Ernest Blogging and Vlogging

I recently attended a meeting of the GATEWAY SHRM Chapter in Jersey City, NJ.  As the organization’s Social Media Chair, it is my duty to develop and execute on our social media strategy for the chapter.  I say this because it ties into the presentation given by Steve Levy at the meeting–  ”Social Media Isn’t Voodoo: Fast and Practical Ways to Use Blogging, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to Amp Up Your Recruiting or Job Search.” 

Part of my social media strategy for this particular event included video and blogging (which you are reading now), there will be tweets sent out too and hopefully you will share this post and video.

Steve Levy’s approach to social media is not as a series of website to use, but rather in the manner we all should approach social media, as an extension of our conversation and communication with each other, target audience and the world.

For those dipping their toes into social media, Steve recommends these sites as a good starting point:

• Linkedin.com
• Facebook.com
• WordPress.com – blogging
• Twitter.com – microblogging
• Del.icio.us (Social Bookmarking)
• Flickr (Photo Sharing, etc..)
• ERE.net (Recruiting Community)
• YouTube.com – video

With social media you will have colleagues, friends, and “unknowns” asking to join your network or follow you.  Quality is more important than quantity, but I believe we all can get too a couple hundred quality connections.  Steven recommends calling people to say thank you for “connecting” / “following.”  He states it’ll differentiate you and help strengthen the relationship.  I found that advice to be a simple but brilliant.  People too often hide behind email and social media and don’t strengthen relationship by talking or meeting the person face-to-face.   

I’m a big believer in face-to-face, attending events like the GATEWAY chapter meeting is a way I accomplish that.  If you are interested in face-to-face too, take a look at Meetup.com.  I currently lead the NYC Recruiting Meetup Group on that site, it’s my was of bringing people face-to-face in a somewhat informal way to discuss best practice and “next practices” in recruitment.

Here’s part of the presentation.

More on Steve and his presentation:

Social Media isn’t voodoo: Build your brand, build your team, build your
future – (AKA One-Minute Social Media Solutions for Recruiting)
􀂃 Overview of social media for Recruiting
􀂃 Defining Social Media goals for Recruiting
􀂃 The Big Five (Blogging, Career Page, Facebook, LinkedIn,
Twitter) and their individual roles in recruiting
􀂃 Deconstructing the Big Five: Strategies and tactics to make each
effective without breaking the clock
􀂃 Reconstructing the Big Five into a dynamic strategy
􀂃 Use specific jobs from the audience as examples

Speaker: Steve Levy is a Recruiter and Organizational Development consultant with 20 years of diverse experiences in Recruiting, OD, Human Resources, Patent Law, Management Science, and Information Technology (yes, he HAS had a career roadmap – it just hasn’t been conventionally HR). His company profile has covered all the bases – start-ups, growth, mature, and turnarounds – and his sector experience is equally diverse. Steve is a well-respected recruiting, HR and business blogger who is known for his outside-the-box analyses and solutions to quagmire “people” problems. He is presently a very senior recruiter with MTM Technologies, a national IT consulting firm focused on virtualization, unified communication, and managed services solutions.