Social Media…Social Sourcing…Social Networking…Social Recruiting….buzz phrases of the moment, no? I’m enmeshed in this genre, like it or not. When I hopped on Twitter a bit more than a year ago, I was looking at it strictly from my sourcing point of view, that everyone on it had a profile. And where there are profiles there are potential candidates. So I work that.
But now my thoughts turn to “best practices”. Who’s got ‘em, who doesn’t. Many times when I discuss social media, social recruiting, branding yourself as an “employer of choice”, people get it. And they rush in with Facebook and Twitter accounts, updating like crazy, but they don’t put in place a social media policy. Much less a Twitter policy.
And that’s important. Your employees need to be reminded of your company’s expectations of representation. What’s appropriate and what’s not. It’s your corporate image, you need to be mindful. Your employees need to be mindful. It’s not that “big brother” is watching. It’s that “big brother” has a reasonable expectation of your behavior if you are online and representing the company.. And many companies have come out with policies, some of them basic and some like the WallStreetJournal‘s, are a tad more detailed.
My favorite social media policy I saw? It’s actually a multi-purpose statement right here from the Earl Gilmore Rule Book courtesy of the blog Uninstalled….Short, sweet and full of common sense.
