Effectively Using Social Media in Human Resources (or at work in general)

Hi.  My name is Trisha and I’m a believer in using social media at work.

I feel like I need a therapist because I am truly becoming addicted.  My mind is constantly trying to think of creative ways I can use social media.

During the last six to twelve months, I have been finding ways to bring social media into my daily life.  I started out slowly with a mySpace account so I could keep in contact with my teenage nephew more easily.  That turned into reconnecting with a few old friends.  Next came Facebook and LinkedIn.  Again, this was all for personal use and was just my way of learning some of the new technologies and what the capabilities are.

As a HR professional, I began to see ways to use Facebook and LinkedIn at work.  I know many recruiters who use both of those venues to supplement the face-to-face and phone networking they do.  I started thinking I could get to know more about my colleagues and the employees I support by finding information on the social media sites.

A colleague I admire a great deal recommended learning about Twitter.  He also recommended I become familiar with google reader (or any reader), so I signed right up.  I tend to jump into new technology very quickly and over the last couple months, I am using many social media sites on a frequent basis.

One of the most valuable tools for me as a HR director has been Twitter.  I recently had the unpleasant task of participating in several layoff discussions and I wanted to do all I could to help our former employees.  I learned that through TweetDeck, you can set up specific key word searches.  I knew there were many recruiters using Twitter, so I put my Tweet Deck to work.  I set up multiple searches based on job title and location for many of my former colleagues.  Then the tweets started rolling in.  I was able to share many job leads with them and they were amazed I had learned of the opportunities via Twitter.

I have also used Twitter as a way to find other HR professionals to follow who are teaching me valuable strategies every day.  I then add them to my google reader so I can more effectively manage the amount of time I spend reading the updates.  I not only have learned more about HR, but about social media in general.  Now I’m Stumbling It, Digging It, etc!

It’s a fast paced work world and in order to be truly successful in HR you have to keep up. 

So, what other ways are you using social media in your daily work (whether you are in HR or not)?