Social media conferences: Time to stop talking and do more doing
I have been to two social media conferences in the last few weeks; TRU London and Like Minds. TRU was an unconference which was total chaos from an organisational stand point but fantastic as delegates were "free to roam" as they chose. Like Minds was a well oiled machine, with a fantastic lunch with a speaker set-up, some great speakers such as Chris Brogan and Joanne Jacobs but it was still very much speaking heads where we delegates did as we were told at the exact time we were told to do it! Mix the organisation of LM with the tracks of TRU and you have the perfect combination in my view.
The word "community" is the hot topic at the moment but let's be honest. We already have communities and have always had them. All the technology does is allow us to bring them online but isn't the ultimate goal to take them back offline anyway which is how we build real communities/relationships?
I've been as guilty as anyone in "going for volume". I deliberately went out to build up a follower list of 5,000 on twitter just to see how easy it was and, what it mean't to have that many people to follow/be followed by. It's a nightmare. You miss what's important and just see all the crap. Thank twitter for lists!
From a recruitment perspective one has to look at goals and strategy. I asked someone recently about their social recruiting strategy (only because they aid they had one) and it was just a list of places where they wanted a presence. Why - because they thought they should. How did it fit the resourcing strategy? In reality it didn't. It may have done but there was no clarity around how it could have done. This year should see more jobs being advertised/filled but social media is not the (only) answer. Get back to basics and check you have a decent recruitment infrastructure, a career site that is up to date and relevant, fewer job boards but more commitment to those that work (less is more), an agency PSL that makes sense. Make more of referrals and dust off your talent pool rather than let it wither away. Get these bits right and then you can worry about social media.
And what about all these "experts and guru's" who have appeared as quickly as all those new followers and facebook friends? What evidence have they got to support all these theories? Very little. Yes, some of us including me run workshops and speak about social recruiting. We can tell you lots of new ideas and in some cases (I) have proof of what has worked to a certain extent but so far no long term evidence. As an example, I used Retail Choice when they first started and it took 9 months before we got any hires. But in time they outperformed any of the other retail job boards and remembered our loyalty in future price negotiations. So in using some of the social media channels; think long term and be patient. But, you'll get out what you put in.
This approach may not of course suit today's cut and thrust of "results today, sod tomorrow" but for those that do take the long road, the rewards should be there. But once again, this is only part of that "community" building activity. When I worked for Manpower I had a community of drivers that worked for me. We had pie and pint evenings every other month. There were only about 50 in total but it was a small, profitable community. We all got something out of it. We just didn't have e-mail and Facebook back then but it all still worked.
So, back to the main point of the post. Social media conferences are all well and good but once you've been to one you've been to them all. It's time to get back to basics and if social media does form part of your direct resourcing strategy, even if only for a niche group, get your hands dirty. It's the only way you'll find out. And if you still find it a bit scary, form your own small community of recruiters to share direct experiences. Safety in numbers can be useful.
