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Anyone Else Tired of Social Media?
At a recent conference, a group was standing around and someone (who shall remain anonymous) bravely spoke up and stated a fact many of us have been feeling, thinking, and trying to figure out. "I really am tired of this whole social media thing." There was a bit of silence, but the nodding heads proved that many of us were in agreement.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that most of us in this space, RBC frequenters, unConference or Social Recruiting Conference attendees have been tackling Social Media - going at it - for quite a while now. Many for three years or longer. And the surprise is always there when a session is filled with many that have never even logged onto a social media site, let alone dig the Twitter scene.
It hasn't been easy, as a matter of fact, almost weekly the rules change. LinkedIn has started to look an awful lot like Facebook and the home page of Facebook looks like a Twitter stream and Plaxo lurks in the corner like some creepy cross breed of Facebook and LinkedIn. And the "keep up" is exhausting, a concerted effort to stay active and keep up with the changes is a must or is it?
I used to spend a couple hours a day cruising through Twitter and other sites, worried I might miss the next big announcement or an opportunity to respond to something hi-larious or off-the-charts. But something amazing started to happen about six months ago. Work got busy, then it got busier. And one might theorize that because I was keeping up, because I was aware of what was going on, surely this is why I became so busy. Perhaps, but the busy began to limit my social media time spend. And it was a good thing, I have learned how to quickly skim the sites for anything of interest or that might affect me or my job / company.
Effective time spend must be budgeted, just like effective money spend. If you don't measure the give / loss, how can you possibly understand the gain? Measuring the ROI of social media time spend is next to impossible for its reach is really unknowable. The only thing you can really measure is the time spent engaging, thus the time NOT spent doing something else, perhaps something more effective like talking to potential clients / customers face-to-face. Novel concept.
Social media is a great icebreaker, but it isn't the party. That's not always so easy to remember.
by rayannethorn
Tags: @Ray_anne, Bonus Track, Rayanne Thorn, RecruitingBlogs.com, conference, new meida, party, recruiting, social media, social recruiting, More…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Allenda Simpson on -
I am not a marketing major, but I’m sure there is some kind of grid that represents the stages of a marketing plan; having some kind of internet presence beyond the company website should be stage one. With that in mind, I’m in favor of using every media, medium that is available to me to get the message out that my company is here, and it’s great and we are hiring! I think people get “tired of it” when there is nothing going on; but social media activity has a life cycle like anything else, so if you’re tired of it, don’t’ worry. It will spark up again.
I also think that each (FaceBook, Twitter) has a separate demographic, and audience that works well for social media. So for larger companies, with jobs throughout the country, and globally, the social media is an excellent and inexpensive way of getting the message out about your firm, what it has to offer, and draw in interested candidates from a wide range of experience and locations. The ROI on having a social media presence when compared to the cost of TV advertising, newspaper ads, I think is invaluable. Also, with most of the media sites, you have the ability to upload videos, have interactive chats, and serve as the “informational interview” for not one or two potential candidates, but thousands.
For smaller companies, it really works well to show that even though you are small, you still keep up with what is going on in the world around you, especially in the area of technology. Few companies today are not affected in some way by what goes on in the area of technology. Also, due to the low/no overhead, the small companies can compete for candidates just as well as the big ones.
I’ll even go so far as to say that in the long run, having a social media presence will be the same as having a listed phone number, or business address; someone will get the idea to make the FaceBook/Twitter, etc a required part of the package of articles of incorporation, that comes with a certificate, license, (i.e. you’re not really in business without them).
Finally, I'm predicting (She dons a black pointed hat) that the Twitter technology will be added to FaceBook (I think it kind of is already) and Twitter will go away; MySpace will merge with Face Book and be free for individuals, but charge a scaled rate for corporate accounts, (with the advent of cloud computing) which will include a dedicated webmaster, a certain number of pod casts, web meetings, e-mail accounts, and feeds, etc.
Great question and comments!
Allenda
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Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on -
Social Media, like any new toy deserves to be explored, played with then put down when it's time to go back to work. In my opinion it is one of the most over hyped new toys that has come along in a while. Millions of companies and people never heard of it , won't waste time with it other than a profile here and there.
My prediction is that the fall recruiting run is going to be stronger than we have seen this year. Yeppers, RA i think you are right on target. I'm sick of it. SM is going into my "social" stack. When, i want to take a break from the real world i'll log in and see what is playing on the soaps then check back out.
When i really realized how sick of it i really am is when some idiot was hyping finding out where some candidate was then showing up to stalk them at lunch or starbucks. I am truly tired of watching people walk into lamp posts and fall off curbs while they are shuffling along texting and checking their facebook friends. My thinks it's time to go back to work, look people in the eye and get away from some of this texting and typing.
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Permalink Reply by Harold Ensley on -
Social Media make me want to plurk (apologies to plurk.com... but what where they thinking when they named that site?). The thing with social media, is that it's made out for more than it is. Social networking is in fact networking... no brainer... seriously.
I see a great future in internet recruiting, I don't see the future, per say, in technology that makes people more accessible. Why? recruiting is mostly an inherently negative function. You have sometimes 500 people all qualified to do your job, and you can only pick one person. Does that mean I need another 1000 people to communicate with? Or do I need the most desperate candidates to contact me - personally - in any way possible?
Being effective online means drawing boundaries. It's not about building a ever-increasing following of mediocre talent that suck up your time.
Is Social Media the cancer cell of recruiting? Maybe, because if you can't hire people in sufficient numbers, the effort will kill itself off.
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Permalink Reply by Alasdair Murray on -
"You have sometimes 500 people all qualified to do your job, and you can only pick one person. Does that mean I need another 1000 people to communicate with? Or do I need the most desperate candidates to contact me - personally - in any way possible?"
Very well put. All this talk about Facebook being a global marketplace with 500 million members does not help me reach any more mid career accountants in a particular geographical location. At least 499,999,900 of those members are totally irrelevant and just cloud the issue rather than clarify it.
Harold Ensley said:Social Media make me want to plurk (apologies to plurk.com... but what where they thinking when they named that site?). The thing with social media, is that it's made out for more than it is. Social networking is in fact networking... no brainer... seriously.
I see a great future in internet recruiting, I don't see the future, per say, in technology that makes people more accessible. Why? recruiting is mostly an inherently negative function. You have sometimes 500 people all qualified to do your job, and you can only pick one person. Does that mean I need another 1000 people to communicate with? Or do I need the most desperate candidates to contact me - personally - in any way possible?
Being effective online means drawing boundaries. It's not about building a ever-increasing following of mediocre talent that suck up your time.
Is Social Media the cancer cell of recruiting? Maybe, because if you can't hire people in sufficient numbers, the effort will kill itself off.
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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on -
Once upon a time (back in the 90s) AOL was the social media darling (though we didn't call it that - those of us who knew what a time suck it was called it AOHell) and look at it now: being evermore dissembled as we speak!
Robert, I'd like to hear more from you on that 50% figure you mentioned about SM info being outdated. I hadn't pegged it that high but taking into account the economic tsunami I can see that maybve being true...anyone else have an opinion on that?
Maybe we ought to view SM as a Trojan Horse, something that appears as beneficial but in reality facilitates all kinds of unexpected consequences?
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Permalink Reply by Harold Ensley on
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Yes, it gives new meaning to "cloud computing", doesn't it?
Alasdair Murray said:"You have sometimes 500 people all qualified to do your job, and you can only pick one person. Does that mean I need another 1000 people to communicate with? Or do I need the most desperate candidates to contact me - personally - in any way possible?"
Very well put. All this talk about Facebook being a global marketplace with 500 million members does not help me reach any more mid career accountants in a particular geographical location. At least 499,999,900 of those members are totally irrelevant and just cloud the issue rather than clarify it.
Harold Ensley said:Social Media make me want to plurk (apologies to plurk.com... but what where they thinking when they named that site?). The thing with social media, is that it's made out for more than it is. Social networking is in fact networking... no brainer... seriously.
I see a great future in internet recruiting, I don't see the future, per say, in technology that makes people more accessible. Why? recruiting is mostly an inherently negative function. You have sometimes 500 people all qualified to do your job, and you can only pick one person. Does that mean I need another 1000 people to communicate with? Or do I need the most desperate candidates to contact me - personally - in any way possible?
Being effective online means drawing boundaries. It's not about building a ever-increasing following of mediocre talent that suck up your time.
Is Social Media the cancer cell of recruiting? Maybe, because if you can't hire people in sufficient numbers, the effort will kill itself off.
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Permalink Reply by Craig Silverman on -
Social Media keeps me better connected to my contacts and I like it. For recruiters these new networking tools have become part of our daily routine but need to be managed so that we don't get carried away and loose focus. I like checking in early in the am or late at night, maybe at lunch but try to stay away during key times when it's better to be interacting directly with my team or my clients.
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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on
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Social media is not the next great thing in recruiting, at all. It can be a huge time sink if you let it and when I was first finding my way around twitter I lost far too much time. I spend as little time as possible with social media, but I do use it somewhat to leverage what I'm already doing. I'll post status updates on LinkedIn which copy to Twitter, to get the word out about new searches. I see social media as much more of a branding tool than a recruiting one, it's a good way to build awareness of who you are and what you do, but odds are when you have a difficult search, it's not going to land you a top qualified candidate. When I need to find someone fast I go outbound, on the phone and email...not social media.
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Permalink Reply by Maria DiLisio on -
Great thought provoking discussion! And kudos on the bold title! I myself have a love/hate relationship with all things Social Media. It has been both a friend and foe. Friend when it helps me uncover hidden gems, learn new tools, or make helpful connections. Foe when it gives me a false sense of accomplishment, or sends me down twisting turning rabbit holes in search of that elusive bit of information. It can be such a time drain! Sometimes Social Media feels like a golden carrot...I know there's so much juicy information out there, but it's often just out of reach. It holds both an illusion and allure to it.
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Permalink Reply by Pamela Bovaird on -
Depends on how you are using Social Media. For Recruitingblogs it is absolutely great. I would imagine they have gained a lot from this social media site.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Alfred on -
I love it ... Here we have some great insight by Rayanne questioning Social Media and its usefulness from that we get 35 plus responses from users, readers, members giving feedback as to why its either useful, a waste of time, unproductive, a marketing positioning tool, Recruiters wasting their time when they should be recruiting ...etc...
and, we are doing all of this.... and sharing all of these thoughts ... from folks across the Continent including Canada ... In a Social Media Universe ...
Damn that bloody Social Media it Kills me every time ...
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Permalink Reply by Rayanne on -
It is interesting how the question in the title inspired such a slew of responses - both for and against social media and yet...,
here it is being answered in a social media forum...
Gotta love it.
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