Comments on: Can a Company Take Social Networking too Far?

By: Marcy

Marcy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:31:37 +0000

I think they are nuts to actually make that a requirement! I understand that they think this will help the company in terms of advertising, but I don’t think that they should base who they hire from the number of followers an applicant has.

Scenario: An applicant that doesn’t care about social media but is a great fit for the position.
–Would the company really hire someone who’s not as good but has a gazillion followers? That’s stupidity right there.

I think that companies who do this are going overboard and really riding the wave of the Twitter craze. It’s pathetic.

By: Yaba Daba

Yaba Daba — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:24:37 +0000

Twits.

Friends? Show me somebody, with 250 friends, who is willing to bug his friends with manipulative crap, and I’ll show you somebody with no friends.

Director of emerging media? Sounds like they need a director of sales more than a director of emerging media. Actually, it sounds like they need a brain.

By: Wendy Kovitz

Wendy Kovitz — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:49:20 +0000

You make interesting point, one that I haven’t heard before. Usually it’s the other way around with the employer worried that people are goofing off reading jokes and taking silly quizzes. In this economy, this really crazy economy, it seems to be up to each and every individual to shine, keep the lights on and the paychecks coming. Try not to see it as a bad thing. The alternative is extensive face-to-face networking to talk up your place of business. I would much, much, much rather tweet about it.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:20:43 +0000

I will immediately tweet my outrage about this company whose sole desire is to be tweeted about at any cost!

By: RiCk

RiCk — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:31:08 +0000

lets say farmer bill wants a job but doesn’t have a computer or internet that’s discrimination and twitter is a waste of time only people will come to the store if they want to buy a laptop,desktop,any accessory associated with computers,video games,consoles,and so much more

By: Jenn Deering Davis

Jenn Deering Davis — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:07:13 +0000

I think it makes perfect sense for Best Buy to look for a manager in emerging media who has at least 250 Twitter followers. That position calls for a person who is experienced with new social technologies and Twitter is certainly one of those; no matter your personal feelings on Twitter and its usefulness, it’s a pretty big deal in retail/e-commerce right now and someone in this position should be using it.

And 250 followers seems like a reasonable number for that – I think Best Buy is attempting to provide some sort of objective, quantifiable measure of “experience with social media”. Yes, it’s easy to get hundreds, if not thousands, of spambots and other junk followers, but it’s also pretty easy to glance at someone’s Twitter account and see if they are engaging in a meaningful way with real followers. The 250 followers number is just one tiny piece of a larger set of qualifications and I’m sure Best Buy knows this. It feels like a good enough starting point to me.

By: Zavrion

Zavrion — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:57:49 +0000

Mmm, doesn’t sound right, but its great link bait.

By: Ben Hedrington

Ben Hedrington — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 22:30:10 +0000

Not sure if everyone saw the clarification here…

The opening was Senior Manager, Emerging Media Marketing

Here is the latest, hope this helps -> http://bit.ly/1FiOi

By: callie

callie — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:49:34 +0000

all you would have to do to get that many followers anyway is to say a bunch of dirty words and gather the pornbots. it proves nothing.

By: Marc pulsifer

Marc pulsifer — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:21:04 +0000

As someone who has been working for the company for 6+ years I can say that it is totaly false. All you need to work for the company is to be at least 16 years of age, pass a drug test, a 45 min application/test online, and a 3 seperate interviews. Accessing social sites like Twitter at work is actually is against company policy, so why would they require it.

By: djSolidBase

djSolidBase — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:35:59 +0000

That is ridiculous, so what happens when a user is not social media savy or has less than 250 followers or using other social media like myspace or facebook? what then, they wont interview the applicant on the basis of what I described? who even apply to be an employee at best buy after that, and best buy decides to start requiring their current employee’s to be a member of twitter with 250 followers, those employee’s will feel like quitting their job and going somewhere else, plus most people use myspace and facebook more.

By: Colleen Carrington

Colleen Carrington — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:44:38 +0000

I think this is totally off the wall. Doesn’t the company care about who the person’s followers are? They could all be spammers! And does the company have a ‘must be a brand evangelist on Twitter’ policy as well? I understand the thinking behind this idea, but the reality is just because someone works there doesn’t mean they’re going to tweet about it.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:54:17 +0000

Hi Chris,

I agree with your comment – it makes no sense that Best Buy would make this a requirement. It almost seems as some “quasi-tech” management guru in the company thought this would be a good idea. Hey Chris – why don’t you enlighten them a little bit? They’re intentions may be good, but some deeper insight may be necessary…

@chaglen

By: Thomas Sebastiani

Thomas Sebastiani — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:37:06 +0000

That can’t be a policy for the whole company. It sounds like someone got incorrect information about Twitter and has a wild hair. It won’t last long though.

By: Nick Shobe

Nick Shobe — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:25:46 +0000

Sources sources man…

http://bit.ly/gfCzz

BTW your right, I didn’t start using Twitter until a few months ago, and I don’t have even close to 250 followers, nor do I want that many.

How exactly does one get that many followers if your not interesting. Also if I had that many people interested in what I had to say… Shouldn’t I be able to get a better job then best buy has to offer! Just a thought.