Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Moises Lopez on June 21, 2007 at 10:04am

I've tried a few and I can't keep up with them anymore. I am limiting mine to Plaxo, LinkedIn and
Xing (Recruiting Blogs, and Recruiter's Network). Unless you may consider recruiting bloggers a social network of sorts than I'll add that too. It is too much to maintain and still try to keep a semblance of a personal life. I am keeping my eyes and ears open to a platform that may somehow incorporate them all into a desktop but until them I don't have the time for more.

This week I got invitations to four new social networking sites, one looked interesting enough but I opted out if only because of time constraints. The only way I will join anymore is if they really wow me by adding some automation to make my life easier or if the find a way to absorb the other social networks and somehow make them all work seamlessly. If you find anything like that please let me know.

Permalink Reply by hans gieskes on June 27, 2007 at 7:46pm

sixteen social networks? a little above average I should say, but a dozen will be normal before too long. You can expect Ebay, Amazon, MS Outlook to join the fray too, plus your local news media. Of course with time we'll all gravitate towards 3 max 4 that we'll use on daily basis, and whose brands we're very loyal too (Like your email address or IM. And there will be tools that will act like Trillian, i.e. consolidate all dozen into one dashboard.

Good thing will be that email may be replaced partially by your inboxes on these social networking sites, in particular the closed ones where starngers cannot spam you.

BIggest question will be how these wil laffect your job as a sourcer. You'll have lots of people one or two clicks away, but how do ytou motivate them, how often can you ask them for a referral or a reference?

Backto same old eitquette that makes you a good sourcer: common sense...

Permalink Reply by Christine Abrams on June 29, 2007 at 11:40am

I have to agree, too many options, yet not enough time to use each to their full potential.
I belong to 3 groups:

LinkedIn: I almost solely use this to source potential candidates
ERE: I belong to Ask Maureen and Sourcing Techniques and Methodologies, though if it weren't for my daily blog emails, I'd never keep up.
and last, but certainly not least...
RecruitingBlogs.com: my most socially-geared group. I find I'm not hesitatant to share ideas or comments with the group like I am with ERE.

My final though is this: with so many new groups being created every day, do you think that someday everyone will be in their own 1-member group, thereby negating the whole idea of networking?

Permalink Reply by Sean Rehder on July 14, 2007 at 10:27am

Out of curiosity, who uses RSS feeds to help manage the "flow of communication" between their many groups?

Some sites, like this one, allow for users to simply click on the orange RSS icon that you can see at the bottom of this page to help them manage their information/communication.

If you don't know why RSS is so great, what it does is it allows you to put all kinds of internet generated information (like blogs/discussions) into one view. Instead of going site... to site... to site.. to site.

Permalink Reply by Harold Ensley on July 26, 2007 at 5:47pm

1,2, & 3) LinkedIN....
- Rumours persist that Facebook may enter into the frey

re: RSS - I use google reader to manage the flow of information. Google reader is by far the best RSS solution there is. I can go through 100 posts in less than 5 minutes. I've enclosed a link on how to process information this quickly - here

Permalink Reply by daveinboston on July 31, 2007 at 3:59pm

what are social networks! and how can i join one!? ;)