Social Media in HR, it's one of the most important tools in an HR professional's belt for recruitment, retention and communicating within your organizations.

Social Media is here to stay and there are two key points that I see the value for HR. First, social media is a two way channel and it's important to listen to your audiences and not simply use it as a one-way broadcast. Secondly, it's critical to recognize that social media is not a one-off project, it's important to build sound communications planning and strategies around it and elicit help of internal or external resources to manage it.

To build effective social media plans into your HR function, I advocate looking at your function to a #SocialHR prism which offers a series of steps for implementation.

#SocialHR Prism

1. Strategic Planning - Align your HR social media goals with business goals and objectives. Make sure to focus on what matters.

2. Social Policy and Training - Set clear guidelines and priorities for your organization's use of social media.

3. Messaging - Create the right message for the appropriate audiences that match the outcomes you're trying to achieve.

4. Execution - Conduct a steady stream of impactful communications.

5. Channel Management - Effectively manage your different social channels and properties such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

6. Listening - Whether your audience is customers, employees and/or the executive team, make sure to listen to the feedback of those you're trying to reach.

7. Adjustments - Adjust the tactics you're using to engage your audience, know your message effectiveness and continuously improve.

There's a lot of great examples out there of organizations that are effectively using social media for their HR purposes. UPS' social media properties remind potential applicants of the diversity of their workforce. On Home Depot's Facebook page, candidates post questions about the status of job applications and each inquiry is answered quickly and personally. This transparency changes the tone of hiring from an intimidating process to a genuine, two-way process.

For more examples or further in-depth information on this subject, please view a presentation that I created for the Virginia Engineers Conference.

If you're not using social media in your HR function, why not? Your customers, prospects, employees and potential employees are using social media, and perhaps more importantly, your competitors are using social media.

Barbara Irwin, President, HR Advisors Group

bhirwin@hradvisorsgroup.com

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