Discussion during the breaks and networking sessions at conferences can often be the best indicator of what’s really going on in an industry. At the latest RPO and e-Recruitment Forum in London, the hot topic over drinks was how to handle social media.

It’s clear that many organisations are finding it challenging to keep ahead of the game in so many different environments. It seems that everyone has some kind of recruiting activity on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but how many are involved in the 100+ other networks and microblogging sites that Zachary Misko told the audience he’d discovered in only ten minutes searching the web prior to the event?

Social media is supposed to be the inexpensive, easy alternative to self-promotion, but the proliferation of social media tools—coupled with changing candidate behaviour and a gloomy macroeconomic background—is making for a more complex recruitment space.

The downside of social media is that it can be extremely resource-intensive and exposes one’s brand to a number of risks that simply weren’t there even a few years ago.

One obvious solution, is to take the outsourcing route and allow a provider to take on the social media burden. But, nobody should even consider entering into an outsourcing relationship without being well aware of the attendant risks.

When it comes to handling social media, those risks include:

a degree of loss of control over brand-representation and dissemination; and
the installation of an extra layer of distance between potential candidates (who for many companies are also, of course, customers) and the organisation.
Of course, this transfer of control is common across outsourcing. But social media allows for such an incredibly quick and broad impact if things go wrong (look at the speed with which Chrysler’s unfortunate “tweet calamity” was disseminated earlier this year). The net community can be so capricious (and, at times, mercilessly ferocious) that there is no longer the slightest margin for error.

So, what are the primary implications for those organisations looking to outsource this area of the recruitment function?

If you’re going to allow a company to represent you in the badlands of cyberspace it must do a lot more than wear your branded hat; it needs to understand your DNA so it can act not just on your behalf, but with your voice. Your provider must demonstrate a strategic understanding not only of the unwritten laws of social media, but how to attract candidates and maintain good relationships, even with those individuals it has to reject.

Your provider must also be able to display an awareness of the correct balance between quality and quantity—a balance that has been thrown out of kilter by the sheer number of people participating in the larger social networks. And of course, it has to do all this and more within reasonable cost parameters.

The burden of managing these risks (remember, even companies that don’t outsource their social media still have to manage these issues) is often what tips companies towards outsourcing in the first place. After all, unless you’re in the social media field, it’s not a core competency of your business. And at this critical economic juncture, focusing on what’s really important to your business is a smart move.

However, to do it right, you need a provider that can demonstrate it has the capability for social media excellence. Then, you need to be able to invest the requisite level of trust in the provider—a level that is probably as high, if not higher, as it is anywhere in outsourcing. And it’s this trust that will be the real test of your success in the social media sphere.