Be Social & Engage

Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the blog written by members of Human Resources UK.

I’ll keep my introduction concise as this week I have also written the article, so do not want to bore you with rambling for too long.  This week I have looked at something that every reader will have experience within.  Whether you’re reading this via the LinkedIn group or the blog page, you will be using social media.  This is my thoughts on how I have used this medium to great success. (Ed Scrivener)

Be social & engage

Somebody please help me escape!

We’ve all been there; you’ve got up at the crack of dawn to attend a networking event; you’re wishing you were still in bed; you’re sipping on a lukewarm drink that someone has the audacity to call tea; and you’ve been cornered by someone who is regaling you with their life story and the you’ve realised it’s a longwinded sales pitch; you can’t escape this assault on your senses!  Well, the beauty of social networking is that you can escape these situations!

Many people are put off using social media to network due in large to the technical jargon that is bandied around.  The truth, however, it that networking is exactly the same if you’re doing it in person or via a tweet (the aforementioned jargon!).  Similarly, the way to reap the benefits is exactly the same.  If you sit in a networking event and do not speak with anyone else and leave at the earliest opportunity the chances are you’ll never hear from anyone.  However, if you chat with others and show an interest (but maybe not to the extent of the sales pitch above!) you will find this will build beneficial relationships.  Simply put you need to engage with people.

I use social media on a daily basis and it has grown from being a fringe aspect of my business to being the central focus.  I use it for 2 key aspects, namely resourcing and networking and with both elements it is integral I engage with others for it to be a worthwhile exercise.

As a recruiter conducting resourcing is naturally a huge part of my day job.  Over the course of the last 2 years over 50 % of placements I have made have come via social media.  To put this further into perspective, traditional advertising has been responsible for less than 10%!  With the exception of having a paid LinkedIn account I have spent no money on social media compared to £1,000s on advertising – which is no wonder I recently decided to limit my advertising expenditure as the ROI is simply not worth it.  Clearly social media requires time and effort which is a cost in itself, however, it is a medium that is proving to be very successful.

I did not achieve this success overnight.  In fact, my early attempts were woeful and I very much learnt through trial and error.  I fell into the same trap that many recruiters and organisations do when using social media to recruit, only using it to advertise jobs.  For example, when using Twitter I would just tweet “HR Manager job, Reading, £45k, call...” and this would be the sole content of my Twitter account.  I didn’t share my thoughts or more importantly engage with others, especially my followers (who at that time were very limited).  I was somehow hoping that a person looking for this job would trawl the 175 million Twitter accounts and find my job!  My initial conclusion was that it was a waste of time and I moved back to more traditional methods.  I would suggest many others dabble in social media, don’t use it effectively and then give up for the same reasons.

It was only through luck and a timely article that reignited my interest in the medium.  This time I made the effort to look at what successful people were doing.  I realised I needed a management system and downloaded the free tool TweetDeck to manage all my social media accounts.  I now received updates in a similar way to receiving emails.  I could see when my LinkedIn connections had updated their status to publicise their availability; I was able to reply to interesting tweets when they were first published – essentially I started engaging with people!

I still tweet about the jobs I am recruiting for, but this now only makes a small part.  The difference now is that I have far more followers who I have interacted with and they interacted with me.  Therefore, when I tweet about a job many will then retweet my post – which is like CC’ing an email to all you contacts.  So previously, my job centric tweets were going to a nameless list of 10s of people they now go to 1,000s of people that I have a genuine link with.  Needless to say this is producing tangible results.

la la la la la, I'm not listening to you!!

LinkedIn has proven to be the most successful medium and the rules are no different.  I am not a “LION” which stands for a LinkedIn Open Networker as I firmly believe a network is only as good as the strength of the relations – having 1,000s of connections who you do not know does not appeal to me.  I currently have a network just shy of 1,000 people, all of whom I have a link with.  It has taken some time to build this trusted network, but it tends to mean when I reach out to them about a job I will either receive applications or referrals.  Again, this has largely been achieved by engaging with people.  If I post a discussion to a LinkedIn group and someone leaves a comment I will always reply.  If you were at the networking event and someone asked a question you wouldn’t just turn your back on them, yet many people feel the anonymity that a computer screen gives allows you to ignore these questions.  I have seen many discussions posted that ask for advice, which group members take an active part in, yet the original poster does not respond.  More often than not, when the same poster asks another question the response is very limited.  Whereas those that have engaged with others tend to receive higher volumes of support.

As you will see, social media has been a hugely effective medium for me, however, it is not my only medium.  My strongest connections are with those that I have met many times, many of whom I met long before I started in the world of social media.  However, I am connected with all of these via social media and the relationships have been strengthened by using this medium.  I have also built very strong relations with people who I first met on social media and have subsequently then met several times.

So for whatever reason you choose to use social media, it is important to treat it in the same manner as you would in a room full of people.  Engage with them and respond to them and you will find it to be a very useful medium - it is called social media after all!

About the author

Ed is an HR recruitment specialist and social media trainer.  He holds over 8 years industry specific experience recruiting mainly for middle and senior HR management positions. He stumbled upon social media a few years ago and has since become passionate about the subject.  He now trains job seekers and independent consultants in social media techniques. He is the Group Manager of Human Resources UK and Editor of Discuss HR and occasionally his humour will creep into articles!

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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK.  Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 4^th August and will be written by experienced HR professional Dawn Clarke.

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