Posted by: You can refuse to join Facebook or write off Web 2.0 trends like wikis, mashups and widgets as a waste of time. You can even feign ignorance when you hear “tweet” used as a verb. But that avoidance can only be limited to your personal life. Professionally, social media can be used in lots of ways to enhance your agency’s recruiting efforts. But first, you have to understand it.
All of the tools and tactics can seem overwhelming. How do you get tapped into things like Twitter and which sites are worth it and how do you know when your efforts are paying off? Unleash the Monster, the MGS social media community that discusses all sorts of Federal employment issues like teleworking, recently held a Social Media 101 event to answer those questions one step at a time. Speakers advised on how to build a foundation for social media and provided a successful agency case study on NASA’s Twitter use to generate and sustain interest. Communications experts also made one point very clear: beyond all of the technology that surrounds social media is a very human need: to be heard and to connect with others.
If you haven’t stuck your toe into the social media waters yet, Marc Hausman of the Strategic Communications Group and author of the Strategic Guy blog has several pieces of advice:
- The first step is to understand how people are interacting with a medium–you can tell a lot about people and their interests by how they spend their digital time. Then you can shift from observing to participating.
- Understand that social networking is human behavior that migrated onto a technology platform–the folks that dish around the water cooler have moved their discussion online so that they can converse whenever they have a free moment. They’re making their presence known and their conversation accessible.
- Even if you don’t have openings right now, you can use social media to build your agency’s culture online then stay connected with strong candidates until there is an opening.
If you’re worried about spending too much time online, Federal News Radio’s Tom Temin suggests going in with specific objective. Decide how (and how often) you want to engage with your colleagues and prospective hires and what you want to accomplish. Temin says the worst reason to use social networking is because everyone else is doing it. If it’s forced, it won’t seem genuine and you won’t engage other users.
Temin does recognize that the combination of Federal government and the highly sensitive nature of HR can have its issues. He offers these four tips:
- Be careful what you say in groups. Before you post, think about whether your words could come back to haunt you.
- What you do online is a reflection of your professional etiquette and demeanor.
- You don’t have to friend everyone—protect your credibility. You are who you associate with, so carefully think about each invitation you accept.
- Control your time online: have a set limit for activity.
If you don’t want to hop on a mainstream site where you might run into your kids (or grandkids), there are government social networking sites like GovLoop to share best practices and tips. There are also plenty of Federal blogs on a range of issues to get you started. Once you get comfortable using social media yourself, you can think about some of those hard-to-fill positions in your agency and where you’d find ideal candidates online. The next step: how to engage them in a credible yet compelling way…and keep them engaged.
Mon, Mar 22, 2010
Community, Federal, State & Local