Facebook and PR

Once again, thanks to the PRSA daily email, Issues and Trends, I stumbled across another article about Facebook (article linked to title of post). I'm not quite sure how I feel about the article's content: using Facebook for PR.

I read the article, from the PR Newswire blog, and part of me wondered if I was using Facebook "wrong." In my opinion, I never thought of Facebook as a "professional" site. I think most people see Facebook as a personal, catch-up, play games and other stuff kind of site. I thought to myself, "should I be thinking of Facebook differently?"

Truth be told, I don't spend a great deal of time on Facebook. All the games and other "applications" on my Facebook page have gone virtually unused. I post links to blog posts. The article suggests placing an ad on Facebook. I have to be honest, while they aren't as evasive as they are on other sites; I tend to get somewhat annoyed by them.

On the other hand, the article also suggests that Facebook may not always be the right medium to use when it comes to PR. The author of the article, Sarah Skerik gave some suggestions. Skerik suggests to first find out who your audience is. And, on Facebook, that's hard to do. Of course, you can post poll questions on Facebook; however, you may not get the responses you're looking for nor responses from the right people.

If you do use Facebook for PR, what do you desire to gain out of it? Are you looking for traffic to your site? Seeking to gain awareness (which has become somewhat of a big deal on Facebook recently), or just to forge relationships? For me, anyway, I do post links to my new blog posts on Facebook, in hopes of generating more traffic. However, I really have no way of figuring out how many people click on to my blog directly from Facebook.

The bottom line, Skerik writes, is that it is OK to use Facebook for promotion. If it's used for more than that, be mindful of two things: your audience and your message.

I've tried to do those things recently with this blog. I've changed the title of this blog-as well as the focus of the articles, to hopefully generate a bigger audience. I'll always be interested in writing about sports and its correlation with marketing and PR.

Realizing that was a pretty slim audience prompted the name change and article change. But, I still wonder, is it enough to generate traffic from Facebook? Is Facebook really the new "word of mouth"? Is social media proactive enough in relation to PR? I'm curious.

Facebook and job recruiters

If the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is right, Facebook could become a major recruiting tool for employers. WSJ said in a recent article that Facebook could give "traditional job boards" a run for their money in 2012 (link to article embedded in title of this post).

The WSJ says that new hires directly from Facebook is a very small percentage of overall hires. But, given time, that could change.

I haven't done it often, but sometimes when I'm in chat with someone on Facebook, I'll ask if they've heard of any job openings in the PR field. In a couple occasions, I've used Facebook to get more information about a job opening I've seen. In a way, Facebook might bring a new twist to the "word of mouth" means of finding out about jobs.

The WSJ article mentioned a new app on Facebook from Monster called BeKnown. According to the article, BeKnown now has close to 800,000 users (including yours truly). Matt Mund, a top executive with Monster.com was quoted in the article as saying, "I wish every company used Monster [but] social is a solution many people are using."

I have found that the major job search engines, Career Builder, Monster, et.al. seem to point job seekers to jobs that are sort of close to what they are looking for. And, sometimes, jobs will pop up that really aren't remotely close to what job seekers are looking for.

If the WSJ is right, and Facebook does surpass the major job search engines in 2012, what will that look like? Will it stay legitimate; or will it become a gathering place for hackers and spammers? In either case, if Facebook does become a major recruitment tool, remember: you might want to double check your Facebook profile, just to make sure there isn't anything recruiters won't like.

Facebook - as a resume tool?

An interesting thought came to me as I was eating dinner recently with a colleague that I met in the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). The thought was this: to what extent is Facebook a good tool to post a resume?
The ultimate question that came to my mind was, "how much do I want a potential employer to see?"
Social networking sites are great tools. I know it's a cliche, but it seems to me that these days, "everybody's doing it." If you can't find people on Facebook, they'll be on MySpace. If not there, try LinkedIn or Twitter.
However, Facebook is a different monster from the aforementioned social networking sites. Facebook has games, applications, groups - things that if a potential employer saw some of them, might sound an alarm.
Profile photos could raise red flags also. In my early days on Facebook, I had some strange profile pictures. Me making strange faces, me and my brother making strange faces, my cat, me and my brother making strange faces at the cat; you get the idea. Recently, I changed my profile picture to a more professional looking, suit-and-tie picture. I have to say, that's the one I'm keeping.
Making funny pictures, strange groups, games - it's all in good fun on Facebook. But, be careful, you never know who might see "the real you" posted on Facebook. Twitter is a great alternative, as you only get 140 characters to work with to get your point across.
Bottom line, it's probably better if you keep the resume off Facebook. Someone, anyone could use it against you.