novel issues now — and avoid any confusion about the applicability of social media — by specifically referencing social media in any policy or agreement that attempts to restrict contact between employees, former employees, customers, and suppliers. Courts read such restrictive covenants very narrowly, so employers should reference explicitly contractor solicitation through social media in their policies and requirements.

Hammernik’s defense further complicates the issue, writes ZDNet’s Larry Dignan. She admits having LinkedIn connections to the people involved, but says they’ve never been TEKsystems employees. She names several people and said they initiated contact with her, and she then provided that information to TEKsystems. She admits to communicating with Tom Peterson, but says the communications didn’t relate to staffing or soliciting IT business for her new employer. And she says that TEKsystems’ and its employees’ use of LinkedIn and Facebook for recruiting, promotional or other purposes voids any claim that information there is trade secret or confidential.

The case against Hammerik seems pretty damming — but often evidence that seems clear-cut before a trial doesn’t look that way when you get to the actual courtroom. I learned that through repeated viewings of My Cousin Vinny.

Well, it did happen to me! And I want to share my story with you in hopes that it will help you to chase your passion. The best part… the job I have didn’t exist within most companies as short as 6 months ago!

I have been a recruiter for over 10 years, both on the agency and the corporate sides. I love networking and connecting with people, so this profession is a great place for me. I also like to keep updated on the latest trends and stay on top of great ways to connect with people effectively. I never needed to change any of my search strategies or methodologies, just added new techniques to the list: mainly surrounding social media.

I was an early adopter of social media within my team and I used it to connect with new people, globally, in order to exchange ideas on a variety of topics but I really focused mainly on HR and recruiting. I found this to be a way to expand my network and learn from a much broader population.

So, what do I do on social media? Pretty much the same as most of you out there. I am active on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn as well as reading blogs and posting blog entries. I am on other sites; however, I do not spend as much time or focus on them right now.

One blog post that really energized me was from Jessica Lee, that she posted just over one year ago. Jessica referenced an online article she read about a recruiter in Silicon Valley who was interviewed at a job fair. The purpose of the article was to allow the readers to learn more about her job search as well as how the job market was changing. Jessica Google’d this particular recruiter and found it extremely difficult to locate this person within the returned results. What I took away from this post was Jessica’s resounding recommendation that all recruiters need to be in social media in order to be found… especially in recruiting!

That day I went out and began to sign up for a few new social networking sites, which I was not already on, in order to:

1. connect with others more efficiently
2. to become more active in the conversation
3. to be found

I put forward a more conscious effort to discuss with others to learn more about what they do. I took time to connect outside of social media (either on the phone or in person if the ability was there) to further develop these relationships. And through these relationships I directly impacted open positions I was working on and did make a hire through Twitter. I continue to leverage all social media resources today to supplement my recruitment activity.

Over time, my company investigated social media for our messaging, our ongoing branding, recruitment activity, and as a new channel for us to grow as a company. As this direction was being considered and decided upon, I was approached to help lead our global recruitment social media strategy, implementation, and execution. This truly was a dream job opportunity for me and it is something so new that I am finding myself directly impacting my company’s message into the market. Yes, I did say dream job even though this position did not exist just a few months ago.

I read about companies creating this type of position and thought to myself that this role would be a phenomenal opportunity for me to expand my experience and knowledge. Also, it would be a lot of fun and a lot of hard work.

Yes, as a recruiter I have always worked to positively impact my company and convey our brand and message in my daily recruitment activities. But now to be able to do this on a much broader scale is completely energizing and humbling–that I was selected to help lead this effort. For a relatively short time, I was thinking that one day I would like to move into this type of an opportunity and determining how might I position myself best for this type of career progression. The results of my personal decision to expand into a relatively untapped medium was that I was rewarded for thinking outside of my team’s current strategy and I am now able to directly impact my company in the social media space.

The best part, I am still with my same company and expanding my experience and responsibilities!

My recommendation, to all of you, is to follow your passion. Identify what it is that motivates you and will allow you to do your job better and more effectively. Also, determine how it may impact your day-to-day activity in a positive way so that it is not distracting from your objectives. You may even want to approach this passion with your manager to discuss how you might involve it into your productivity. In hindsight, I wish I approached my managers directly but it did end up for the best.

Don’t wait for something to happen, make it happen. Your dream job is waiting for you as well!

The impact of social media was a big topic of discussion for recruiting in general– it’s cheap, it is cutting-edge and it’s effective. But does the organization support it? 33% of the participants in that discussion said “no”.
So I checked out the Emerging Workforce Study done by Harris Interactive, Inc. and just published last week by Spherion. I found that little round table of folks is par for the course. The study revealed that only 22% of companies are using social media to find and reach candidates. Ok, fine. If I believed my own hype, I might have stopped there and felt pretty good about myself and my organization by comparison.

Then I got to thinking, is social media really all its cracked up to be for creating diversity in the workplace? I have used social media for years in recruiting very hard-to-find design engineers and technology pioneers
and it works. The internet has always been a rich source for people of all backgrounds and talents so I never dug
into the demographics of social media websites. I never had to go that granular before with my sourcing metrics, as one category pretty much took care it – “Other Internet Source”.

Although websites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are effective for finding web-savvy people, be careful – the users of social media are predominately young and white. LinkedIn users, for example, are 2% Hispanic and 5% Black, (HR Strategist, 1/12/2010). If you recruit heavily from social media, make sure there is no
disparate impact in hiring. One sure way to do this on the front end is to vary your sources and not rely too heavily on one or two tools.

Social media does lend itself in other ways to a diversity strategy – by creating an employee branding campaign, building a company reputation of inclusion and community service, and by engaging current employees, (increasing referrals and decreasing attrition). I would highly recommend using these to supplement any talent acquisition effort and make it more effective in reaching qualified candidates.

Lesson learned: use social media to find talent but do it responsibly and as part of a company-wide strategy. Keep up-to-date on the latest research and findings from polls, surveys, and the experts in selection procedures. Make sure you know the pros and cons because the proverbial “sword” can cut both ways.

Works Cited:
Emerging Workforce Study, by Harris Interactive, Inc.
http://www.spherion.com/EW_Study/index.html

Heed new legal risk of recruiting via Facebook, LinkedIn by the HRStrategist, 01/12/2010
http://www.thehrspecialist.com/29918/Heed_new_legal_risk_of_recruit…

These are all real messages, posted on Twitter by real hiring managers. You’re probably thinking, “Hmm, it’s about time we had a no-social-media policy.”

Don’t do that! You need your managers online to help you build your recruitment brand. And your managers need guidance, not duct tape over their mouths. As bad as oversharing might be, these three social media recruiting mistakes are much more common – and in the long run, a lot worse for your online brand.

Mistake #1: Spelling out everything you can’t do.

Recruiters sometimes panic when it comes to social media, so they try to compensate with strict communication control: The only acceptable posting topics are new jobs and sandwich specials. Don’t talk about actual people. All tweets must be approved by corporate. This will kill your social media recruiting fast.

What to do instead:  Define solid social media principles.

The word “principles” is important, says Amanda Hite, CEO of Talent Revolution. “Principles are things we live by,” she says. Not the things we can’t do.  

Here are a few examples from Hite of principles to share with your hiring managers:

• Use good judgment. Just as your behavior offline can positively or negatively impact your career, the same applies online. It’s just easier to find, and it’s permanent.  
• Be authentic.  Social media is only a tool to use to build relationships. It’s important to come across as authentic, to humanize your brand and to be yourself.  
• Sharing proprietary and confidential information will get you in trouble.  

Mistake #2: Making your managers use social media as an advertising channel.

Sell, sell, sell! And both your customers and your potential applicants will drop you like a lint-covered lollipop. ”Broadcasting messages or promotions is viewed as spam in the social web and will get you voted off the island,” Hite says.

What to do instead:  Build relationships.

The most leverage your managers will get from using social media for recruiting is by getting referrals and maintaining relationships with potential prospects. It’s about relationships, not advertising. We won’t lie. This takes time. But it works.

Look at it from your future hires’ point of view. They don’t want the hard sell – they want to peek inside your company. They want to get to know your hiring managers and discover that they’re cool people who are excited about their jobs. Plus, remember that superstars know superstars. The more your managers build their professional networks, the more effective they’ll be at communicating openings and getting good referrals.

Mistake #3: Wait – and wait – for your audience to come to you.

You know the D-list celebrities who hang around any patch of red carpet they can find, hoping someone will ask for their autograph? Don’t be them. If you’re just launching your social media recruiting efforts, fans won’t be knocking at your door. You have to knock at theirs.

What to do instead:  Go where the community is and tune into their conversations.  

Are you recruiting passionate bartenders? Go to forums and groups where bartenders hang out online. Join the conversation. Share your mango martini recipe. That’s the only way you’re going to build your own fan base and attract great people to your company.

We never stop talking with our members and employers – not only about employment, but also fun stuff (like weird coworkers and office chair soccer). Become our friend on Facebook and Twitter!

If you have yet to hear about Jobs2Web, I would recommend you check out their website and/or watch the promotional video.  It’s direct, to the point and will surely leave you thinking, “That makes sense!”

In fact, after having spent the past two years travelling, brainstorming and looking far and wide for the most progressive recruitment technologies, I can say for sure that Jobs2Web has made a fan out of me.  They are the real deal and, simply put, THEY GET IT!

How Jobs2Web Will Change Recruiting

To everyone I’ve spoken with about the product and the many more I will speak with in the future; it’s my firm belief that Jobs2Web will change the way we recruit.  With a very simple shift in the way we have always gathered candidate information, they are enabling their clients to build talent communities and engage through the use of social recruiting tools – something we have all been starving for!

In the past, the approach was as follows:

1. Establish job openings
2. Promote jobs through various channels
3. Have candidates go through the ATS application process
4. Pre-screen and interview candidates
5. Hire the best suitable candidate for the role

What Jobs2Web has done is, in essence, add a valuable step to the process and enable recruitment groups to capture data for both active and non-active members of the overall talent population.

The basic Jobs2Web process looks as follows:

1. Establish job openings
2. Promote jobs through various channels
3. Greet candidates with a short business card that they fill out
4. Have candidates go through the ATS application process
5. Pre-screen and interview candidates
6. Hire the best suitable candidate for the role

I know, I know… it doesn’t seem all that different.  But, it’s what they’ve done with the business card that makes all the difference in the world.

You see, Jobs2Web has created more than a business card that candidates fill out before proceeding with the recruitment process.  They have created an entire system around that information that allows recruiters to interact and measure results of the web traffic that visits their site.

Instead of simply hoping for candidates to make it through the process, the business card allows for recruitment organizations to capture the very basic data necessary to continue dialogue with talent of interest… and, used correctly, develop of a community.

Why Does This Matter?

Well, if you have spent much time reviewing your career site metrics, I’m sure you have already found out that many candidates apply for jobs during peak normal business hours.  In the metrics I review on a normal basis, I can clearly see that the majority of candidates visit the career site between 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM from Monday through Wednesday.

While there is traffic on the other days of the week, it’s pretty obvious that parties of interest are out cruising for jobs during the workday.

So, what happens when they get interrupted?  Do you still have a chance to capture their information and follow up with them?  Probably not.

Jobs2Web, through the very simply insertion of a business card early on, captures the data necessary to continue the dialogue.

From the point of information collection forward, the candidate enters the normal process.

Building a Talent Community

What happens with this valuable information next is what makes Jobs2Web powerful!

While the business card is one way for candidates to enter the talent community, Jobs2Web has made it easy, with a variety of widgets for your career site and social media outlets, to allow talent to join your community and to be kept abreast of opportunities of interest.

Instead of spending money on job postings again and again to attract similar groups of people to your career site, the Jobs2Web technology enables recruiters to interact directly with the people who have been previously interested in opportunities.

The power of this method was affirmed by a number of clients during the conference – clients including Microsoft, Lifetime Fitness and HCR ManorCare, among others.  One client reported that their talent community had grown to 350,000 people over the course of two years.  Their recruitment advertising spend dropped by 50% and their number of applicants had increased by tens of thousands… per month!  Pretty powerful testimonial!

Analytics That Transform

Beyond being a smart way of going to market with your recruitment spend, Jobs2Web offers insight into how your advertising dollars are being spent.  Imagine being able to put a dollar figure behind every candidate recruited.  Do you know how much you spend on recruiting candidates?  Do you know what your exact ROI is from every source?  Wouldn’t you like to?

A number of clients reported a change in their abilities to negotiate rates with job boards, job fairs and other recruitment sourcing avenues.  Yes, you may be receiving clicks from job boards, but do you know how many of those candidates are converting to hires?  Shouldn’t you?

The analytics dashboard that Jobs2Web offers is pretty amazing.  From how many of your job related pages are ranking on Google to exactly where ALL of your traffic is coming from.  A Recruiting Manager, armed with a tool like this, will be able to measure, respond and spend with powerful data to back them up.  Gone are the days of “Post and Pray.”  Welcome the era of intelligent social recruiting!

In Conclusion

While this may have seemed like a long affiliate post for Jobs2Web, I assure you, it’s not.  I’m simply impressed.  For the first time in a while, I find myself sitting back saying “Wow! – This makes total sense!”  “Why didn’t something like this come out years ago?!?”

There are some great technologies out there for recruiting.  I’m sure many of them provide value to the recruiting process in some way.  However, Jobs2Web is, by far, the most progressive, intelligent and exciting technology I have seen for recruiting in a long time!  It very well could change the way we approach social recruiting, community building and recruitment advertising spend – that’s a lot of impact.

I’ve just barely scraped the surface of what Jobs2Web is capable of.  Seriously, check out their website and see what they have to offer.  Or don’t… this would be a great secret to keep!

Special thanks to Jobs2Web for the invitation to their conference!  You guys and gals are doing amazing work!  Keep it up!

In the coming weeks, I will cover some of the interesting presentations and topics that were covered at the conference.  Beyond the innovation that Jobs2Web has to offer, there was an amazing amount of brainstorming going on – all good stuff!