Last week I was invited by Weavlink to facilitate a series of workshops on the ROI of social media for employer brands. Attendees were mainly HR people with uneven maturity levels but who were deeply investigating the area. Of course it was not possible to do deep inside the issue in half an hoyr but here’s how I structured my presentation to make them think about their own model.
1°) Introduction
• It’s a concept that’s hard to get with our traditional thinking models. Do you know the “streetlight” story ? A guy is walking around a streetlight in the middle of the night. A passer-by comes and ask him what he’s looking for. “My keys”. “Wait…I’m gonna help you”. After a few minutes of unsuccessful search, he asks : “Are you sure you lost them here ?”. “Not at all but this is the only place where’s there’s enough light to search”. We need to learn to search beyond the streetlight !
• There’s no mathematical model because such systematic models don’t work for activities that are not systematic, that are about working on knowledge and information, where everything is exception and unique. We can’t equate people and interactions.
2°) What’s your goal ?
• Being on twitter, Facebook or wherever is not a goal. It it was, companies would find themselves idle in spaces where they would not know what to do because no one would know the goal that’s strived toward. They would be tossed, react insread of act and put themselves in danger. So, what matters before all is to know why they move into these media.
• Quick reminder on Norton and Kaplan’s strategy maps. Working on intangible only creates a potential that has to be used into formal activities to reach tangible goals.
• All successful social media initiatives (internal or external) share a common point : they aim at improving the delivery of a process or activity, in this case it could be recruiting, building a corporate image etc…
• Social media don’t change the nature or goals of an HR department but are one more tool they can use to fullfil their goals. Hence the need for segmentation : social tools (and each of them taken alone) has a varying importance depending on the targeted population (you won’t recruit you CEO on Facebook or a Yer with an ad in the NYT)
• That’s not because no mathematical formula exists that what is done can’t be measured as well as the impact on the efficiency of a given processus.
• 3 challenges for the employer brand : sourcing, image, engagement.
• Then, what matters is not to wonder what are the impact of social media toward these challenges but how to use and include them in strategies that aims at addressing these challenges.
• If any improvement can me measured in the way any action plan is executed in termes of speed, quality, scalability or cost, then we have answers to the ROI question.







You can find the "original" french version of this blog here

