Welcome to this special edition of the HR Carnival.  This edition is dedicated to examples of how you are incorporating social media and new tools into your work.  The idea for this carnival was one take away from HRevolution.  Many of the discussions revolved around the need to showcase how we’re using social media in our day-to-day jobs so that we can spread the word to more mainstream HR pros and recruiters.  This carnival is only the tip of the iceberg and can be a resource of people you can use as examples as you think of ways to incorporate new ways of communicating into your organizational strategy.

I want to start off this carnival with a post from Kevin Grossman of the HR Marketer blog because his post sets the tone.  Kevin shares with us the secret of keeping it real with ‘Don’t Over-think Your Social Media Efforts.  Keep It Simple, Real, and Human.’

Steve Browne, a HR practitioner from Cincinnati shares his case study from LaRosa, a pizzeria who is embracing new tools to communicate with customers.  He challenges you in his post, Are You Old Fashioned ?, a look at how you can bring your company into the future of marketing.

Lyn Hoyt of Fusion Frames shares her case study of how her business took marketing online with the use of social media tools.  It’s a good example of the process a company can use to make the transition.  Check out her post Our Slow Move Online and Discovery of Social Media.

What do you do when your organization is living in the Stone Age and  is resistant to adding in social media to the communication strategy?  Check out Ben Eubanks’ entry ‘That Social Media Thing‘ to find out.

Bill Boorman cuts through the clutter of fighting the use of social media terminology with Stop the Social Recruiting BS.  Bill talks about focusing on the business outcomes you need and how to achieve them rather than publicizing the platforms or tools you’re using.

Gary Franklin also brings us the global flavor in this edition with his discussion about how networking through social media can bring extraordinary opportunities.  He shares his experience at The Firm, the forum for in-house recruitment managers.  Check out ‘With the Help of Social Media I Met Some Fab People‘ by Gary.

Gireesh Kumar from the Grasp e-Marketing blog shares ‘Social Media Works! Not only in Marketing but HR, customer service, word of mouth marketing, socializing….‘    His story about India’s second largest bank and how Twitter impacted an experience there is a must read.

And, to wrap it up, we have a great video presentation from Jessica Miller-Merrell.  Jessica, from Blogging4jobs.com,  recently spoke at Ignite Dallas and shares her short video with us that pokes fun at and shares information about all this “new media” craze.  Be sure to read/ watch ‘7.2 Ways to Get Fired with Social Media.‘  It’s well worth your time.

Thank you all for sharing how you are finding success incorporating news communication methods into your business and your day-to-day work.  If you’re a practitioner who uses social media in your organization, be sure to share your information or a link to your post in the comments.

*Today I’m sharing a guest post from Lyn Hoyt of Berkeley Tandem, Inc.

We are designers and manufacturers of framed corporate recognition. With two locations in TN and NJ, we have been manufacturing and shipping our unique frame products to training facilities and HR departments’ worldwide since 1995. My name is Lyn Hoyt. Also known as @designtwit on twitter. I am the Director of Product Design and Marketing as well as a co-owner of Berkeley Tandem, Inc. We have two online stock product brands: fusionframes.com and awardcertificateframes.com. I am a social media advocate.

CASE STUDY- FUSION FRAMES:

OUR SLOW MOVE ONLINE & Discovery of Social Media
Each year the number of customers shopping online continues to increase. And our recognition business continues to grow despite the bad economy. Millennial and Gen Y are now moving into buyer positions with corporations and they immediately turn to the internet to research their award programs. And we are there. Search is king. So you must be online writing about your product and creating content about your product to be found in search. I saw that as ANY way to be online. In 2008 I started on twitter and discovered Social Media. Initially I was only there to create product content for search: industry term SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I was tweeting about corporate recognition, framing, and certificates. I was blogging about these same subjects too. And it was really rather dull.

But, slowly something happened – I realized social media was a direct connection to conversing with my customer and the industries I sell to. Rather than pushing my agenda I started making conversation. My content evolved as a reflection of my business and my personality creating an online persona that is influential and engaging. I wanted my experience to be the online cocktail party where I go to find HR people and talk shop.

Social Media is a platform to reach out in a different way. There are so many in marketing that immediately jump on the “Who can I sell to?” strategy. And admittedly I was there over a year ago blogging and on twitter. But, as I started engaging, building interest, and learning about my customer online things changed; communities formed, conversations started and relationships blossomed. And just like any relationship, social networking takes time and commitment. It is not and immediate pay-out.

“The more trust you build, the more value you release, and the more wealth you create.” Says Shoshana Zuboff in a Business Weekly viewpoint. When online networking evolves from “What can I sell you?” to “Who are you? What do you need? How can I help?”, things change. It may never get past “Who are you?” You may find out “what they need” is not what you offer. And help may come in the form of content generation or advice rather than “selling” your product.  If you love what you do it is easy to generate content about it. It is easy to talk to others with similar interests. Let your connections find out about you. Learn from them. You are putting out content that relates to your audience and your subject. They search and find you. They link to you. You link to them. Influence and message reach spreads. Building relationships, networking, content mining result in qualified people interested in your expertise or your product.

It took me over a year to build up my twitter following to over 3,000 people. I have met incredibly smart, talented people in the industries I sell to and I have formed relationships with customers and non-customers alike. The biggest bonus is the reach beyond business to personal and professional development. This is how I became involved with this fantastic group of HR professionals online. They were studying me. I was studying them through the content we were creating and communicating on Twitter and on our blogs. We were (and still are) learning how Social Media shapes our industries. Even taking networking to the next step with in-person tweet-ups and un-conferences like HRevolution, hoping to educate and bring more mainstream HR online to find and create information of value and quality.

WE HAVE ONLY JUST STARTED TO UNDERSTAND

Social Media is rather new. It is a cutting edge tool. There are all kinds of 3^rd party tools that help me manage this ever-growing segment on the Internet and on our cell phones. (Hootsuite.com is my top tool right now, helping me categorize and track followers by subject.) I am stumbling through trying to figure out how it fits into my business and personal life. It is not black and white and it evolves. I am human, with typos, spelling errors and personal commentary. It makes my personal brand real

People ask me how much time I spend on Social Media. It varies depending on what I read, how active my market is and what inspires me to write. But I spend at minimum 30 minutes a day. I could do it in 15. But, I am a people person so 15 can grow to 30 or even an hour. It is never in vain from a business point of view. It is personal selling. SEO is still of value to keep a high Google presence in organic search. It works well for small businesses because there are no barriers to putting a message out there or discovering online markets. The cost is in the value of my time.

My content continues to shape my business message and my personality gives it authenticity as a personal brand. Social Media is a slow, evolving experiment. And my goal is to still be there in a sustainable, almost pragmatic way that helps my business grow, helps me learn what my customer wants and helps me continue to discover this content-rich, people driven, ecommerce, electronic, virtual, digital frontier called the Internet.

“Who are you? What do you need? How can I help?” ~ Zuboff, Business Weekly

Yes, I’m on twitter @designtwit and @awardframes

My blog: http://www.hrbaconhut.com

*This is a guest post from Steve Browne for the HR Carnival that will be published later today.

The immortal Three Dog Night penned the classic song “Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song” and started it with . . .

“Just an old-fashioned love song

Playing on the radio

And wrapped around the music

Is the sound of someone promising they’ll never go . . .”

You can’t go wrong with anything from Three Dog Night, but a company that relies on “old-fashioned” methods of reaching its Team Members or Clients will be ones that will be longing for the past instead of defining the future.

I work for a Pizzeria.  The company is LaRosa’s and we’ve been a Greater Cincinnati tradition for 56 years as an Italian Family Dining experience.  We are very fortunate to have been a staple of families for generations, but we realize that we need to be even more relevant now so that we are making new connections and sustaining who we are for years to come.

To do this we are doing some proactive moves in Social Media.  Every e-mail that is generated from our Company has our Twitter and Facebook tags so that anyone who receives a message from any Team Member will have the chance to follow us or become a fan.

This has allowed our “fans” to share great experiences that they’ve had at our locations.  It also has opened a voice for those who’d like to see us improve.  Some companies would shy away from this, but we have seen a chance to interact with our Guests.  This is essential so we not only have the “pulse” of our customer, but we have a chance to introduce them to new items and directions in a very intentional forum.

The Company also has been encouraging in allowing HR to keep active in Social Media forums as well as have a balance on what is said by Team Members on Social Media. We understand that someone could unload on the Company, or say something that seems out of character for us.  HR is very much involved with our Marketing group to make sure that the messages we see are addressed, considered and handled consistently without closing the gates on this field.  We understand that Social Media, in some form, will continue and we must be a player in order to remain relevant.

Our goal is to be able to have a one-to-one marketing relationship with our Guests so that we can reach them with messaging and deals that drive them to be an even more active consumer with us.  By meeting their needs where they are, we will be the option for dining that they choose.  It’s an exciting time to be at LaRosa’s.  We value our “old-fashioned” tradition, and we now are building our exciting future !!

I’m excited to announce a special edition of the HR Carnival coming June 16th.  I will be hosting an entire carnival of posts dedicated to examples of how you are incorporating “social media” or “new media” into your work.  Whether you are in human resources, recruiting, marketing, finance, or other aspects of business, we’re interested in real case studies of people who are getting it right for their organization.  Here are some points to consider including in your post:

• Name or type of organization
• Employee base size or revenue
• What do you do for the organization
• What new media tools or platforms are you using
• What problem are you addressing or solving with social media
• Is there a cost savings
• What were some of the obstacles, if any
• How did you handle obstacles or opposition
• What is the current state and any outcomes you produced

Those are just food for thought to get you started.  The reason I want to do this carnival is that one take away from HRevolution is that we need to begin using social media in our day-to-day jobs so that we can spread the word to more mainstream HR pros and recruiters.  There are many benefits and if we have a pool of great case studies to draw from, it will make all our jobs easier.

So, send your post to me by next Monday, June 14th.  E-mail them to me at TrishaM89@gmail.com.

When I heard that Mark Bennett at TalentedApps planned to host the March 3rd HR Carnival I was excited.  When I heard it was going to have a HR Hangover theme, I was even happier because I had just written a post on that very topic.  But, Mark was kind enough to link to that post in his call for contributions, so I knew I needed to write something new for him.

I had such fun writing the scenerio in my original ‘HR Hangover’ post, so be sure to check it out (and the comments from readers) if you haven’t yet.  And, while I’m certain all those things would not be presented to a HR manager all at once, it is certainly conceivable that they could all occur within a week.  It just proves the diversity of situations a HR generalist needs to be prepared for.  Some of the key skills needed to be successful in HR are:

• ability to quickly and accurately assess a situation
• ability to prioritize for maximum effectiveness
• having a clear understanding of employment laws and regulations
• ability to apply the knowledge in a sincere and compassionate way

Now, I’m sure there are people who will disagree with my thinking that sincerity and compassion are key skills or abilities that lead to success in HR.  They may be right.  But, I would argue that having those characteristics gives the HR pro the opportunity to be more successful in HR because it encourages employees and leaders to build a stronger relationship with you.

What do you think?  If you work in HR, do you incorporate compassion into your interaction with leaders and employees?  If you’re an employee, do you value a HR pro who treats you with compassion?  Tell me in the comments.