About: Facebook is, perhaps, the most well-known and popular social media site for everyone from students to retired CEO’s. For the uninitiated minority, Facebook allows users to keep in touch with friends and colleagues by posting status updates, writing on their ‘wall’, emailing or even giving them a ‘poke’ to say hello.
Users can also tag friends in photos, share music and video clips and join or set up similar interest groups or fanpages. Facebook recently launched an instant messenging service where you can chat with friends online too.
Advantages:
- You can reach a large pool of potential recruits
- Gives you the opportunity to create 'fan pages' for your organisation where you can post information about new business schemes, jobs and events
- Allows recruiters to engage with the younger generation
- Can generate traffic towards the company website
Disadvantages:
- You have no control over what people post and they may leave negative comments
- If negative comments are ignored or responded to badly, everyone who uses the page will be able to see this. However, responding to them well will increase respect for the brand
- If employees are contributing to company pages they will be seen as the voice of the company. If they use their personal profiles to do this it may be advisable for their profiles to be private so that people who don't know them cannot see what they do in their private lives
- Employees who have been redundant will have a platform to air their grievances in public, in front of customers, potential recruits and current employees.
Uses in HR: Growing numbers of employers are using Facebook to boost their brand and as a recruitment tool.
People will talk about your brand whether you use Facebook or not. If you create a fan page for the company, where one or several nominated members of staff respond to any queries or comments, you can bring your brand to life and demonstrate the culture and values of your firm.
Companies tend to use these pages for interacting with customers and employees, as well as attracting new recruits. Often, organisations will make an independent page for recruitment that advertises jobs and where people can ask questions about the roles or the companies.
It creates traffic to your jobs board and reaches a wider spectrum of candidates than more traditional methods of recruitment.