The New School of HR: Social The explosion of social media has remade just about every standard department in an organization. Sales, marketing, IT, customer service—and yes, human resources, though HR has been slower to that transition than many of the others.

Using Social Media For Human Resources

It used to be that social media was primarily a customer-facing activity, and companies have embraced this in myriad ways, from social marketing like Facebook ads, YouTube commercials, and delectable Instagram snaps to fast and personal customer service delivered in the public eye via Twitter. Until recent years it was less clear how employee-facing departments could make use of it. Even when that tide started to shift, it was fairly standardized. Only now have we begun to see companies getting truly creative with social media in internally-focused fields. In fact, we’ve seen some truly innovative uses for social media platforms that surprised even us—and many of these can directly work for, or be adapted for, human resources and recruiting. We’d thought we’d share some of the most creative of those in each of the big-player platforms. LINKED IN Capitalize on and connect to timely content You might not think of Secret Deodorant as a brand synonymous with a high-engagement content stream, but the company turned to LinkedIn with the right series of stories at the right time as the feminist movement came to a fever pitch. Instead of promoting or even mentioning their core product (deodorant) or the problem their product solves (body odor), they instead went deeper into the psychological roots of why eliminating body odor matters: Freedom, confidence and opportunity. The stories on Secret’s LinkedIn feed feature women who’ve made extraordinary contributions to their fields, and real-world advice for women who plan to do the same. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting LinkedIn has evolved to be a many-pronged tool, but in the end it’s still a career-focused application. Secret’s storytelling strategy inspires women to go for it with confidence. Your LinkedIn feed could do the same. Share stories and interviews on your LinkedIn feed about extraordinary people at your company who are building the career of their dreams at your company. Better still: Give budding or amateur journalists and photographs at your company the chance to follow/shadow these high-achievers to create a compelling, multimedia, documentary-style feature that drives home the opportunities that await new recruits at your organization. INSTAGRAM Help them picture the perks Companies from Starbucks to Marriott have figured out that showing people having fun at work is a powerful way to get the attention of potential applicants. A Boomerang of Starbucks baristas dancing behind the counter, a snapshot of Marriott banquet staff playing on beverage carts—these kinds of images are always smile-worthy, and connecting a smile with your brand as an employer is a must-do on social media. Everyone wants the job that others seem to love. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting This one’s already adapted to HR, but give some thought to how to adapt it to your company culture. Do you offer free catered lunch twice a week like Custom Ink? Take a snap of the sweet spread and make your followers drool! Does your company support employee-selected charities? Take a video of your team members crossing the finish line at the local benefit 5k. These are fun ways to use social media as a signal that your company is definitely in the happy people business. FACEBOOK Capture candidates through community Maersk Drilling, a global drilling rig operator based out of Denmark, knew they were in for some late nights when they set the ambitious goal to hire 3,000 new employees over just a few years. Finding enough potential candidates to get to a set of 3,000 new hires was challenging enough, but during the best and brightest away from competitors seemed truly daunting. Because of the specialized nature of the work, the Maersk recruiting team knew they had to attract people who were a bit nerdy about things like…drilling rigs. But how? There wasn’t much in the way of existing networks or communities out there to tap into, but that’s exactly where the light bulb went off. Knowing how people with common if obscure interests love to talk to other people with those interests, Maersk had the foresight to create the community they had been looking for. The team developed a moderated Facebook group for fans of drilling rigs and technologies. In it they posted compelling content about equipment, innovations, and industry news, and encouraged discussion between current employees and the community’s fans. As they had hoped, those fans—many of those employed by competitors—turned in impressive numbers to potential candidates, and then many of those to new hires. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting Like our Instagram example, this strategy is already primed for HR and recruiting. To adapt it to your organization, use the common thread that drives interest in your industry as a dangling carrot to lure in talent. If, unlike Maersk, your organization doesn’t have a clear specialty that taps a deep interest in others (many organizations don’t), considers creating valuable communities around the types of jobs you’re recruiting most for. Example: An advertising agency can create a community around creativity and design. TWITTER Be always at their service One of the most powerful uses of social media, but especially Twitter, has been the evolution toward rapid, personal, and publicly visible customer service. Confined to just 140 characters, the format is perfect for a quick and discoverable rant. Once a company notices it’s been called out, usually via hashtags or an @reply, the response can be fast and easy, and highly satisfying for the consumer. Even when consumers simply have questions or support needs, they often take to Twitter first before they email or visit the help section. The Nike brand understands the value of this kind of interaction and has become known for its focused, helpful, and always-on customer service. Nike and other brands also do a great job of filling their Twitter feeds with helpful links and tidbits for those questions no one thinks to ask about, but everyone is better for knowing. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting Large, complex organizations can seem labyrinthian to outsiders and new hires. It often takes quite a while for anyone new to the organization to figure out who to ask what question to, and where to find them. Around-the-clock Twitter feed, or at least one that offers extended hours for those late-nite, new career panic attacks, is a great way to give new hires, transfers, the promoted, and even candidates in the recruiting pipeline easy, friendly, comfortable access to non-proprietary company information. Concerned about sensitive info, and OK leaving out candidates? Pick up the Twitter-like internal apps Yammer, or Slack. SNAPCHAT Stage a talent takeover Ah, Snapchat—that most mysterious and, if you believe the stories, tawdry of social networks. Disappearing images and videos? What could a company possibly do in this space? A lot, actually. Highly-visual brands, and even some you don’t think of as such, have figured out how to make good use of Snapchats tease-ability and young followership. One of the most successful strategies these companies have used is the takeover—handing the keys to the brand’s Snapchat account to an influential brand ambassador or stylish marketing team member for 24 hours to get a glimpse into the world of the brand through one user’s eyes. It’s FOMO-inducing storytelling at its most compelling. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting If your company recruits a lot of candidates under the age of 40, you already know their expectations of entertainment and engagement. These whippersnappers love to get sneak peeks into everything, including what a day in the life of a potential new job is like. Once a week, select a stand-out representative from one department or job classification to take over the company Snapchat account and post public notes, images, and videos throughout their workday. Be sure to select people your ideal candidates in those departments can best relate to. A take over by the marketing department probably works better with a stylish graphic designer than it does with the ROI-cruncher back in the corner. And engineering day should probably be led by the geeky technology wizard and not the stressed and under-appreciated project manager. (Even better, don’t have an under-appreciated manager). Not a Snapchat fan? This strategy works great on Instagram and Facebook Live as well. YOUTUBE How-to you do? Perhaps no trend has stormed the social media gates as hard and as durable as the how-to video. We admit—this one has taken even us by surprise. We have no idea why demo videos garner the millions of followers and views they do, but they do, and smart companies make use of this phenomena in fascinating ways. Beauty bloggers, in particular, seem to have found the golden key to successful “vlogging,” or, video blogging. Consumers cannot get enough of beauty tutorials, and the loyal viewership for these is off the charts, and the most popular bloggers are making as much as $5m annually. According to beauty-focused publishers like TeenVogue and Cosmopolitan, YouTube has transformed the industry. How to adopt this social strategy for HR and recruiting Just about every company has a product, service, vendor, or some inner workings that someone somewhere—and possibly a lot of someones everywhere—is interested in. And some of those interested people will turn out to be potential job candidates whose existing interest will be emboldened and expanded by your videos. Plus, they’re fun to make (or should be), so this is a three-fold win, delighting employees, and attracting consumers and future team members alike.