Archive for September, 2010
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, September 30th, 2010
Guest blogger Tomica Divic is the Marketing Coordinator at the YWCA here in Vancouver. In this blog post she highlights some important considerations that should be taken into account by anyone looking for employment and using online tools like social media to do so. It is a great post to complement our series of posts on using social media for recruitment.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN APPLYING FOR A JOB ONLINE
Long gone are the days you can just walk onto a job site ask if they have any work available for a hardworking, respectable person like yourself.
According to a recent employer survey conducted by the YWCA One Stop Shop and Career Zone – over 75% of employers surveyed said they preferred to receive job applications via email or online. A large percentage also admitted to using social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn to research a potential candidate. So with Big Brother watching your every move – have you asked yourself how employers see you, even before they meet you? Here are a few tips on how to make sure your behaviour online doesnt affect your chances of landing a job in the real world.
Email address:
- Make sure you use a professional email address when contacting employers. Many people sign up for an email account when they were younger or to communicate with family and friends and forget that sunnybunny@hotmail.com might not be the wisest choice when contacting employers. Others take it one step further by using email addresses such as sexymama@yahoo.com. Not only does this come across as inappropriate for the workplace, it also increases the chances of having your email end up as spam in someones junkmail . When it comes to email addresses its best to play it safe. Setting up a professional email address is easy (and free!) to do, and should consist of a combination of your name and/or last name, such as kentclark@gmail.com
Facebook profile:
- A lot of employers will Google your name to see what comes up online – and one of the things that regularly pops up is your Facebook profile. While you think you might be safe if youve restricted your page to friends only, your profile picture will still be available in Google searches. Profile pictures alluding to drunken nights out or revealing plunging necklines might not make the best first impression so make sure your pictures are work appropriate. Also remember that when you belong to certain online networks or become a fan of something on Facebook it can increase your online exposure to that whole group. Try “Googling†yourself to see what comes up and make any necessary changes to your online profiles.
Cover letters/emails
- With the rise of texting came the demise of spelling and grammar! When applying for a job online or via email youll usually have to write a cover letter, or an introductory email at the very least. Dont make the mistake of sending a rushed email/online application full of typos and errors – this was listed as the #1 top pet peeve among our surveyed employers. Instead, take a minute to copy and paste the text into a MS Word document and run it through spell check.
Hopefully these few tips can help you improve your online presence and your chances of landing a job!
About Tomica
Tomica Divic is a communications professional with over 7 years of experience ranging from youth marketing, to public relations and law. She is currently the Marketing Coordinator at the YWCA Career Zone where she leads all marketing, social media and communications programs for the centre, working with over 2500 young jobseekers and 400 local employers.
About the YWCA
The YWCA Career Zone is a free drop-in employment resource centre for male and female jobseekers ages 15 to 30. For more information visit the Career Zone at 1260 Granville St, Vancouver BC. Check out all the YWCA Vancouver Employment Programs. For more useful job search tips follow the YWCA Career Zone on Facebook or Twitter.
Written by Jan, September 20th, 2010
Jan Littler Finseth is our in house expert when it comes to online couponing. This blog post gives you an insight into the latest web phenomenon and whether it is indeed a viable marketing option.
Make a Deal with Social Media
The morning coffee and email check has become a shopping opportunity for millions who are registered with one of the 43 Daily Deal sites (I counted yesterday!) such as Living Social and Groupon.
How does a Groupon-like deal work and are they a positive internet marketing and promotions tool?
Basically these new coupon deals all work similarly. They make an offer to their list of internet subscribers – every day – in the various geographic markets they serve. The deals work as an assurance contract so that if a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then the deal becomes available to all. If the minimum is not met no one gets the deal that day. This reduces risk for retailers, who can treat the coupons as quantity discounts as well as sales promotion tools. The daily deal sites make money by getting a cut of the deal from the retailers – in some cases up to 50%.
Group-buying deals are by no means new on the scene. They surfaced during the original dot-com heyday and mostly failed. But now advancements in social media have made it a much more stable business model. Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons are ubiquitous on daily-deals sites, as companies encourage consumers to tell all their friends and ensure that the deal goes through. The sites that are the winners are those who best harness the power of social-media channels.
Groupon
Groupon, based in Chicago is definitely the best known and leader of the pack. Groupon was originally called Thepoint.com, a platform to allow people to organize actions or boycotts of some kind. The action would only occur if enough people signed up. But when the financial crisis hit the company decided it needed to re-focus to make money and focused on assembling a crowd -`or the collective buying power to offer the most competitive deals to pre-registered consumers. Groupon and others have quite simply built their businesses around an email subscriber list and by focusing on the deals their specific demographics want.
Groupon goes direct to savvy, deal seeking consumers where they are these days – in their inbox. There is also a built in artificial scarcity
‘in the deals they offer with a tight time frame and the introduction of Caps on quantities of any given deal.
Consumers win by selecting deeply discounted offers from a seemingly endless parade of local businesses – from laser skin care, yoga classes and restaurant meals. Another new twist can be found on http://www.lifesta.com that brokers unused daily deals to those who missed the purchase by deadline. Consumers can also sell deals they can not or will not use.
Should you consider running a Groupon style ad?
Should you consider running a Groupon for your business or service? Yes, if a) you sincerely want more customers, b) can afford to discount your items or services c) are prepared to handle a surge in traffic to your website, your phone and to weather the additional wear and tear on your staff.
Right from the beginning of the Daily Deal phenomenon there have been complaints from participating merchants that they were overwhelmed by the business they gained after they offered a deal. To succeed your Groupon offer must be carefully designed to balance a desire to sell with your ability to deliver. An additional pay-off is the free advertising that comes with being exposed to thousands of subscribers. The exposure is magnified as it gains momentum because subscribers can forward e-mails, post to facebook and tweet the deal to their non-subscriber friends.
Preparation is the best way for a business to survive and flourish during and following a daily deal offer. First crunch the numbers – don’t make an offer that you can not successfully deliver to the high standards you aspire. Make sure your website is optimized and that your email server can handle the flood of inquiries – same goes for your phone line. Train your staff to handle the influx of new customers to ensure that a good portion of those customers become loyal ones. Mine the data of new customers for future offers. Also remember that 20% of the new customers redeem in the first month 20% in the last month and about 10% never to redeem. So plan accordingly.
Detractors report that many of the ‘new’ customers never comeback and are not apt to be ‘up-sold’. Dan Yoo http://www.linkedin.com/in/danyoo wrote that his restaurant business in San Francisco sold 2,600 Groupons and that this gave a huge boost to our business. Our post graph revenue was 63% higher than our pre-graph revenue over same amount of time. He wrote in his article How Social Media can Help your Business Grow that the new normal was almost 50% higher than before the Groupon and that in his opinion the reason for the repeat business was the viral spread through social media efforts combining to create a surge of viral knowledge about his business.
Daily Deals are best not considered as a fad but to be carefully considered as another Social Media tool that can create profitable marketing opportunities for both small and large businesses.
Have you used online couponing either as a consumer or as a company? Please share your experiences with us.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, September 07th, 2010
Location based networking is going mainstream this year and with the recent announcement from Facebook of the Places launch, I thought this would be the perfect time to write a blog post about location based social networking, explaining what it is and why it is generating so much buzz. I’ll also introduce you to some of the major players in the location based arena.
But first, consider two points that help explain why locations based social networking is going to be huge:
1) There are over 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world: that is 4 phones for every Personal computer. In 2009, phones overtook PC’s as the preferred means to access the Internet.
2) Humans are social by nature. Since the days of the cave, we have enjoyed the company of others. It is in our nature to want to share with others; to do things together; to tell them where we are going and to invite them along. We like our “tribe” to know what we are up to and thanks to LBSN we can now do that in real time.
Location Based Social Networking
Location based social networking is a form of geosocial networking, which, according to Wikipedia is “is social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics”. In other words, you can use Internet based services to share where you are and what you are doing in real time and based on where you are and where your tribe is at that moment.
For example, Foursquare, one of the top location based social networks, allows users to check in from their mobile phones when they are out and about at dinner, sports venues, tourist venues and even at the hairdresser. As a user, each time you check in to a location your connections are alerted and you are awarded points.
Some of the top location based social networks include: Foursquare, Facebook Places, Loopt, Gowalla and Yelp. Here is a resume of each:
Foursquare
Foursquare is “a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users “check in” to a place when they’re there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they’ve been and who they’ve been there with.” Launched in 2009, Foursquare now has over 3 million users.
Gowalla
Gowallais a location-based social networking where users ‘check-in’ at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive items from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for the game’s partners.
Yelp
Yelp is a website that connects people with local businesses and allows users to rate, comment and share their likes and dislikes and review said businesses. Founded in 2004, Yelp now has communities in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and France and is available on your mobile phone. Yelp now has over 38 million regular visitors to the site.
Facebook Places
Launched in August, Facebook Places is a social utility that connects people with their friends: it allows them to share where they are and connect with friends who are nearby. Right now Places is only available on iPhone and in the US but given the clout that Facebook carries, it is surely set to be a major player in this arena. Of especial interest from a business perspective is the fact the businesses will be able to use places to create hyper local ads to targeted users.
Loopt
Another location based networking pioneer is Loopt, a company that builds mobile applications that use location to help you enjoy the friends, places, and events around you right now. Formed in 2006, Loopt now offers a suite of 5 mobile applications that run on over 100 different phones and are enjoyed by over 4 million people.
Which Tool To Use?
Judging by the following Compete graph analysis of unique visitors, Yelp seems to be the most trafficked location based social network at this point but this could change on the turn of a dime: when Facebook Places launched, Foursquare saw record sign ups for new users.
Check out the location based tools mentioned above and choose the one that best fits your social network and lifestyle preferences. If you are using Facebook extensively already, then it will make sense to use Facebook Places rather than have to learn and maintain another network. If you eat out a lot, then Yelp might be the best choice. If games are your thing then try Gowalla or Foursquare.
Whichever tool you use though, be cognizant of privacy settings and make sure that only those you want to have access to your where about can access this information.
