3 Reasons HR Needs to Get Connected with Online Communities

So I was sort of thinking back to the beginning of my blogging days and laughing. My first attempt at blogging was undeniably stupid and it is only thanks to the fine folks over at archive.org that we have a copy of that project in 2001. Daily updates, e-mailed newsletters, and everything else a 19 year old kid could think of to make other 19 year old kids laugh. The name of the site was Lactose Overdose for Pete’s sake! It was not pretty.

Fast forward to today and things haven’t changed much.

Granted, things are nicer in the blogging world. We’re no longer using tables. Style sheets helped. And it is super easy to update this here blog. Plus it is easier to follow multiple blogs through RSS and customized e-mail subscriptions. But…

It is 2008 and we still have very few HR people blogging and interacting on social networks. In fact, if you discount the recruiting community (which has really had a nice web presence since 2003-2004), there were only a couple true HR blogs I was following when I first started blogging over two years ago. When I was talking to a friend about how great blogging has been for me, he asked how many HR blogs I followed and I could list maybe a couple handful. I consider myself a pretty engaged HR social media guy too.

When I started HRM Today, I really thought I could work on getting more and more HR people online. Now I have started to think of other ways of getting HR people involved online besides my site. But who cares about all of that if people don’t even know why they should be online?

Here are three reasons why every HR person should be blogging, be a part of a social network other than LinkedIn and get engaged in the online HR community.

1. Street Cred, Google Juice, Online Identity - Do you want to control what is out there when somebody searches for your name online? Take control by blogging and joining social networks under your name. If you look at my name in google, you can see that blogs and social networking sites rank higher. I have control of everything that is seen on that first page so I get to determine what my image is online. That is going to continue to be a big advantage.
2. Networking, Networking, Networking - Imagine the potential to network with thousands of other HR professionals? That’s what the internet gives you and more. The best part is that you aren’t restricted by geography and it is often easier to network with busy HR professionals online. What can networking give you? Better business contacts, industry leaders and increased job search ability.
3. Personal Development - I have learned a lot from being involved in the recruiting community. Unfortunately, they don’t teach you much about recruiting in school and you end up learning much more about it as a job seeker. Many contributors in the recruiting community hold free webinars about sourcing candidates or figuring out how to contact that high performer at another company. The same thing could happen in the HR community with more participation.

Maybe you are a lurker to this site. You come in, you read and you either take away something or you don’t and you go about your day. And while I would say that it is better than no social media interaction, I really think you are only getting a fraction of value out of it that you could if you were participating in the discussion.

If you’re looking to get involved quickly, check out four great HR resources to get you on your way.