If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive

Things Dale Carnegie Got Right About Social Engagement

,,,HR ideas from Jeffery Giesener – CEO – SourceMob.com

In 1936 Dale Carnegie wrote the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” analyzing and giving advice about how to manage human communications in an effective, impactful way.  Many books and reports have been written since, and all reinforce that we love to connect, engage, belong to a community and follow what everybody else is doing.

It’s the basics of human psychology that we all want to be “liked.”

The tools and techniques have changed, but the need to connect and create conversations and a sense of community was always there. In the past, we used to gather around local stores in our community (physical one, not virtual), and talk to our neighbors about our likes and preferences. Today it can be done online, in the digital space. If we could only travel back in time to those store front conversations, maybe our rules of engagement online would be more impactful, authentic and real? For now, we can go back to Dale’s book and apply some of his lessons to today’s social recruiting landscape:

  1. “If You Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive”

Personally, I love this one. So appropriate for the social community world which I often refer to as a “Beehive”. The number one rule in social communities – offline or online – is to behave while in the beehive and don’t aggravate, criticize, judge, or be grumpy. Engage and become an authority in your recruiting space.

The Big Secret of Dealing with People 

  1. “When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion…”

People need to be emotionally triggered. When you look at the most viral videos online you will find a common theme: an emotional or psychological factor.  The sneezing panda video that captured over 138 million views on YouTube psychologically takes the viewers through the emotions of surprise, release (post sneezing sensation) and then laughter.  Laughing babies videos on YouTube average between half a million to over 50 million views for each video. Babies trigger us emotionally with their purity and laughter leads to a mental “release”. Video is the hottest thing right now for recruiting. Using video and embedding it within your outbound candidate market is huge to capture hidden candidates.

In the social recruiting space, everybody is looking for the one secret that’s going to push their videos to the top and make them go ‘viral’. Well, as Dale revealed back in 1936: get their emotions going.

  1. The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want. What do you want?

Another social engagement rule, which many have covered is listening – Listening to your candidates’ conversations online.

What are your candidates saying about you online? Do you monitor your social candidate conversations? How is your brand affected by these conversations? Do you know?

Comcast, as well as Domino’s Pizza, have both experienced some of the most brutal social media consumer campaigns against their service featuring videos and pages full of criticism. Both have turned their brand around by listening to the complaints and addressing them. Listening goes way beyond commenting back and responding to what your fans say on your social pages – listening in the social media space entails going outside your community and identifying what it is that your customers want…so, what do they want?

  1. “1. Health and the preservation of life. 2. Food. 3. Sleep. 4. Money and the things money will buy. 5. Life in the hereafter. 6. Sexual gratification. 7. The well-being of our children. 8. A feeling of importance….Almost all these wants are usually gratified-all except one. But there is one longing – almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire for food or sleep – which is seldom gratified. It is what Freud calls “the desire to be great.” It is what Dewey calls the “desire to be important.”

If someone “Likes” or follow your post, page or comment it makes you feel important – hence social interactions satisfy your desire to be great.

  1. “The desire for a feeling of importance. This desire makes you want to wear the latest styles, drive the latest cars, and talk about your brilliant children”.

Both companies and people crave the feeling of importance. We call it engagement, ROI, conversations…but at the end of the day what makes us act is an emotional/psychological trigger that will make us feel important. It was true for us humans in 1936 and it’s true for us today on the web. Social acceptance and the feeling of being important is the driver behind our actions. Understanding that can help both brands and people engage in the social space. 

  1. Lincoln once began a letter saying: “Everybody likes a compliment.” William James said: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” He didn’t speak, mind you, of the “wish” or the “desire” or the “longing” to be appreciated. He said the “craving” to be appreciated.

Rewarding your candidates and fan base is the number one stimulant for growing your social community. Is there is a “magic pill” to an instant increase in your engagement with your candidates this is it: let them understand what is in it for them to work for your company.

And lastly:

  1. “There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything…And that is by making the other person want to do it”.

You can’t force engagement – it has to be real and authentic. Just like in the dating world, if you are needy or desperate for attention it is transparent, and people don’t like needy. They need to know what’s in it for them, how you can help them and how by joining your community can help them better their lives.

So go ahead and better their lives. Make them feel important. Compliment them and reward them.

Playing Catch Up or Leading Your Industry?

Today It Is Your Choice To Decide!  

I help educate the recruiting industry, and it is one of the many factors to why SourceMob is growing. Catch one of the many SourceMob webinars!

Check out our Recruiting Rocket™ BootCamp Webinar Series starting 9/30. Click below.

http://sourcemob.com/event/sourcemob-bootcamp-find-more-candidates-and-lower-costs-tm/

Looking forward to having you join us at the BootCamp!

ABOUT SOURCEMOB: SourceMob integrates Internet, social, talent community, HR Analytics, social listening solutions, HR Marketing Services and mobile recruiting solutions to help talent acquisition professionals recruit the very best candidates for tough-to-fill positions. SourceMob’s solutions seamlessly integrate and distribute conversations, engagement and job content, all done on autopilot, providing a job posting springboard to over 3.5 million candidate profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, plus all of the major search engines. We help you engage with your candidates and capture niche passive candidates. Our solutions also enable Mobile Quick Apply and candidate application management services to create more efficiency and lower recruiting costs. You won’t need your IT Team or HR Department to implement them. That is the beauty and ease of the SourceMob platform.

 

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Jeffery 

 

Jeffery Giesener

CEO/Founder

SourceMob.com

jeff@sourcemob.com

 

 

 

post from Social Media Today edited for the HCM space by Jeffery Giesener