Eliza Dashwood, Ambergreen Internet Marketing

As times get tighter, finding the most qualified professionals to fill vacancies is becoming more challenging than ever. At the same time, technology is making efficient communication with your workforce easier.



Finding a match through social networks

The way potential employers and candidates look for and find each other is changing. More and more people are looking to the web to try to find the right match, and rightly so. With the advent of business social networks such as LinkedIn and Plaxo, finding out about individuals and companies has become much more straight forward.

Individuals can turn to the web and business social networks to research companies and the people in them to decide if that is where they want to be. Similarly using the same methods, companies looking to recruit new staff can get a better picture of what individuals have done in their careers from looking at CVs, which are more easily available on the web.

Getting the word out

Businesses and recruitment agencies alike have always struggled to find a strong pool of candidates to fill vacancies as they arise. Using traditional means such as national press, trade magazines and online job sites have been the main weapons in their arsenal up till now.

However, micro-blogging sites such as Twitter can be used to post up to the minute vacancies to a much wider audience. The word of mouth nature of social media also means that individuals can forward interesting posts to their friends, having a much better idea of what is relevant to the people in their group than a company or agency could.

Twitter can also be used to inform users of when posts have been filled, which could potentially save people the time and trouble of applying for vacancies that have already gone. 

Building up the brand

Some companies have struggled to understand the importance of social media and how to use it for their business. But if used correctly, social media can be a powerful tool in raising brand awareness and engaging with the outside world.

People are going to discuss companies, their services, products and policies whether brands want them to or not. Rather than attempting to stifle or control the conversation, smart brands are joining in, using social media engagement as a way of understanding people’s perceptions of the brand and offering value in return.

By listening to what people have to say on forums, blogs, social networks and new sites, companies have the opportunity to make constructive changes to their business that can ultimately have a positive impact of how their brand is perceived and the caliber of people it attracts.

Internal efficiency

Although some companies might argue that using social networks can be a drain on internal resources if abused, there are some organizations that are embracing technology to make internal communication and collaboration more efficient.

Particularly for large companies that are home to thousands of employees, it's not always easy to organise a meeting or a call to get people working together and sharing ideas. Using internal forums, business social networks and micro-blogs can provide a solution.

A great example of this is IBM that realised early on that a great way to share information internally among its thousands of employees, was to create their own internal version of Twitter, called BlueTwit. IBM has also created Beehive, a social media network similar to Facebook, which allows users to share content and keep up will colleagues, including top executives.

Tying it all together

One of the key things to consider when using social media channels to create brand awareness, facilitate communication, and bring people together is that there needs to be an underlying strategy that ensures these channels are working together. This means understanding the objective behind the use of each social media element in order to create a universal message that is mirrored throughout an organisation and to the public.

It is all about making sure your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, internal forums and blogs all feed into each other to maximize the impact of any message and captures the information you’re looking for easily.