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THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN HR
Social Media, also known as “Web 2.0,” is a category of sites that are based on user participation
and user-generated content. They include social networking sites such as LinkedIn, YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, LinkedIn, Google+, etc. The use of telecommunications to interact
with others online through the sharing of words, pictures, video and audio. Begins with a virtual
representation of each user (a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional
personal/professional information. Networks become richer with more personal connections and
more diverse ways to spread and gather information
In a recent time, 75% of companies either using or planning to use social media sites for
recruiting, sites like Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ are becoming increasingly
important in job searching. Building on this, social media is now creating an even wider and
louder debate for HR and a larger audience are considering how social media creates a platform
for greater organisational success.
Talent acquisition has been the most obvious area of opportunity within many companies who
embrace social media's potential. Done well, this can include accelerating the entire recruiting
process from posting openings to sourcing candidates, reviewing CVs, making an offer and on
boarding. There is obviously a link here with lean administration, efficient recruitment process and
value for money; making it clear that HR is increasingly interested in the ROI considerations of
using social media as a recruitment platform. Put simply that means measuring sales conversions
and targeting traffic. But another core ROI feature includes identifying, creating and measuring
prospect engagement.
Prospect engagement, building knowledge capacity and organisational effectiveness are now
amongst the biggest themes in the social media debate. If HR need convincing, the obvious
benefits offered by social media as a consumer and brand orientated set of tools are well
established. Social media can be used for much more than just marketing and recruitment. Social
media is the platform for external brand identity and a platform that can enhance the ways in
which we work, learn, communicate and lead.
KPMG agree and show how social media can reinforce the supply chain through collaboration
with employees, candidates, customers and suppliers. The BIG Lottery Fund have gone beyond
talent acquisition and harnessed engagement via social media through innovation in the design of
BIG Connect, their latest internal social media tool addressing three main areas - communications,
groups and projects.
The HR cannot ignore the debate, and with that I can return to my initial point; Social media
platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are more important to candidates in the job search than ever
before. It is obvious that Human Resources utilise these in recruitment, but maximising the use of
the social media platforms to harness the creation of internal knowledge sharing and social capital
is the bigger picture. That internal capacity for organisational knowledge catapults a brand into the
market and offers excellence and effectiveness in reputation.

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SOCIAL MEDIA 11 YRS OLD & GROWING
Though online social platforms such as chat rooms or message boards have been around for
decades, it’s been only recently that they’ve found mainstream reception. Most came online
around 2004 and 2005.
 Facebook: Over a 100 billion users by the end of 2016
 YouTube: Hundreds of millions users, 2 billion videos watched daily. 24 hours of
video uploaded per minute.
 Twitter: 600 million users as of September 2014
 LinkedIn: 100+ million users, mostly business-oriented as of July 2014
 Blog - Blog is a word that was created from two words: “web log.” Blogs are usually
maintained by an individual or a business with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are
commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a
verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
 Blogger - Blogger is a free blogging platform owned by Google that allows
individuals and companies to host and publish a blog typically on a sub domain.
Example: yourblogname.blogspot.com
Why Use Social Media in HR?
[a] Real Time Monitoring of Internal and External Perception
[b] Promote Yourself as a Great Place to Work
[c] Enhance Exposure of Job Vacancies
[d] Go in Search of the Right Candidate
[e] Find Individuals with Niche or Specialists Skill sets
[f] Engage With Your Current and Prospective Employees
Social Media Terms
 Hash tag - A hash tag is a tag used on the social network Twitter as a way to annotate
a message. A hash tag is a word or phrase preceded by“#.” Example: #disability and
#USBLN2012. Hash tags are commonly used to show that a tweet, a Twitter message,
is related to an event or conference, online or offline. Also Proper Names use @ sign.
Example: @debraruh or @USBLN
 Like - A “Like” is an action that can be made by a Facebook user. Instead of writing a
comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the "Like"
button as a quick way to show approval and share the message.
 Platform - the framework or system within which tools work. That platform may be
as broad as mobile telephony, or as narrow as a piece of software that has different
modules like blogs, forums, and wikis in a suite of tools
 Post - an item on a blog or forum.
 Retweet - A retweet is when someone on Twitter sees your message and decides to
re-share it with his/her followers. A retweet button allows them to quickly resend the
message with attribution to the original sharer's name.

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 Sharing - offering other people the use of your text, images, video, bookmarks or
other content by adding tags, and applying copyright licenses that encourage use of
content
 Social networking sites - online places where users can create a profile for
themselves, and then socialize with others using a range of social media tools
including blogs, video, images, tagging, lists of friends, forums and messaging.
 Tags are keywords attached to a blog post, bookmark, photo or other item of content
so you and others can find them easily through searches and aggregation. Tags can
usually be freely chosen - and so form part of a folksonomy - while categories are
predetermined and are part of taxonomy.
 Trend - A trend is seen on every social network. Facebook shows what is trending
when multiple users are sharing the same link or discussing the same topic. Google+
highlights trending topic when a user conducts a search. Twitter has a section to the
bottom right of its home feed which clearly shows what topics and hash tags are
trending in tweets. And LinkedIn shows what industries (in LinkedIn Today) that a
certain story is popular.
 URL- Unique Resource Locator is the technical term for a web address
like http://www.RuhGlobal.com
HR Managers & Social Media
 92% of Hiring managers in 2013 used or plan to use social media to recruit
 86% in LinkedIn
 60% in Facebook
 50% use Twitter
 66% (up from 54% in 2008) HR Professionals that use networking websites to source
potential candidates
 1 out of 5 employers use Social Networking Sites to Research Job Candidates
6 REASONS SOCIAL MEDIA SHOULD ROCK YOUR WORLD
Social media participation is an essential tool in networking with professional contacts, making
new contacts, recruiting employees, and keeping in touch with the world. If you’re not
participating in the top social media and networking sites, the world is leaving you behind.
Why not become involved on the social media Web sites while your participation can advance
your Human Resources career help you obtain superior employees by enlarging your candidate
pool, and enable you to easily stay in touch with co-workers and former co-workers at one location.
You will need to explore the possible social media sites to see which sites fit your needs for
participation. Some sites specialize in certain industries and on specific topics. Some even focus
on networking within regions and nations. I have profiles and participate in some activities
on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Social media sites are a critical component in professional networking, career success, and career
development going forward. Social media sites will play an increasing role in networking, career

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advancement, and professional success. Need convincing? These ten reasons make your HR social
media time investment mandatory for your career and business success.
 Stay in touch with colleagues and friends.
 Help colleagues find you. .
 Find candidates for jobs.
 Find a new job.
 Establish your online brand.
 Join groups that share your interests, your community, or your profession.
REVOLUTION IN HR 2014
In 2013, organizations finally began in earnest to integrate social technologies into recruitment,
development and engagement practices. In 2014, this social integration will become the status
quo. And it’s a good thing that baby boomers and other older generations have embraced these
tools, because using social media inside companies will be increasingly important in 2014 and
beyond.
For one thing, this year we’ll see more forward-thinking HR leaders making the connection
between having a solid social media strategy and finding top talent. After all, 47% of Millennial
now say a prospective employer’s online reputation matters as much as the job it offers, according
to a survey by Spherion Staffing.
The year will also see a new phase of what I call “the consumerization of HR,” wherein
employees not only demand to bring their own devices to work, but also want to use these mobile
devices to change the way they work with peers, communicate with their manager and even
interact with the HR department.
Employees are requesting to view new job postings on their tablets, learn and collaborate with
peers on their smart phones, and provide feedback on a team member’s performance with the click
of a button. According to a Microsoft survey of 9,000 workers across 32 countries, 31% would
be willing to spend their own money on a new social tool if it made them more efficient at
work. This last finding is quite interesting as it shows the extent to which Millennial employees,
who will make up 50% of the 2020 workplace, see the business value of using technology on the
job. 2014 is the year HR departments must start creating “social media playbooks” to determine
their game plans.
1 Big Data Lets New Jobs Find you before you even know you’re looking
According to PwC’s global CEO Study, 66% of CEOs say that the absence of necessary skills is
their biggest talent challenge. 83% say they’re working to change their recruiting strategies to
address that fact. The firms tout that they can find new talent before the prospective employees
even know they are in the job market. Companies analyze not just a job
candidate’s LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed and Facebook postings, but also their activity on
specialty sites specific to their professions, such as the open-source community forums Stack
Overflow and GitHub (for coders) Proformative (for accountants), and Dribble (for designers.)
This approach to recruitment is creating a new technical world order where job applicants are
found and evaluated by their merits and contributions, rather than by how well they sell
themselves in an interview.
These companies can pinpoint users who have updated their bios lately or often, to determine
which candidates are getting ready to enter the job market. Getting this head start on head hunting
is crucial as corporations’ search for top candidates becomes ever more competitive. The goal:
finding talent invisible on widely popular social platforms before your competitor does.

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2. Mobile Apps Are the New Job-Search Frontier
According to a study of Fortune 500 companies conducted by CareerBuilder, 39% of the US
population uses tablet devices. A recent survey conducted byGlassdoor.com even found that 43%
of job candidates’ research their prospective employer and read the job description on their mobile
device just 15 minutes prior to their interviews. And yet, only 20% of Fortune 500 companies
have a mobile-optimized career site.
The rest of the 80% of companies are missing the fact that tablet and Smartphone users expect to
see job listings and information in a visual way, one that reflects the visual approach they bring to
their personal lives on the Web.
The results 17 % of job traffic from potential new hires now comes from the mobile app versus
just 2 % of mobile traffic in early 2012. In the first year, mobile app downloads totalled 15,000,
leading to over 2,000 new job candidates and 141 actual new hires, all while saving the company
$300,000 in job board postings.
Organizations need to keep pace with the way prospective employees live their lives, and being
able to access a mobile app in the job search process will become standard in 2014.
3. Companies Use Gamification in the Workplace
Over 60 % of the Western world’s population plays video games and companies are taking note of
the huge numbers of future prospective employees who love to play Angry Birds, Fruit
Ninja, Candy Crush, and World of War craft.
Gamification in the business context is taking the essence of games—attributes like puzzles, play,
transparency, design and competition—and applying them to a range of real-world processes
inside an organization, from new hire on-boarding, to learning & development, and health &
wellness.
Video game-players are known for being singularly focused while at play. So naturally, companies
have begun to ask how they can harness that same level of engagement and apply it to critical
problem-solving, on-boarding new hires or developing new leaders.
With technology research firm Gartner predicting that 40% of global Fortune 1,000 companies
will soon use gamification as primary method to transform their business processes, 2013 saw a
number of them leveraging game mechanics as a tool to drive higher levels of business
performance.
The company’s “Ignite Leadership” Game, aligned with its overall employee engagement
framework, and was created to develop five key skills for leaders: negotiation, communication,
time management, change management and problem solving. To date, a total of 70 leaders have
completed the gamified leadership program, and 50 employees ended up taking on team
leadership roles – that’s 50% higher than had done so through traditional training and coaching
methods. Plus, these “graduates” of the Ignite Leadership Game generated 220 new ideas in their
roles as leaders, which led to a 40% increase in employee satisfaction and helped lower attrition
by 30 %.
Gamification in the workplace is not just about using badges, mission and leader boards. Instead,
the strategy about truly understands who you are trying to engage, what motivates them, and how
gamification can change the way they work, communicate and innovate with peers and customers.

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HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS CHANGING HUMAN RESOURCES JOBS
Social media is still a hot topic in human resources. Using social media and networking sites is
becoming widely adopted in the recruiting space. However, we are seeing more job ads in other
aspects of HR also requiring this experience - like compensation and benefits, training and
development, and labour relations. Organizations (77%) are increasingly using social networking
sites for recruiting, primarily as a way to attract passive job candidates. Fewer organizations
(20%) use social networking websites or online search engines to screen job candidates During
September, there were more than 4,800 available human resources jobs that required social media
skills. This is a 43% year-over-year growth in demand and a new high in the number of job ads.
Social media skills are represented in 4% of all HR job ads in the US. One year ago, only 2.6% of
HR job ads mentioned anything about social media during the same one-month period last year.
Of some of the occupations within HR, compensation, benefits, and job analysis specialists
increased the most compared to last year, with more than twice as many job ads as were seen
during last September. Training and development specialists also increased about 58% versus last
year. We looked at some of these job ads to see what types of duties potential candidates would
have to perform on social media. Below are just a few excerpts from job ads:
 Integrate online learning and instructional materials through social media for
employees
 Find top talent on social networking platforms
 Develop strategies and policies to communicate with employees through social
media sites
 Produce and disseminate external benefits information through print and online
channels, including social media
TALENT ACQUISITION
 As applicants enter the corporate evaluation process, they could become the hub of a
social conversation revolving around each interviewer’s perspective and opinion. By
integrating resume information, on-site and remote interview content, and any prior
working experiences associated with each candidate, organizations could use activity
streams, wikis and polls to provide more immediate and collaborative feedback
regarding an applicant’s strengths and weaknesses. This information could then be
formatted into both a summary and dashboard of the applicant for further
consideration.
 Nucleus Research has found that hiring software can provide over 1,000% Return on
Investment by reducing churn, improving candidate screening and increasing
productivity with automated processes. Through social talent acquisition that takes all
relevant quantitative and qualitative factors into account, the ROI associated with new
talent solutions could be even higher.
ON BOARDING
 Once an employee comes on board, she must learn how to work with appropriate
contacts, access the right information, and learn new processes to get work done.
Although a formal learning and development program is helpful, social communities

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can also identify informal communications habits and off-site activities that are
necessary to effectively network within the company.
 In addition, the employee could be “assigned” a social network based on the social
maps of peers and comparable employees within the organization. This map could
include recommended contacts, online teams and frequently used documentation to
give an immediate head start rather than go through a weeks or months-long
discovery process.
 In essence, the network can come to the employee. This knowledge and network
building could improve their retention rate in key roles by setting new employees up
for success based on best practices that have been developed throughout the life of a
social network or collaboration platform.
RECRUITMENT
Finding great talent is hard. Only 10-30% of potential candidates are actively looking for
jobs. How do you tap into the other 90-70%? Meet them where they are: social channels.
Promoting company culture via social technology generates demand. But it’s more than just a
stellar recruitment website. With outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn,
there are a lot of great ways to engage job seekers.
Social Media for Recruitment
[a] Brand Promotion and Positioning
[b] Job Advertising
[c] Candidate Research and Review
[d] Headhunting
 89% of Companies will use Social Media for recruiting in 2013. Up 6% from 2010.
 1 of 3 employers rejected candidates based on something they found about them
online
 14.4 Million people have used social media to find a job in 2013
 24% Managers found good candidates from social media profile
 65% Companies that have successfully used Social Media
 55% Companies that plan to invest more in social media recruiting in 2013
 Simply tweeting out a link to a job posting will get you visibility and viable
candidates. But to really reach your target audience - Join the conversations
 Learn what is important to the targeted community
 Know Your Audience
 Learn the language and industries
 Get Creative (Make your message stand out)
 Be Open in Return (share information and communicate)
 Take the time to brand your firm as a Employer of Choice
 Cultivate your social media presence your brand will allow you to incorporate job
announcements
Who Uses Social Media for Recruitment?
 [a] 86% of FTSE 100 Companies
 [b] 68% of Organizations Worldwide
 [c] 58% of Jobseekers

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Recruit via LinkedIn
 Recruiters are posting positions on social media sites like LinkedIn Groups (free) or
LinkedIn Talent Advantage.
 Join LinkedIn Groups that focus on people with
 Professionals
 Job Opportunities for Individuals
Recruit via Facebook
 Place positions for free in the Facebook Marketplace
 Ad will require location, job category, subcategories, title, description and
allow post an image
 Facebook Pages
 Use your Facebook Page as a recruiting tool.
 You can also post job openings for your fans to see
 Facebook Ad
 This is another option that allows a laser targeting ability
 This is a pay per click (how many people clicked on your ad) OR pay per
impression (how many people potentially saw your ad)
Recruit via Twitter
 Twitter can be powerful for smaller companies or a recruiter who wants to get an
edge.
 Only 140 characters but you can tweet short messages with a URL
 Increase your network by including hash tags like #accessibility, #inclusion,
#employment, #job post, #career, #staffing, #hiring
 You can also engage with candidates and follow the topics the tweet about with
messages like:
• Stop by our job fair or career expo
• Check out more positions at www.company.com
Recruiters are also using…
Recruiters are using Social Media to post positions and chatter with candidates. However
they are also using it to:
 Determine Culture Fit
 Personal Branding Inconsistencies
 Written Communications Skills
 Trending Health Issues
 Lifestyle Changes
Some recruiters are using it at a deeper level sometimes before the first conversation ever
happens and in those cases a candidate is rarely given the opportunity to clarify, retract or
explain.
ROI of Using Social Media
 Social media recruiting can allow employers to target diverse candidates.
 It can also allow an employer to get to know a candidate a little better.
 Are they a leader in the community?
 Are they knowledgeable in their field?
 Using tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter takes recruiting back to its grass root
day of networking but in the digital age.

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How do I begin in marketing myself?
 Social media is about conversations and networking.
 You need a game plan. Decide what you want to accomplish. Are you looking for a
job? Do you want to change careers? What are you passionate about? Do you want
to become a Thought Leader?
 Find the conversations to join. For example, if you’re targeting people in business or
specific careers or jobs, then LinkedIn is possibly the best place to start.
Good way to proceed is to look for groups: are the active groups on the social site
interested in what you can help with? If so, then potentially that is a good place to start
RETENTION
Now that you’ve found employees that rock, you’ll want to keep them around. The truth is,
employee turnover isn’t just costly, it also dampens employee morale, cuts into productivity,
and puts stress on customer relationships. Nowadays, employees actively rely on social media
for communication. A company’s first instinct is to push against this: blocking Facebook,
limiting personal devices, etc. However, having an open and transparent social
communication policy at all organizational level can improve employee attitude, boost
performance and instil positive company culture.
IMPROVED EFFICIENCY
Once employees are recruited and happily integrated, it’s time to shift focus to efficiency and
consistency. In service industries, specifically, miscommunication is a problem. Carefully
crafted corporate campaigns and initiatives can easily get lost in translation. Well executed
social media platforms allow for company messaging and processes to be easily
communicated. Social technology allows for staff collaboration, internal problem solving,
and social interaction in a way that boosts morale and improves company culture.
JOB SEEKING @ SOCIAL MEDIA
Jobsonica.com is a job-search and career social networking start-up for job seekers, HR
Managers, Recruiters, hiring companies and career professionals. It's for jobs, jobs, jobs!
Focused primarily, though non-exclusively, on job search, career resources, personal
connections and other value-added tools related to employment.
Great for Job seekers:
* Search live jobs locally, nationally and internationally
* Know the latest employment and job-market news
* Get instant job alerts via Web, Phone, SMS, IM
* Invite friends and contacts from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter plus over 80 social networks
* Connect with HR managers, recruiters and other job seekers
* Create own groups and post notices to other groups
* Send and share files (resumes, cover letters, CV's)
* Integrate with social networks, blogs and widgets
Invaluable for Companies and Recruiters:
* Stream jobs and work feeds
* Find candidates for open positions and future opportunities
* Interview job seekers in real-time
* Create, administer or moderate career coaching / recruiting groups

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* Tag users, groups and notices with custom hash tags
* Share your workplace knowledge, job links and career resources
* Promote your business, books and skills
* Communicate efficiently with peers, job seekers and corporate decision-makers
Specialties
recruiting, hiring, human resources, social network, job-search, online resume, micro
blogging, social media jobs, jobs, careers, CV, post a job, find a job, jobsonica.com, career
advice, job market news, salaries, vacancies.
HR LEVERAGE SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS
1. Organizational Design - If the SNA reveals a lack of communication and
information flow due to too strict adherence on formal organizational hierarchy, some
re-design may be in order to try and help facilitate more cross-organization
communication
2. Succession Planning - SNA can assist tremendously in the identification of key
employees, ones that either have a central, highly connected role in the network, or
that serve as the primary or only 'connector' between different departments or offices.
HR would likely want to take steps to insure that an adequate succession strategy is in
place for these individuals, who are not necessarily 'high' on the official organization
chart.
3. Job Description modification - sometimes SNA reveals certain individuals are 'too
connected', meaning there are far too many demands on their time, and too many
other folks in the organization looking for their insights. Many times this leads to
bottlenecks that can disrupt the flow of information and ultimately detract from
productivity. If this situation occurs, HR can assist in an intervention to modify the
position roles and responsibilities, removing or re-aligning certain duties to promote a
better balance, and hopefully reduce the information bottlenecks.
4. Training and Development - SNA can help identify and analyze the makeup of the
networks of the organization's top performers. It could be that the structure or
patterns of high-performer networks could be replicated to others in the organization,
potentially leading to increased overall personal and network effectiveness. HR can be
instrumental in developing learning opportunities to help educate the workforce on
these approaches that top performers utilize.
5. Internal Social Networking technology - Conducting a thorough SNA for an
organization typically reveals areas that need improvement, either a need to increase
collaboration and communication overall, desire for better inter-departmental
processes, or more widespread organizational changes. Internal or corporate social
networking technology is one tool that can be brought to bear to attempt to address
these challenges. Platforms ranging from internal micro blogging, blogging, wikis,
activity streaming, or more robust platforms that encompass all of these functions are
becoming more common in organizations, and HR departments, armed with
information from the SNA, should be in an excellent position to drive these efforts.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
The data and sources of facts and figures are taken from the various links listed below:
 http://www.onrec.com/news/news-archive/the-increasing-importance-of-social-
media-in-hr
 http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2014/01/06/2014-the-year-social-hr-
matters
 http://www.cmswire.com/cms/social-business/how-social-human-capital-
management-can-benefit-the-enterprise-015998.php#null
 https://www.oracle.com/applications/human-capital-management/index.html
 http://steveboese.squarespace.com/journal/2009/7/20/social-network-analysis-
and-hr.html.
 http://socialdriver.com/2013/07/24/3-examples-of-social-media-supporting-human-
capital-development/