By Ian Barr
I’ve noticed a continual bombardment of Facebook requests amongst my peers and colleagues since the start of mid-December. To date, 112 people I know (or acquaintances in some cases) have been added as ‘friends’. People who I haven’t seen in 10+ years are coming out of knowhere and finding me. I’ve even been contacted by reporters and, in some instances, PR students who are curious about our company.
As a means of promoting our TechKnow blog, I’ve added the feed to my ‘notes’ section. Facebook continually updates the blogroll on my profile exposing it to everyone in my network, potential new readers.
I see a huge opportunity for human resources departments to directly interact with up and coming talent. I just discussed this with our head of recruitment in Canada, showing her the benefits of creating a profile and joining various ‘PR Groups’. In doing so, she can sign up to be a member of these groups, learn about grassroots events and post job opportunities on the discussion boards. This is particularly helpful for sending out job notices in markets that have a limited talent pool – go directly to the source.
Last night I was on one of these boards and noticed that someone (a teacher I presume) had posted our logo on an events listing which highlighted an info session that my office holds on the last Friday of every month.
In order to fully understand emerging technologies and the benefits, I feel it’s important for PR professionals to ‘dive in’ and try things out. I hope to have every member of our team on Facebook, MySpace, etc. in the near future; most already are members. I find it encouraging.
If you have any comments about the service or additional ideas about how to use Facebook, comment below. If you’re currently a member of Facebook and want to chat, look me up.
Ian Barr is an Account Director with Hill & Knowlton Toronto’s Technology Communications Practice. He’s been with the company for over five years.