Let’s Get #followhr Going!

Great news! Looks like we have a new hashtag on Twitter for HR and Recruiting. This morning, while mowing the lawn, it occurred to me that there are very few current methods employed for us to connect as a larger community on Twitter. It seems to me that if we can connect, we would be able to help each other on a large scale in real time. Imagine the power of being able to touch your HR colleagues from around the country and world within seconds regarding a question… this could be fantastic!

So, the question is “How do we all connect?”

First, it’s important that we establish a channel of communication for us to introduce ourselves. This can be achieve by using a hashtag. This morning I decided to use #followhr because it is both short and pretty self descriptive. So, what you want to do is the following. Once you have logged on to your Twitter account, send out a Tweet in this format:

#followhr Howdy! (Or other greeting!) My name is (fill in). I’m a (Your Title or Function). I’m based in (Your Location).

Once you Tweet this out, people who follow the #followhr hashtag will be able to find you and start following you.

If you are using TweetDeck, there are a few things I recommend.

TweetDeck For Following #followhr And Organizing

Within TweetDeck, you need to select the magnifying glass on the top and create a search for “#followhr”.

In this manner, you will be notified every time a new person introduces themselves. If you start following them, likelihood says that they will follow you back.

Now, the key issue becomes taking this community to the next level. That’s to say… how are we going to stay in touch and respond to the community?

The solution is pretty simple. Within TweetDeck, select the group button on top. The icon you are looking for is the one that appears to have two small people standing one in front of the other. Once you have the new group open, title it “HR Friends”.

Then, going forward, you will want to not only start following people once they introduce themselves, but then add them to your new “HR Friends” group. This makes it very easy to plug in to this target community and, in the long run, develop some great HR relationships. If you are using TweetDeck, you can start following someone and then simply select the “add to group” button next to the “follow” button.

I hope that this helps. I know that it will be good for all of us.

If you have questions, feel free to comment and I’ll do my best to respond or address them in a follow-up blog post.

Let’s get #followhr going! It takes the entire community to make this work. Hopefully you can see the value in harnessing the collective knowledge of the HR industry.

It takes a village in any effort like this, so I’m going to need your help. I will commit to staying on this and spreading the word about #followhr. You can help by spreading the word as well. Every day for the next few weeks, I will Tweet out the following message:

“Introduce yourself to the #HR community! #followhr (greeting, name, function, location). Let’s all connect!”

If you all do the same, we will make this a raging success!

Are you in? Are you really in?

Picture credit to Niallkennedy!