This is the final part in the implementation series for the Tribepad blog that has been featured over the last 4 weeks, giving you an outline of how you can integrate social media in to your recruiting and talent attraction efforts. In Part One we looked at technology, and the considerations you should make in selecting the right technology, tools and applications to build the right technology infrastructure. In Part Two we looked at the social places and channels that you should consider setting up to give people a place to post and share content, and in part three we looked at the people aspects. I’ve always said that social is 90% psychology and 10% technology, and the challenge is to get all the people in the business to think social in order to create a social culture. When people naturally think socially, then content, collaboration follows. The people post concentrated on Brand Advocates and Recruiters, and how you can organise them. When you have these three parts in place you are ready for launch, and you want to make your launch spectacular.
You want to make plenty of noise around your launch to attract participation. I target launch activities at the internal audience to get everyone involved. When the internal audience take part then the message spreads to the outside world. At Oracle this meant making sure that the community pages were high profile and the Facebook advertising promoting the communities was targeted by positioning the ads on the employee’s timeline inviting them to join. Internal branding is as much about off line as on line, ensuring the communities are right front and centre. Oracle launched with stickers given out at all events, t-shirts, e-mail signatures, posters and public places. On-line, it’s about getting the brand advocates to invite colleagues to join in.
A good way to get the internal audience involved is through pictures and video and tagging. Encourage the brand advocates to get plenty of faces in pictures, and to post to the community places rather than the personal accounts. Try to get all the faces tagged, as this gets your community shared by your employees and their friends. This builds the fan and follower base, and encourages participation. During the launch stage, make sure everyone knows the location of your application technology, that they are allowed to comment and contribute and how to share. Making things easy for your employees and involving them leads to success, and it’s a great time to launch a social referral program at the same time.
This concludes the implementation series. I’m close to completing a white paper for Tribepad charting the story of 6 companies on their social recruiting story. Keep checking in on the blog for download and webinar details.
Bill
