Like recruitment, PR is moving online

I’ve just attended a great seminar at the CUPA-HR Eastern Region Conference here in Portland USA about online PR.

Like recruitment, the online world is vital. Social media especially is the new mechanism through which PR specialists can ‘get the message out’.

As a marketer, I’ve always been interested in different channels of communication. As a recruiter, you should should be interested in how PR could be used to attract candidates to your jobs. Used effectively, online PR could help build your brand and convert more candidates into applicants to your jobs.

Here then, are some of the lessons I’ve drawn from today:

Patterns of influence are changing in our society

There is a new ‘landscape of influence’ that will have a fundamental impact on both the PR and recruitment professions. Each specialism needs to understand how our culture is changing and how they can reach those with the new tools of influence i.e. bloggers, podcasters and Youtubers!

Recruiters are worried about the changes

It was clear from the seminar that many people in HR are very confused and concerned about the changes that are taking place.

There’s a lot misleading information floating about. Both PR people and recruiters are facing an overwhelming choice of new communication channels. Not only are people concerned about picking the right channel but also how they will measure the impact of their efforts and Return on Investment (ROI).

What to focus on

The seminar today really opened my eyes to the impact and power of online PR. We quickly looked at:

• What are the most effective communication channels?
• Who are the new influencers?
• Is social media all or hype or essential?
• How to measure the effectiveness of the new PR and recruitment

Essentially, your job as ‘recruitment brand managers’ should be to keep an eye on social networks to see how frequent your brand is mentioned. You can then monitor and track how much participation within the community your brand generates.

Developing a 5-step e-PR process

If, at this point, you’ve got your head in your hands screaming, ‘I’ve got enough to do!’ then here’s a  simply framework you could consider developing:

1. Search for your brand – use technorati, twitter, facebook, youtube & flickr to find all brand references
2. Aggregate – collect all the data you find
3. Respond – use your judgment to decide what to respond to and what to ignore
4. Bookmark – tag all relevant content in a del.icio.us account. Save this for future reference and analysis
5. Report – issue monthly report to your colleagues for their information

Finally, it was clear from today that PR people and recruiters have several things in common.

For example, both have key audiences to target. Both are keen to enhance relationships with those audiences and improve the reputation of the organisations they represent. And both are eager to raise the awareness of their organisation within online communities.

What do you think?

Does all of this make sense? Are online PR and online recruitment distant cousins or co-joined twins?

I’d love to hear your comments and views on the above. Please post them below.