Is Facebook Poisonous to Employers?
One of the questions sent to me after today's free webinar on how employers can and should use Facebook for recruiting was the following:
The resistance we tend to get about Facebook and MySpace (and this is often the extent of people's familiarity with these sites) is that ex-employees - and perhaps even current ones - post nasty things about companies, to the point that the whole social networking arena is considered poison for those not willing to accept it as the unavoidable future. Is there any way to limit nasty postings, quell these fears, etc.?
My answer was as follows:
The nasty stuff will be posted whether you participate or not. But by participating in the discussion, you'll have an opportunity provide your side and probably even temper the conversation.
If your concern is about candidates etc. posting nasty comments to your Facebook page (the "Wall") or blog, no fears. You can delete Wall comments you don't like and you can set up any blogging software to require your approval before comments go live. I had a guy post two comments to my blog today, actually, and I approved one and rejected the other. The one I rejected wasn't nasty but it was a sales pitch for their product.
Have a voice. Be heard.
Speaking of being heard, our next free webinar will be on how employers should use cell phone text messaging to recruiting college students. It will be on Thursday, September 25th. Seats are limited. Register today.
I agree that so far as online social networks are concerned, whatever people have to say about a company will be on the web in some form anyway (and probably on Facebook), and hence companies might as well jump in and join the discussion. I'm curious whether or not company social network site pages tend to draw more negative comments/reactions than is normal. Because if your company is good, shouldn't negative feedback be at a minimum anyway?
Also it is interesting how employers are considering Facbook as "poison" for their companies' reputations when before the buzz was fear coming from the other end- employees being afraid their information would be compromising if companies could access their profiles.