Best Practice Exchange: How to Utilize Social Media in Human Resources

Image via Wikipedia

Human Resources and Social Media

"I don't have the time"....

"I'll get on there when the time is right is right"...

I attend a lot of HR conferences as a part of my consulting and blogging business. I go to stay in touch with industry trends and to meet people for networking. In the past year I have been to:

2008 HR Florida state conference
Kennedy Recruiting Forum in Orlando
Employers of Excellence Conference, presented by HR.com
On the Cutting Edge, presented by Suncoast Human Resources Association

and during the balance of the year, I will be (or hope to be) attending

2009 SHRM National conference in New Orleans (June)
Social Recruiting conference in California (June, at the GooglePlex)
2009 HR Florida State conference in Orlando (August)

One of the regrettably noticeable trends I encounter over and over again at HR conferences is the lack of ~~concern~~ participation by Human Resources people in increasing their knowledge and understanding of social media and its implications for our profession.

I believe it is imperative that HR people start to become leaders in this area. We will be called upon to develop policies. There are tremendous opportunities to leverage low cost recruiting and talent management solutions. This is a great opportunity to get a seat at the table as an early adopter, which translates into things like Subject Matter Expert and "leader" down the road.

One of the over used phrases in social media is "evangelizing your message".

HR and the use of Social Media is something I have been evangelizing recently on my personal blog: Human Race Horses. We need to get out there and be a part of the social media trend, folks.

How do you do this? Here are a variety of sources that I have created or shared that will help you get started in social media. I am encouraging people to think about utilizing a tool called twitter as the starting point if you need one place to begin. I chose twitter because ii is simple, powerful, and can be used as much or as little as you wish without any advanced learning required.

It is also fun and an incredibly under-utilized platform for research and communication.

I hope you enjoy these links. I encourage you to read through them all. You will find it ~~valuable~~ useful.