Social Media and Workforce Development Lorraine Faulds, Certified Workforce Specialist IAWP International Website & Social Networking Chair SC Chapter Communications Chair June 2012
Labor has a huge opportunity to truly engage the public via social media especially during a recession. Elizabeth D. Hochberg, LLM, Office of General Counsel General Law Division US General Services Administration
What is Social Media? Web-based and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue between organizations, communities, and individuals.
The Rise of Social Media Social media is the #1 activity on the Internet 66% of adults use social networking sites 89% of US companies used social networking for hiring in 2011 45% always check out a candidates social media presence 29% occasionally search 94% said they have successfully hired someone through a social media site Top platforms for recruiting are LinkedIn (78.3%), Facebook (54.6%), and Twitter (42.0%) In 2012, companies are expected to use social media to recruit for over 80% of job openings. 88% of companies reported more exposure for their company by using social media 72% said it improved traffic and subscribers In 1998, 71% of 35-54 year olds read the Sunday newspaper. In 2011, it was 56%. (18-24 year olds went from 56% to 40%.)
20 Social Media Statistics One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook ( This number is calculated by dividing the planets 6.94 billion people by Facebook s 750 million users) Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook 30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month (as of February 2011) YouTube generates 92 billion page views per month (These YouTube stats don t include videos viewed on phones and embedded in websites) Users on YouTube spend a total of 2.9 billion hours per month (326,294 years) Wikipedia hosts 17 million articles Wikipedia authors total over 91,000 contributors People upload 3,000 images to Flickr (the photo sharing social media site) every minute Flickr hosts over 5 billion images 190 million average Tweets per day occur on Twitter (May 2011) Twitter is handling 1.6 billion queries per day Twitter is adding nearly 500,000 users a day Google+ has more than 25 million users Google+ was the fastest social network to reach 10 million users at 16 days (Twitter took 780 days and Facebook 852 days)
Why social media should be a part of workforce development That s where the customers are (jobseekers and employers) Cheap! Great accessibility (24/7/365, from anywhere) You can find information and You can share information Which helps to connect to each other Through conversations (albeit electronic ones) And facilitates working collaboratively For job development!
STATE or TERRITORY FACEBOOK TWITTER LINKEDIN YOUTUBE OTHER CA X X X CO X X DC X X Flickr, Tumbler FL X X GA X X X IA X X X ID X X X IL X X X MD X X ME X NC X NE X X NH X NY X X X Flickr OH X X X OR X PR X X X SC X SD X X X X TX X X X UT X X X Blogger WA X WI X X X Flickr WV X X WY X X X 25 statesterritories 22 22 3 11 3 Flickr, 1 Blogger AK HI MI NJ TN 28 with none AL IN MN NM VT AZ KS MS ND VA AR KY MO OK VI CT LA MT PA DE MA NV RI
Levels of Social Media (I apologize if the use of this bodily function offends you! ) In workforce terms I need a job. I was laid-off today! I am at a job fair in Albuquerque. Why do I need a job? Watch me do my elevator speech! I m good and have lots of experience. Let s get together and talk about our job search.
More than 120 million members worldwide, including executives from every Fortune 500 company Carnegie Mellon University reported that LinkedIn is more effective as a job search tool than job boards or other more traditional strategies There are 1 million companies that maintain a LinkedIn company page
Examples of LinkedIn Pages
A closer look
70% of the US s 149 million Facebook users log in daily 46% of US small businesses use social media in their media mix If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world! More people check Facebook every day than listen to radio or read a newspaper. BranchOut uses Facebook friends to expose jobseekers to a wide variety of connections (FB claims 300 friends will expose you to 30,000 professional connections) As of April 2012, there were 25 million users Adding 3 new users every second 40% join from a mobile device
www.facebook.com/departmentoflabor U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said: Linking American job seekers with the resources they need to get back to work is a top priority of the Obama Administration and my department. By leveraging the power of the social web, this initiative will provide immediate, meaningful and ready-to-use information for job seekers and employers, and a modern platform to better connect them.
US DOL + Facebook = Social Job Partnership www.facebook.com/socialjobs Facebook, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), DirectEmployers Association (DE), and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) created the Social Jobs Partnership. The partnership s goal will be to facilitate employment for America s jobless through the use of social networks.
Examples of State Workforce Agency Facebook Pages
A closer look
A closer look (Branchout)
Twitter is a microblogging site that uses 140 characters (simple and complex) Americans spend 2 hours, 12 minutes per day on Twitter 62.1% of Twitter users are in the US 66.9% of iphone users who use Twitter are in the US Used by companies to announce job openings and share info about their company Used by job seekers to research job openings and company info
Examples of State Workforce Agency and Federal Facebook Pages
A closer look
86% of online video watching in the US is done on YouTube (Hulu is #2 with 7%) 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute Over 3 billion videos are viewed each day Job seekers use it to upload 30-second elevator speeches about themselves and longer videos featuring their skills/talents
Examples of State Workforce Agency and Federal Facebook Pages
A closer look Applying for UI Benefits, CA EDD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsuy5qxclv8
Other Social Media Platforms Foursquare is a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Users "check in" at venues using a mobile website, text messaging, or a device-specific application by selecting from a list of venues the application locates nearby. Digg and Reddit are social news sites that vote up the most interesting or important pieces of content on the site.
Social Media on the Rise Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles, and introduces new services identified as Circles, Hangouts and Sparks. Google+ is available as a website and on mobile devices. Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google's biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook. Pinterest is a place to organize and share online images that you find interesting or inspiring and continues to reinforce the trending growth of an increasingly visual social web. Pinterest has grown 4,000% in the last 6 months. Tumblr is a multimedia rich microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their short form blog. It is about ease of use. There has been a 900% growth in the last 12 months. Slideshare is the YouTube of Presentations and allows you to upload PowerPoint into globally accessed slideshow and again is a highly visual social media platform. It flies below the radar because it is more about business content and is the world s largest professional content sharing community. It has 500% more traffic from business owners than any other professional website with 3 billion slide views per month.
Mobility is vital! More than 250 million people access Facebook through their mobile devices People on Facebook install 20 million Apps every day The push toward mobility in the public sector will center on content and devices for the workforce and citizen services. (Source: Federal Computer Week) As mobility rises, social media on the federal level will take a turning point in 2012, moving from an experimental level to systematic information dissemination and gathering. (Source: Federal Computer Week) Over 70% of the worlds population now has a mobile phone. In the US, 9 in 10 people has a mobile phone. 85% of kids own a mobile phone compared to 73% who own books From March 2010 to September 2011, there was a 263% growth in branded apps.
Objections of WF agencies to using Social Media: We have no money in the budget. We don t have enough staff. No one understands it. Who s going to respond to us? Taxpayers will go nuts if they see employees playing with this! What if confidential stuff is leaked? We can t control it. People will say awful things. Everyone will see those awful things. Who s liable for what they say?
Rebuttal to Objections to using Social Media: We have no money in the budget. Low cost/no cost platforms. We don t have enough staff. Does not take too much time after set-up. No one understands it. Online training available. Who s going to respond to us? Any customers who care! Taxpayers will go nuts if they see employees playing with this! Defend with numbers! What if confidential stuff is leaked? Have a policy in place to avoid release. We can t control it. Yes, you can with privacy controls and permissions. People will say awful things. Yes, they will! And they ll say GOOD things! Everyone will see those awful things. Yes, they will and you can show how you are able to fix things. Who s liable for what they say? They are! You are responsible for the reaction.
Time Estimates for Social Media
Benefits of Using Social Media Extends the reach of information and makes it more engaging (videos) Expands public participation Provides exposure to younger customers Provides for immediate response Allows staff to do more with less Provides free PR Creates community Builds trust Easy customer feedback and service (72% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations!)
Today, One-Stop Career Center job seekers and staff need access to [social media] tools in order to use them for job search. Blocking these sites is a liability for job seekers unskilled in their use and a detriment to their ability to learn to use and take advantage of these sites. Further, as the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) begins using these sites for national efforts, it is important that One-Stop Career Center personnel be in a position to understand their utility and access them as well. Michele Martin, Savannah Barnett, and Rob C. Sewell John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development Rutgers University Social Media for One-Stop Career Center Frontline Staff: Supporting Job Search and Improving Customer Services
Linking Social Media to Real Business Social media is revolutionizing the way your customers, your suppliers, your competitors, and your employees conduct business. As important as social media has become, you can t afford to ignore it. Success in social media is more that creating a Facebook page or Twitter account. Success comes from linking social media back to real business objectives and delivering solid results. The Institute for Social Media, Cincinnati State College
IAWP s Social Media Presence www.facebook.com/iawp1?sk=wall http://www.linkedin.com/groups/international-association-workforce-professionals-2241767/about
Anti-socnet.com is committed to providing some interesting and useful information on the web social networks, growing every day. And the other side of the coin www.anti-socnet.com It's a great place to realize what really those networks do and what they goals are in our present world/life. At our site, we are trying to accumulate some news and discussions on above mentioned subjects and improving/freeing society.
CONTACT ME: Lorraine Faulds, CWS IAWP Website & Social Networking Chair SC Chapter Communications Chair lfaulds@dew.sc.gov lfaulds@sc.rr.com 803-737-2714