Facebook + Yahoo! = What’s in it for us?

With this move, there’s no doubt various game plans can be created just to lure passive candidates, but the questions is, how to start it? Well, just be sure to position your policies, practices and strategies for you to reap the rewards.

So what’s in it for both and everyone – users/clients?  According to Jim Stoneham, vice president of communities for Yahoo!, “With this integration, we are opening the door for two of the Internet’s largest online communities to make it easier for people to stay connected.”  Additionally, “this partnership extends the current Facebook integration on Yahoo! which enables Facebook users to access their stream and update their status from the Yahoo! homepage, provides “Share on Facebook” options across the Yahoo! network, and allows Facebook to access Yahoo! Contacts.”

Now, is it not a good reason to be serious with your sourcing initiatives towards Facebook? Forget Friendster because in no way they can be a serious contender anymore for next years’ Social Networking war. I know there were rumors of its $100M possible purchase, but I doubt if it could even the battle ground.

Going back, so, how can we position our Company to reap the rewards in our sourcing initiatives with social networking sites? A few things social media evangelist have in mind is that;

• You need to have a friendly social media policy, but be very careful because some policies tend to backfire, especially if your Company is not socially inclined.
• Your social media policy should be sustained by various social media best practices that encourages innovation and engagement – well, almost all social media best practices encourages engagement.
• All your social media efforts should be drawn not just in your Brand Ambassadors or Marketers head but rather in your Corporate Social Media Strategy – you can include your HR on this because if not they’ll be envious. Anyway, they’re also social animals. In fact, they’re the leading resource for gossips and (or) tittle-tattle in your shops/offices.

Lastly, am I still hyping this social media thing? Yes, but forgive me if I am because I need to since a lot of HR Pros don’t really know its impact to their respective bottom line. Don’t worry HR folks because I’ll be dropping a few costing measures on how to get ROI in your social media initiatives in my next post.

Updates: Kudos to the guys behind JCI Mandaue for accommodating us just awhile ago for the JCI orientation. As I’ve said, I’ve found the right JCI Chapter for me, so, expect me to be joining you guys in your initiatives and program in building a better community.