Plaxo – another prominent professional networking tool with over 20 million users, Plaxo is similar to LinkedIn in that it allows you to search job listings and to connect with people who are hiring but unlike LinkedIn, it does not have tools aimed solely at recruiters yet.

Xing – Another professional network which is becoming more popular with over 8m users.  It is very similar in its functionality to LinkedIn but posting jobs is much cheaper.  The downside is that lots of users are in Europe so its not the best tool for North American recruitment purposes.

Other professional social networks that facilitate recruitment:

Viadeo

Biznik

Social Networks – Facebook

Facebook Groups:  there are groups on Facebook dedicated to getting the word out about jobs.  To do so you can join and post or participate.  Examples include:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=jobs&init=quick#/group.php?gid=29593013279&ref=search&sid=745281396.2828234181..1

Facebook Pages – some companies have Facebook pages dedicated solely to helping them find staff.  The best known example is the Ernst and Young Facebook Page.

Facebook Events – having a hiring fare?  You can use Facebook events like this one to promote it.

Facebook Ads: allow you to post ads aimed at people you want to employ: location, education level etc.

Twitter

Twitter is proving a great tool to promote job openings.  You can use corporate or staff Twitter pages to Twitter to your community about job postings or you can even have your own dedicated Twitter feed that serves this purpose alone like KPMG http://twitter.com/kpmg

As with any Twitter effort, your follow strategy will be important.

Twitter Ad-ons

You can also use third party tools like Twitter Job Search to search listings and post your own.

Here at Out-Smarts, we are looking to hire an intern right now.  So far we have had 3 suitable and interested candidates contact us and all we had to do was post the fact to Facebook and Twitter.    If you are interested please contact us, otherwise good luck in your recruiting or job search efforts.

My Social Media Experiment

So, I decided to try this out for myself to see whether organisations using social media are actually doing a good job of listening and responding to customers and prospects.

Twitter

First stop Twitter where I decided I would use the tool to plan a ski trip.  So I Twittered:

To date I haven’t had a response.  I tried a different tact and sent a Tweet to Sun Peaks who were listening to direct messages and did, thankfully, respond:

A few days later I got stuck in an elevator: what a perfect opportunity to see if anyone was listening and could help me.  So I posted my dilemma on Facebook and Twitter.  Followers we’re listening – I got 2 responses from friends, both in Alberta, both in no position to help me escape!

Facebook

On to Facebook, where I commented on the Marks & Spencer Page about my frustration with their delivery service (more often than not gifts for my family in the UK arrive broken or damaged):

Here was an opportunity for M&S to respond to my concern and to correct it in the public forum, to enhance their customer loyalty but again I had no response.  Very disappointing – this year I will find a more reliable supplier and M&S just lost a loyal customer of 20 odd years because they weren’t listening or were choosing to ignore my comments.

Shut Up and Listen

Whilst I might not have the following of a journalist like Gillian Shaw, I do have over 2000 Twitter followers and am very active online – I really expected to get more response to my social media comments.

What is my point here?  I have two:

1) Shut Up – First of all companies should realize that we are living in a new world, one where they can and should interact with their customers in these forums to build loyalty and improve customer service.  Your audience expects this and not doing so puts you at risk of negative exposure.   This is no longer a push to market model where companies bombard their audience with one way messages but a two way street where they can build loyal and valuable relationships with customers and prospects and enhance brand value.  Shut up about yourself already and focus instead on your audience and providing value for them.

2) Listen - the first step any company should take when approaching social media is to implement effective listening strategies.  Listen to what online communities have to say about your products or services, company, industry and competitors.   By doing so you will not only get a feel for what is appropriate (very useful when building your social media strategy) but you will also identify sales opportunities, chances to improve customer service and to build loyalty so that customers keep coming back.  Our article Are You Listening? talks about tools you can use to do this effectively.

Conclusion

I look forward to the day when companies stop talking about themselves and start listening to and fulfilling the needs of their audience on social media.  There is a vast source of information and opportunity about your company and your market online just waiting for you to tap into it.  What are you waiting for?  Shut up and listen!

]]> http://www.out-smarts.com/2010/01/06/shut-up-and-listen/feed/ 1 http://www.out-smarts.com/2009/11/09/branding-only-for-cattle/ http://www.out-smarts.com/2009/11/09/branding-only-for-cattle/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:37:33 +0000 mhairi http://www.out-smarts.com/?p=3117

I recently had the opportunity to attend a leadership round table headed up by Judy Bishop of Bishop and Associates. Judy has been a key player on the Vancouver business scene for 20 years and her discussion surrounded building your personal brand.

During the conversation Judy pointed out that “branding” is not a term that should be used in a business context and that it in fact should only relate to cattle or livestock. Its an interesting point and got me thinking about the process we go through as marketers trying to influence our audience.  A mistake is often made in focusing on “us” (ie the company, product or service) and not “the audience”.

Taken literally as a verb, using -ing to form the progressive tense: branding,  is grammatically correct.  However, I think  its not the grammar that Judy has a bone of contention with but the implication.  Branding implies that we actively seek to make our mark on  the audience when in actual fact its not marketers who are in control of our brands but the audience itself.  Many marketers fail to recognize this and go about building their brand from the inside out without giving too much thought to the audience who is on the receiving end.

So what has all this got to do with social media I hear you ask.  Well, since you asked, I think its vital.  You shouldn’t go about using social media as a means “to burn your brand”  into the minds of your audience.  Social media users are particularly sensitive to manipulation.  Rather, look on social media as a great tool for making contact with your audience, to understand them better (what makes them tick)and to allow you to build better products for them.  Use it as a tool to build better relationships with them so that they, in turn, build a great perception of your company in their minds and are more likely to turn to you when in need. The best way to do this is to constantly be on the look out for ways that you can help your target audience and add value for them.  The key point here is that it is all about them not all about you.

Unlike Judy, I may use the term branding from time to time to categorize the efforts we make as marketers to build awareness but I do see her point.  Branding is something that is done to something else – the word implies a lack of respect.   Building a brand is all about respect: understanding your audience and catering to their needs.  By placing your customer front and centre and catering to their needs not yours, your marketing efforts will be more likely to succeed.

Related posts:

Branding – with Isabelle Mercier

And thanks Michelle for the great Highland Coo image!

I am excited about Entrepreneurial Woman an online magazine for and about women entrepreneurs in Canada.  It launched this week and already contains a wealth of information aimed squarely at aiding and inspiring women entrepreneurs.

Cathy Waters, co-owner of Entrepreneurial Woman, explains that the goal of the magazine is to help women at all stages of their entrepreneurial journey, whether they thinking about starting a business or are already running one, or are retiring from a career job and are ready to transition into self-employment.

“The magazine provides thought-provoking articles on branding and marketing, customer retention, how-to basics, style tips for today’s business woman, creating life/work balance, and more.”

Each month, they will feature successful entrepreneurs with inspirational stories.  This month Catherine M Ann is featured in From Homeless to Millionnaire: a really heart warming article about how, against all odds, she built her company, Consumer Connection Inc., starting out with, literally, nothing.

Our motto is “inspiring success”, says Waters and this article certainly attains to that.

Also in this month’s edition, articles on how to structure your business, creating customer experience, tech talk, getting connected and an interview with yours truly where I talk about the approach I have taken to building Out-Smarts Marketing Inc whilst balancing life’s responsibilities.

To Cathy and the team at Entrepreneurial Woman – all the very best.  I am looking forward to enjoying  and learning from future editions!

Today I want to highlight some of the risks that should be taken into account when considering your approach to social media. Too many companies and individuals seem to jump on the bandwagon without giving any thought to these. In a coming post we will look at ways you can prepare for these eventualities.

1. Litigation – you have to be careful what you say in the public forum about others. If you make unsupported claims or falsehoods about another company, product or person you could face legal action
2. Brand Killer – your brand should the same across all platforms. If it isn’t it will confuse your visitors and can kill your brand.
3. Forever and Ever - what you post in these forums can remain out there and come back to haunt you.
4. Time Waster - there are thousands of social networks, millions of blogs and lots of distractions. Social media can be a big time waster.
5. Pushy - if you continually push information out without adding value and interacting with the community you will come across as pushy or worse, a machine.
6. Disclosure – if employees don’t know what’s appropriate or not when they participate then you risk them saying something they shouldn’t or disclosing proprietary information.
7. Negativity – this is a perceived risk and in reality can be an opportunity but many companies worry that something negative will be said about them.
8. Just Because – its all very well having a social media presence but if your audience isn’t using these media then your efforts and marketing dollars might be best spent on other forms of marketing. Don’t build a social media presence just because its the latest buzz technology.
9. Spam – a social media presence brings the risk of more spam.
10. Ignore It - The biggest risk of social media is ignoring it. Pretending it doesn’t exist or is too risky to use won’t make it go away. Even if you aren’t ready for a social media presence you should still have it on your radar and be listening to whats being said about your industry. You could risk loosing out on a great opportunity if you don’t.

Related posts:
http://www.out-smarts.com/2009/10/19/is-social-media-losing-its-lustre/

A social media presence is an important addition to any marketing arsenal but the key to successfully using social media to build business is not in the technology itself but in the relationships you build  and how you use these tools.

Social media is all about connections, about being social. The more social you are (with the right people in the right way) the more successful you are likely to be.

Social media allows you to:

• Reconnect with old colleagues, friends and business partners – to build awareness of what you do now;
• stay in touch with existing members of your network – helping you maintain awareness of what you do and get to know these people better, forging stronger relationships;
• Build new relationships with peers in your industry, prospective partners and customers -  to identify and connect with new people you would like to do business with or even learn from.

As with any marketing or business development effort, using social media to build relationships should be done in a strategic and targeted way. You should know :

• the types of businesses or people you want to work with (i.e. old kindergarten friends may or may not be your best prospect so check them out first).
• the industry segments – what type of industries are they in (are they companies you would like to work with?).
• the target geography – i.e. connecting with people in Asia/Europe might not be the best use of your time if you don’t have a business presence there or if you don’t speak their language.

The bottom line is that your social media efforts should reflect your basic marketing strategy in terms of your target audience and your offering: always always bear that in mind.

Perhaps the biggest factor in successfully using social media is interaction.  There’s no point in having thousands of followers if you simply push information out to them all the time, interacting at them rather than with them.  You will simply appear automated and this will damage your efforts.  Join the conversation.  Read others’ posts to see which questions you can answer and how you can add value.  Share information that is valuable to others by linking to it via your social networks.  By thinking about how you can assist people you will find that these people are more likely to remember you and think of you when the time is right.

Finally, when using social media, remember that it should not be the sum and substance of your marketing or business development efforts.  Social media is at its best when it complements and reflects your real world networking, marketing  and business development efforts .

Thanks to Luc Legay for the image.

2. Your company – what resources are in place or will be made available. Also consider existing web presence, company culture, mission, goals and policies.

3. Competition – check out what your competition is doing on line, track blog and RSS feeds that mention them as well as comments on their products or service from users. Also consider the actions of similar companies operating in different jurisdictions.

4. The market – is your market place experiencing and up turn / down turn or is it in a state of flux? These will all impact the approach you take.

5. Integration with your overall marketing and advertising strategy is imperative. Each must complement and support the other by conveying the same brand image and messages.

6. If you don’t have web savvy resources in house then don’t worry – get guidance from people who do this (like us ).

7. Positioning – find out where you stand in the web rankings in comparison to others in your field.

8. Traffic – who visits your site right now, how often and how long do they stay.

9. Pricing – if your offering is considered “prestige” then your web strategy will be different than if your its aimed at the masses.

10. Consider all tools at your disposal to promote your web presence and don’t forget to consider newer technologies such as wikis, social networks and microblogs for effective online marketing.

Social media are tools or sites on the Internet where people and companies go to congregate, communicate and collaborate.  They include: blogs , podcasts, video sites (BlipTV), social networks (like Facebook, MySpace), micro blogs (like Twitter and Pownce), photo sites (Flickr), bookmarking sites (Stumble Upon, Digg) or any other site where you can ineract and share with others in real time.

I am from Britian so I like to use the real world pub analogy.  A pub is a place where people go to get together over a drink with others and to make new friends, to share their exploits, to show their stuff and to talk about whats happening in world around them.

Social media hubs are the same concept but in the virtual world: places online where people go (via their computer or smart phone) to get together with people they know, tell them about what they are doing, show what they can do, meet new people and to share their knowledge.  

From a business perspective, social media is a great marketing tool as it gives you access to millions of people across the globe but as with any other tool you use to grow your business, it is important that you know what you are doing, that you understand who you are trying to reach, what your goals are from using these technologies, which technologies to use to ensure maximum impact.  In short, you need a strategy.  Don’t just run around like a headless chicken trying to maintain a presence in every social media you hear about.  Plot your own course.  Know why you are using the tool in question and what you want to achieve from doing so.  

If you don’t take time to consider your social media strategy in advance and implement it correctly you can end up wasting a lot of time or worse you can seriously damage your marketing efforts.

Microblogging is quickly becoming one of the most popular technologies on the Internet with adoption of tools like Twitter growing at an exponential rate.

As the number of people using these technologies grows, the way people take advantage of them is becoming more sophisticated: they are being used more and more as a business tool. This article explains what microblogging is and introduces the most popular microblog sites. It discusses how these are being used from a business and marketing perspective and provides tips on safe and effective use of these forums.

What is a Microblog?
Microblogs are very simple internet technologies that allow users to post short statements or sentences, usually limited to 140 characters on a central site. The post can be made available to anyone or only to a chosen audience. Much like the Facebook status box these services were used initially as a forum to share triviality (like what was for breakfast) with a wide audience but people quickly tired of the banality and now the way microblogs are used is becoming more sophisticated.

Sometimes seen as a factor in the evolution of blogging, micro blogs are, as the name suggests, like mini blogs in that they allow you to post information and streams of consciousness and make these available to the world over the Internet. Unlike a blog, however, a microblog doesn’t have unlimited room for creativity – you are forced to get to the point.

Which Microblog?
By far the largest microblog is Twitter (according to Hitwise in Australia alone the popular microblog grew by over 500% new users in one calendar month this summer). Twitter was founded in 2006 and quickly gained attention by winning a prestigious South by South West Blog award in the spring of 2007. Although the site is growing at a tremendous rate, the user volume is still very small in comparison to social networking behemoths like MySpace. Using a simple clean interface, users can get set up and start Twittering really easily.

Another microblog technology that is growing in popularity is Plurk. Plurk differs from Twitter in that it provides a more visual “timeline” interface showing your “Plurks” and those you are following on a time sheet-style screen. Just launched in May this year, Plurk is a little more complex than Twitter to use but once you get the hang of it, it definitely appeals to those left brained people among us.

The omnipresent Google of course has its own version of a microblog which they obtained in late 2007. Jaiku has since been closed to new users as they beta test the latest version (which seems very visually appealing with a nice map interface). Request a beta invite to try it out.

The other major player in the microblog scene is Pownce. This one is very similar to Twitter in its look and feel but it has more capabilities in terms of being able to share files and events. Also Pownce doesn’t limit you to 140 characters so you can add more detail to your posts.

Newcomers in the field Spoink promote microblogging by phone from wherever you happen to be. Nothing new in that since most of the other offerings allow you to post from your mobile but what is different about Spoink is that it features the ability to podcast from anywhere. This is one to watch.

Microblogging for Business
Now that we know more about microblogs and the tools in this arena, let’s take a look at how companies and individuals are using microblogs to benefit their businesses.

The first thing any company or professional should do is to ask themselves: is a microblog pertinent to my business? are my peers using this service? and, more importantly, are my customers either using or listening (monitoring these forums) to microblogs? The early microblog adopters tended to be the youth market and the tech community but more and more mainstream professionals and companies are becoming active as time goes on. If you decide that your audience is applicable then the benefits of microblogging actively are numerous:

• A microblog presence is a stellar way to establish expertise and build awareness of what you or your company does. Build your brand by regularly posting on your subject area. Remember to add your logo and branding to the design of your microblog page and link to back to your blog if you have one so that your microblog contacts are aware of it and can click to read more. Threadless, the T shirt company that has made social media marketing an art form uses Twitter (@threadless) to update their audience regularly in this way.
• Microblogs are a great way to expand your network and build your contacts. To do so share neat links and always add value for your followers, if you do this effectively you can sit back and watch your contacts expand.
• Microblogs provide a good source for the latest information in your industry – if you’re following the right people, that is. Be cognizant of this as you add friends. Check out posts and look for those that add value, are industry luminaries or are using the forum in innovative ways. Network with peers in your industry to develop your knowledge and to build better partnerships.
• Microblogs are shorter than blogs and more concise so if you only have a few moments you can hone in on the juicies more readily. If you don’t have time to blog but still have something pressing you want to share, microblogs are a great way to do this quickly and effectively.
• Microblog technology can be used to expand the reach of your service and spread word quickly. An example is the police and fire services using Twitter to get the word out in emergency cases. The Los Angeles Fire Department (@LAFD) uses Twitter to spread fire related Tweets to interested parties.
• By linking or announcing new articles or changes to your site from a microblog you can drive more traffic to your site. Twitter is now the 4th largest driver of traffic to the Out-Smarts blog.
• Use microblogs for research by monitoring what’s being said about your product or industry so you can keep ahead of the pack. It’s also an excellent medium to elicit feedback on an issue you need more information on or are in the dark about. Tweetscan is a very simple tool that facilitates listening.
• Some companies are using microblog technology too collaborate on projects with decentralised participants or colleagues in short blasts. The CBC recently did this to great effect on Twitter during the Canadian federal election and were able to incorporate feedback from Twitterers on the ground in many constituencies.
• While direct selling on microblogs is discouraged, many companies use it to bring awareness of the existence/benefits of their products and services to new markets or to provide customer service updates. Whole Foods (@wholefoods), an organic food chain headquartered in Texas does exactly that whilst adding value by Twittering on community events and organic topics too.

Effective Twittering Tips
I have it on good authority that the Twitter microblog site is this year’s web 2.0 tool of choice for net savvy professionals to communicate with and grow their networks. Here are some tips for you to use to tweak your “tweets” and get more out of your Twitter presence:

1. Add value – don’t just spout off about boring stuff. Nobody is interested in what color shoes you are wearing (maybe your underwear but definitely not your shoes!).
2. Use TinyURL or a similar url abbreviation tool to shorten the length of url links in your Twitter posts so they fit in the 140 character limit.
3. Don’t spam or sell.
4. Friends and Followers – be selective about who you follow. Before you follow someone, check out their recent Tweets to see if they are of interest to you before you add them (they may not be of interest at all). If someone starts following you, don’t automatically add them and follow – take a look at the number of followers they have compared to their following If someone is following way more people than they have followers then it may be best to avoid them. They could be “Follow Spammers” more interested in gaining exposure than in finding interesting Tweets.
5. Don’t let Twitter suck up too much of your time – it can be very distracting. Instead schedule it in to your week and spend a few minutes each day updating and enjoying.
6. Limit the number of people you follow to avoid Twitter information overload. If you’re following too many people, you might miss that gem of information.
7. Use Twitterfeed to feed your blog to Twitter.
8. Monitor the Tweetosphere and make sure you are aware of anyone who mentions you so that it comes to your attention and you can be ready to counter any adverse Twittering. Use Tweetscan to monitor what is being said about you or your company on Twitter.
9. Don’t click on a link from anyone you don’t know or trust. Many Twitterers use TinyURL or similar to shorten URLs (I do) but this camouflages the true source so you don’t know what you’re clicking on. These could be disguised links to potentially dangerous sites or viral downloads so be careful.
10. Read the Twitter blog for updates and information on malware and spam issues.
11. Secure your Twitter name. Get a Twitter profile in your business name before someone else does.
12. Use common sense when Twittering and remember that most of these announcements can be seen by anyone and everyone. You don’t really have to announce that you’re away from home.
13. If someone you’re following overloads you with spam then use the Twitter block at the right of the side panel to block them and let Twitter know too.
14. Call on the community. If something adverse does happen then make your community aware of it. You will be amazed at the support, advice and action of the collective.

Conclusion
If you decide that your business can benefit from microblogging, participation in these sites can really impact your online marketing efforts, drive more traffic to your site and increase brand awareness. Before you start microblogging, take some time to check out the different offerings to find out which is best for you. Once you choose, schedule time to microblog and grow your contacts and always look to add value and tell your community something they don’t know. If you decide to hold off on microblogging for now, keep this on your radar: with its speedy user adoption rate. It’s only a matter of time before, like social networks, these become mainstream.

Follow Out-Smarts on Twitter: @Outsmarts.

[audio:http://www.out-smarts.com/Podcast14.mp3]

Links mentioned:
Sporty Jewels
marketing profs
Entreprenuer.com
Inc
Pink Magazine