Blog Posts

Recently, Twitter unveiled a new feature that helps users discover who to follow.  This is a great example of the social proof that users of social media are searching for to help verify and validate the underlying potential of new connections.

As I trialed the feature over the weekend, I appreciated the ‘beyond the search’ capabilities of the algorithm.  Depending on who was following whom, and my impression of the user’s judgment was a great help in determining which recommendations I would follow.  However, I also realized that even though my connections are continuing to grow, connections by themselves are relatively useless.

This caused me to take a step back and look at who I’m following.  From the beginning, I have been very intentional about the ways in which I use social media.  I’m interested in learning from and sharing with others who are broadly interested in how social media will affect the way business in done in the future and specifically those who are interested in applying those lessons to fundamentally improve how employers and prospective candidates connect.

By focusing my efforts on building relationships with those who are mutually interested in these topics of discussion, I have learned a lot. Through conversations, blog posts, phone calls, and in-person meetings, I have constantly guessed and checked my assumptions about how social media will impact recruiting.  This has helped me gain insight from those who are foreseeing potential value years down the road, and those who use these tools to deliver results for their organization each and every day.

As companies like Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn continue to roll out features like this, they are creating valuable data-based connections by analyzing our participation in the social graph.  This social proof is currently being used to encourage 1^st degree connections.  But, these recommendations simply signal that these connections may provide the foundation for helping achieve organizational or individual goals. 

It is what we do with these connection suggestions that will really determine whether or not we achieve our goals.  Unfortunately, if you built your following to simply achieve arbitrary numeric goals like a high follower count, these social graph based data recommendations will be relatively useless to you.

If you consider the value of the increasing intelligence of these tools from the perspective of recruiting talent for your organization, it has never been more important to focus your initial and subsequent efforts on building high quality connections. So, who’s following you?   

–Omowale Casselle (@mysensay)

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About the Author: Omowale Casselle is the co-founder and CEO of mySenSay, a social recruiting community focused on connecting talented college students with amazing entry-level employment opportunities. Our philosophy is simple, “Find a job you LOVE, never work a day in your life”. To learn more, subscribe to our email distribution list.