I have been networking, meeting people face-to-face on my favorite topic. Yes, social media. I do have others but hey, I am on social media pearls! I want to blog about the pearls I have gathered from a particular event I attended, namely Impact99!!

I have attended a number of professional sessions this month and I have to say none was as energetic,
passionate with an over-riding “Can Do” attitude as this one.

So Kudos to Jeff Waldman and  Christine McLeod, Organizers and Founders of event. Now although this was a Human Resources (HR) -driven initiative, I do believe many of the learnings and points are transferable to other functions.So let me share some of those pearls I gleaned specifically from the speakers and tweets (namely Sidneyeve Matrix, Geoff Webb, Nick Stein and Ryan Coelho)

The 27 Key Social Media Practices to Consider:

1. Digital proclivities: We are in an era where we have a tendency to seek digital information i.e. we go to the Web first for clarification, definition. Do you remember my earlier post of Google?  When in doubt we Google it. I love the language Sidneyeve offers to describe this tendency.
2.  Social is mobile.  Business owners and organizations really need to come to terms with this increasing mobile usage for accessing the web and social networking. If you recall in the F is Facebook post, the fastest growing user-base is the mobile user. Here we are reminded again, that Social is indeed mobile and will continue to be so in the future.
3. Continuous ambient connectivity. We are now a culture where we need to be connected 24/7 and with smartphones we can do just that. I remember seeing a quote somewhere that read “ Bill Gates may have put a PC on every desk, but Steve Jobs put a computer in every pocket, wallet, purse and bag”. I think this speaks to how connected we are today. We are addicted.
4. Statversation. Sidneyeve definitely masters the social media need and language! Statversation describes our need to have a “said number of messages” in a given day. In fact, if we don’t get a message we believe something is wrong. There is a sense of inclusion with messages.
5. The Socialized Workforce is a cultural shift. It is not just an implementation of social tactics but employees are empowered to share, innovate and collaborate with these social tools. I also believe this applies to business owners and entrepreneurs. A paradigm shift has taken place and consequently an adjustment must take place on how we do business both internal and external to the business or organization.
6. Social Recruiting.  Social recruiting is a two-way interaction in the social recruiting process. Within this process, there is also a movement from the use of job-boards to job-clouds. Potential candidates are accessing and filtering jobs. I believe that this is consistent with the socially savvy consumer who is seeking information. Pulling for opportunities versus relying on traditional, uni-directional information being fed  or pushed to them.
7. The Socialized Employee Referral Program.  The receipt of  “Votes” or “Likes” for candidates portraying their skills and talents are more social examples in the social recruiting process.
8. A Social-Share Culture. We are now in a culture where it is the norm to share on the web. As bloggers, you will often hear us say “sharing is caring”. This was emphasized at this event.
9. Spreadable is the new viral. If it is not shared it is dead. It is ” word of web”.
10. Content Edge. Content must have an edge to be shared. The level of sharable content is the new currency on the Web.
11. Tech Forward organizations are more attractive to graduates as they are considered innovative. Mind you. I don’t believe we have mastered the hologram…yet.
12. Socialtechno Mentoring: This is cross-generational knowledge sharing where the  more experienced, seasoned manager or professional  shares business knowledge  with the techno-savvy employee, who in turn shares their social media, technical know-how.  Both play mentoring roles.
13. Social recognition. We are in an era where social recognition is important particularly for the Gen-Y employees.
14. Social media opportunities does not come gift wrapped. You need to work at building the relationships. It does not happen overnight which is true regardless of the media.
15. With Social Media comes Social Pressure. Similar to group-think there is this pressure felt on using social tactics or tools.
16. Video is preferred over text in social media. It has been shown that two months after viewing , there is an 85% retention rate with videos compared to 3% with text.
17. Video is an effective message delivery medium for organizations. However the video has to represent the “true” culture of the company. Not a marketing story. Empowering employees to prepare the company video is often well received by the audience.
18.  Video gets shared more often than text
19. Social learning is continuous and a daily occurrence. We should consider it a 5 step process: 1) share knowledge and best practices. 2) expand the mentoring scope. 3) seek ideas internally 4) enable collaboration across the organization and 5) make feedback part of the daily business. Learning is not an event it is an organizational practice. It is a must to keep on top. 
20. Social recognition is key to employee satisfaction particularly with Gen-Y employee.
21. Social Performance Reviews:  Ditch the annual reviews and engage employees throughout the year using a social tool such as Rypple.
22. Rypple facilitates a social performance management culture where feedback and coaching is shared real-time.  Recognition is integrated throughout the review year with the ability to award badges similar to what one would experience on many of the social network sites.
23. Social media can be empowering in an organization
24. The corporate and your personal brand must be defined.  Once the brand is defined and understood, then your social media presence can be defined. Your brand is your promise to your customer.
25. A socialized organization cannot control every communication that is happening in your company. Consequently good training, values and clear accountabilities are important for consistency, responsiveness and credibility.
26. Social measures are different to traditional measures. There is a need to change one’s thinking when thinking of measures for social media and the hiring process.
27. Social goals, continuous coaching, social recognition are all key attributes of a socialized organization.

Related articles

• http://www.slideshare.net/SidneyEve/socializing-human-resources (Sidneyeve Matrix)
• Be social: Recruiting using social media (marketing.yell.com)
•  Impact 99 HR Conferences 
• Why Human Resources Need to Embrace Social Media with Enthusiam (Anja M.)