At our last meeting in the International Intranet Group, intranet expert Jane McConnell suggested that groups and pages on Facebook should be considered an extended part of your intranet from a conceptual viewpoint even though they are on an external platform. Jane said: If the groups are using the company logo, employees may think they are the official voice of the organisation. Jane’s comment made me think:
- Organisations, in the private as well as public sectors, need to take Facebook much more seriously
- Individuals, job seekers as well as those in secure life-time jobs, need to think about Facebook as more than their private and personal social network
Allow me to explain. Thus far, the main discussion has been around privacy, photos and whether you should invite your manager as a friend. Today, a more relevant discussion would be: Why are you not using the incredible potential of the 2nd most popular website in the world? According to web research company Alexa, Google is the only site with more traffic.
Many companies are already using Facebook for a variety of purposes. The below screenshot shows a Facebook page, used by drug maker Merck to alert fans about job opportunities.
Merck Careers on Facebook – 494 fans as of October 18, 2009. Not too bad for one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies
In the current climate it does seem easier to attract talent, but Facebook can also be used for much more. In our community of practice, some have adopted it for connecting with citizens or customers in a more direct way than traditional means by asking for feedback, building loyalty, offering discounts and much more.
On an individual level, you may enjoy how Facebook can keep you up-to-date on your “friends” and former girlfriends. It is your decision how to make the best of Facebook, but why not also use your network to ask questions, get feedback on your work challenges and engage the “wisdom of the crowd”?
To me, Facebook is not about revealing confidential insights or being less selective about my small circle of friends. Facebook is an important network with a potential far beyond the intranet and perhaps even bigger than our website. Why not take it seriously?
As always, I would be very interested in hearing your examples or any best practices.
NB: Feel free to connect with my personal profile on Facebook or our relatively new company pages. We’re still beginning to take Facebook more seriously ourselves.
Joel Shapiro October 20th, 2009 23:54
Janus – I agree with your post that Facebook should be taken more seriouly. I have been using Facebook to post new IT positions for my young staffing firm, with mixed results. I find that many job seekers, while engaged in a serious search, prefer using LinkedIn. My guess is that they don’t want the recruiters/employer peering into their personal life via pictures, as the first impression we get of them. They should be using Facebook to create a good first impression, as everyone and their Grandmother are on the site. We will keep posting the positions on Facebook, as you stated, the reach is too huge to ignore.
I have also heard of a lot of companies like IBM are now using Second Life to accept job applications and conduct initial interviews.
Stig Andersen October 20th, 2009 23:54
No doubt Facebook is major media property. As it provides great value to many users around the Globe (users Facebook knows almost everything about) it should hold a great potential. But sheer size and ability to micro-marketing does not make Facebook interesting per se. Any organization should consider these simple issues before venture into a Facebook invenstment:
- In most regions aprx one third of the Facebook user community is under the age of 24. Some 20 % are under the age of 17.
- User behavior on Facebook is to a high degree task oriented rather than explorative. To convert a user from performing Facebook-related tasks to do “something else” is up-hill (read: expensive).
- If you have a Facebook profile, you may have noticed it can be time consuming. This goes for corporate Facebooking as well.
On top of that, when I listen to people who study social networks, they tell us that Facebook without a doubt is – and probably always will be – big. However, there’s a lifecycle for these networks and there will be a “new black” within a couple of years. Do you have an exit strategy? Or are you stuck in Facebook? And SecondLife? And Orkut?
Do size matter? I’m sure, but there’s much more to the picture.