My HR colleagues use to wonder why they should go for social media. It seems so shallow, useless, frightening, less-performing.
There are much more than 10 good reasons.
But 10 is a good start.

1. War for talent
Never heard about the war for talent? Do you expect young talents to open a regular newspaper to find a job? Wrong. These guys have a virtual life. They are connected. Instead of calling each other, they chat. They share links. They google you and your company. What about you?

2. KISSSS
You want to make things simple, straight-to-the-point, sustainable and sexy? You want to be KISSSS? Then use 2.0. Social media is easy to use. It reduces emails. It’s paperless. Most tools are intuitive, whatever the generation of users. Social media is cross-generations.

3. Communities
Whatever the age, people enjoy being a part of a group, a team, a community to share interests, commitment or purpose. Even more if they are working/living on different locations or working on different projects. Social media helps you to build communities with a low cost budget. Ever try Yammer?

4. Collaboration
If you have questions, problems, suggestions or best practices: share them. Tweet them. Post them. You will be amazed by the fast and qualitative answers or feedback you ‘ll get. For free.

5. Knowledge management
In knowledge management, knowledge is not the issue. Management is the clue. Let people organize themselves, through collaborative platforms, about what has to be known (and transfered) to colleagues, peers, networks, …

6. Boost you creativity
Go through your tweet lists. Read blogs. Google a topic. Look for references to hashtags. And you will open an incredibly wide (wild) world of knowledge. Don’t be afraid by the quantity of information: your sense of curating (find out information with added value) will improve quite fast. But each time you surf on the web, you’ll get back in the real world with fresh and innovative ideas.

7. Networking
The 2.0 world is just another world. Meeting (new) people in the real life will always be important and priceless. But meeting (new) people on social media is not less valuable. You can connect to experts, potential candidates, business partners that you have ever met so far in the real life.

8. Cost
Economic crisis has a range of consequences on the HR budget from frozen budgets to deep turnaround. Good news: 2.0 tools are almost for free. Of course you can buy paying versions (to secure more the environment, to get advanced features, to receive more detailed analytics, …) but you’ll dive into endless discussion with your CFO about ROI. The crisis will be finished before you get your budget. Go for the free version. You will at least have some experience.

9. Fun
Social media are not monsters. They won’t bite you. It’s funny. It’s easy. And yes, it can be addictive. It’s like everything else. When used with moderation…

10. The most important
Everybody has a different experience of social media. Have you own opinion but you can’t criticize or forbid social media without having tested them.

Spread happiness around you. Even in the 2.0 world 🙂