Recruiters & Social Media – Love/Hate or Love/Love?

The most frequent comment I hear from recruiters when we talk about social media is that it takes too much time… they are super busy finding candidates and filling reqs and don’t have 2 -3 hours a day to spend on social channels, updating their statuses and sharing information. While I agree that it takes a bit of time up front, once you have all your social profiles completed you really only need to spend 30 minutes a day monitoring and updating them. 

I’m all about automation to save time.  My favorite tool right now is Buffer App.  This is a free tool that allows you to schedule up to 10 articles at specified times of your choice.  Use this scheduling tool with Feedly.com or whatever reader you use and set your updates to your social networks in advance.  By using a reader you can follow blogs and online papers like Mashable, TechCrunch, Fortune, VentureBeat, INC.com, Wired, Engadget or any of the many, many other great publications.  Then use RSS feeds to your reader or Outlook.  You can quickly scan and click on interesting articles and then use Buffer App to schedule sharing via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. 

HootSuite or TweetDeck are great tools to manage social feeds and schedule postings.  I use HootSuite and have linked it with my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn Feeds.  I have tabs for each stream and can schedule posts to all of these networks, multiple times.  It’s easy to post your current job openings directly from HootSuite.  You can also schedule them to recur every week and keep them at the top of your social profiles. 

Use your downtime and leverage mobility.  While you are waiting, pull out your mobile device and check your social feeds and retweet, share, like and repost articles that you find valuable.  I’ve spent many hours at the salon, doctor’s office, auto repair shop, coffee shop or restaurant catching up on my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn feeds and sharing content from them. 

If you decide to automate (and I hope you do) remember that it is best to read the content that you want to share first and then share with your network.  If you allow the tool to pick the content, you might end up sharing content that is not relevant to you or your network.  People follow you for a reason and you should be sharing what you consider valuable information.  If it’s not valuable to you, it probably won’t be valuable to your followers.  

Will Work For Klout

This picture of me was snapped recently at a local mall and it’s for realz!  Can you believe it? Me, Leslie Mason, reduced to soliciting social media scores on the street corner. Am I the only person who measures their social success by their Klout score and what in the world is going on???

My Klout score is dropping and I am concerned... not panicked yet but on the verge.  After all I worked really hard to get it up to 63 at its peak and three weeks ago it dropped below 59.  

Thankfully it recovered but just today when I checked it was back at 59, causing a sinking feeling in my stomach as well as a bit of dizziness.  Monitoring my Klout score has been a roller coaster ride for me over the past few months and I can’t figure out what is driving this behavior.  

I have carefully maintained all my social networks, judiciously sharing content and engaging with others and trying to spread out my interaction over all the sites that Klout monitors; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Blogger, Instagram, Foursquare and Wordpress. What am I doing wrong?  Recruiters rely on their social media brand.  It is an indicator of our success, right?  I need to figure out Klout’s secret sauce… is it weighted heavier for sharing original content?  Most of the Klout heavyweights are publications or blogs.  Maybe I’m on to something!   

My company, Intuit, uses a methodology we call Lean StartIN which is a process of rapid experimentation.  We are applying it across the enterprise, including Talent Acquisition.  For my purposes, I want to test the impact of one blog posting on my Klout score over a period of time to see if this will move the needle… hopefully increasing my score.  I will monitor results and report back to you.  

If the experiment is a success my Klout score will hit 65 (an all time high) and if it reaches 70 I will share a video of me dancing a jig like Michael Flatly, the Lord of the Dance (I am Irish after all).  Or better yet... I'll do the Harlem Shake or celebrate GANGNAM STYLE… in fact I’ll post a poll and let YOU vote to decide which artistic celebration of dance you prefer.  This would actually count as another Lean StartIN experiment… look out, I’m on a roll!

For this experiment I will need your help, Dear Reader.  My ask of you is to please tweet, retweet, share, post, comment, like, +1 and utilize any other method of social sharing of my article to spread the word.  I’m also calling in the Big Guns… feeling a comeback!

Friends and Coworkers:

You know who you are, but like the academy awards I only have limited space to call out names. Forgive me for those that have been omitted.  

@StacyZapar friend and social rockstar… I’m happy to ride on your Klout coat tails anytime. ;)

@ghouston @aaroneden @LeanStartIN @JorgenSundberg @StephenMonaco @adriandparker @BillVick @ray_anne @smheadhunter @nmailey @crizzcoxx @scottaxel @fishdogs @philohme  @Mike_Anas @SherYoung @LindaBurkard @PHXRecruit @keli_intuit @KMGoodall @mint @Intuit @QuickBooks @turbotax @IntuitInc @IntuitPayroll @IntuitAccts @GoPayment @IntuitCareers 

Please… hook a sister up!!!

Shameless Self Promotion (really cry for help):

@Mashable @TechCrunch @twitter @LinkedIn @YouTube @Facebook @hootsuite @Google @instagram @Forbes @HuffingtonPost @GuyKawasaki @scobleizer @dannysullivan and all you other Captains of Klout out there… you have my permission to share and repost my content. 

And last but certainly not least:

@StephenAtHome Award winning twitter celebrity superstar that you are… I’d be thrilled just to see @leslie12002 show up in your timeline

Hmmm… wonder if @Klout would use this article in their blog?  Stay tuned for part deux… hope to see you on my timeline!

Leslie Mason @leslie12002

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