We tweet, we blog and we Facebook (is that a verb now?).
Karin and I still consider ourselves newbies to this whole social media arena. Two years ago we decided to take the plunge and immerse ourselves into the social media world with books, webinars and consulting with the experts. Through the excitement of new ways to reach out to clients and candidates we were on our way but we still felt we were missing something. Sure we have a Facebook page, but what do we put on it? Sure, we have Twitter but what do we tweet out? This was when the realization hit us that there was another world in which social media could not exist without. Content. That realization was made when we attended the Content Marketing World conference in 2011. Create our own content? Who knew? We left re-energized, focused and excited – high fiving each other all the way home.
It is now content that we focus our efforts on. Whether it’s Karin writing her very first whitepaper, pushing out blog posts and putting together ideas for a certain little purple guy, content has been the soothing balm of our social media anxiety. We have answered the question of “what do we tweet out?”
Now we just have to answer the question “how do we find the time?”
Well, we are still working on that. Count yourself lucky if you have one or two people who you can work with on your social media strategies. Who despite trial and tribulation and fear due to uncertainty will plow through the learning with you. I am lucky that I have Karin in this regard. I have a Manager who saw the potential and who got just as excited about it as I did. With her partnership, mentorship and encouragement I am now fulfilling a role within our recruiting division that is pretty cool. Along with sourcing candidates, I lead our social media and content strategies and sometimes, when it’s just right, I can do both at the same time.
We have learned a lot and the most important lesson in my opinion? Never stop learning. With the speed at which social media moves we are all students of it, though there are some who have been students just a wee bit longer than most of us and it is those people that we really want to thank. Karin does a great job of mentioning those people in her Recruiting, meet social media post. Head on over and read about the people who helped us along the way.
Annette
