i'm realizing more and more that i like using this bloggy as a playground and laboratory of sorts for things i'm working on elsewhere. it's nice to test out my thoughts, ideas and pieces of projects i have on my plate and i'm back here again thinking about a presentation in April that i'll be doing with a local staffing group in Maryland, Project SAME, the staffing alliance of Maryland employers. my FOT colleague, Kelly Dingee of the AIRS Corp, did a session with their staff this month on using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter in your recruiting... and apparently they were left clamoring for more and their founder, Bob Corlett of the Staffing Advisor, asked me to come back and present. so cool!
in chatting with Bob, we discussed how best to approach the session... and i shared with him how as much of an enthusiast i am for the world of social media, i haven't been steeped in it for very long - so i totally get that initial hesitancy and apprehension to get involved whether it's for recruiting or professional development or personal branding. i mean, when i think about even using Google Reader, i stayed away for quite a bit of time because i just didn't "get" how it could be useful to me. and i had excuses. a feller i dated a few years ago used to rave about how great Google Reader was, and how it was changing his experience on the web, and how he was able to now consume more information, and on and on and on he would go. and i fought trying it out because i told him i wanted to experience a website and its aesthetics. ha! i remember saying... "but a website is meant to be seen. i want to go to a website and see the article or blog laid out in the way the creator wanted me to experience it!" and now? my Reader overfloweth. there are probably only three or four sites i venture to otuside of my reader to actually consume news or information.
and when i think about how i even got started with blogging for professional reasons? i never even considered turning to the blogopshere for HR or recruiting news or information until i found the HR Capitalist by accident when scouring the web for a good turnover formula. prior to that? i only read political and fashion blogs, or my friends' blogs. that's it. and look at me now!
so for this session in April with Project SAME, i'm determined to make getting into the world of social media less intimidating with some of these stories, and then course some practical stuff. and i'm thinking these are the major areas i want to discuss:
- the shift in thinking from recruiting/HR to marketing/branding
- it's about relationships, conversation and influence - not transactions
- web 2.0 changes quickly, so there will always be a lot of tools and a lot of voices
- start with baby steps
- for actual tools, begin with:
- Google Reader + the blogosphere
- LinkedIn (duh) - but i don't really think this is social...
- and while there are many more tools than just the ones i list above, bottom line is that you don't have to get overwhelmed, and don't feel you have to be everywhere. choose your watering hole...
i'm sure the format and likely, the content will change as we get closer to April (okay, the night before i'll scrap the whole thing and who knows what i'll end up discussing)... but stay tuned. as i develop a deck, i'll include slides here and there just like i did with the onboarding presentation i did last month.
Comments