Hugo Messer has been building and managing teams around the world for more than seven years. His passion is to enable people that are spread across cultures, geography and time zones to cooperate. Hugo’s company Bridge Global IT Staffing has offices in Ukraine (Kiev, Odessa), Moldova and India (Kochi). In an interview with Socialmedia-Blog.Net, he explains the importance of social networks for an off-shoring company:

You are suggesting in your latest book that talented people play a key role when creating successful offshore teams. How do you ensure a company gets the smartest people on board?

I believe that recruiting talent is an ongoing process. As an employer, you should continuously take care of the reputation of your brand. For outsourcers, it is crucial to choose a partner company that is able to attract talented people. At Bridge Global IT Staffing, we utilize numerous measures to improve brand reputation, e. g. by organizing events, advertising on job boards, visiting recruitment fairs. We provide free lunch, medical insurance, create a ‘family atmosphere’, offer ongoing training session and hold quarterly personal development meetings.

According to your personal opinion, how important is social media when it comes to global staffing? How does it rank in your overall marketing strategy?

We intensively use social media to communicate with both recruiters and recruitees: We publish content on our blog, through our ebooks and spread this through social media. I see that the internet companies we serve are very active in social media (you can read their whole personal life stories). Software companies tend to be more ‘conservative’ and are less active.

How many people handle your company’s social media accounts?

All our employees actively engage in social media, particularly LinkedIn. We’ve an active LinkedIn group called ‘Bridge Vibes’ to communicate internal news. Three to four people handle the messaging on LinkedIn, Facebook and other channels.

Which role do bloggers play in your company’s marketing strategy and the digital strategy of your clients?

Our goal is to become the best-known authority in terms of global IT staffing. We share as much of our knowledge as possible on our corporate blog. We also actively invite guest bloggers to add articles.

Which are the key components of a successful social media strategy of an off-shoring company

I feel that we haven’t figured out ‘success’ yet for social media. From my perspective, it should all be based on ‘knowledge sharing’ and ‘engagement’. By publishing relevant content and making this accessible to people in social media, we help them to find what they are looking for. We also engage clients and programmers on Facebook to spread what’s going on in our company. And we actively show every person that works in our company on LinkedIn, so that outsiders can see the ‘faces’ of our company.

Which are the (social) networks that are most frequently used by your company and your clients?

LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing.