Tag Archives: linkedin

Get your social media horse out from behind that cart

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“Let’s send out direct mail postcards with discount codes to potential customers.”

“Let’s sponsor a conference and have our CEO speak at it.”

“Let’s create a referral program for our current customers to help us generate new business.”

Most savvy marketers could read the three statements above and instantly recognize them all as tactics, not strategies. All of those actions might be a good idea, but it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Most organizations know they at least need to start with a strategy, a goal, before embarking on a marketing or PR campaign. You don’t just jump to tactics.

Now replace postcards, conference, and referral program in the above statements with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Still tactics, right? So why are so many erstwhile savvy marketers thinking that these three platforms constitute a social media strategy?

Cart before the horse

A strategy starts with business goals. Are you trying to sell more product? Reduce costs? Attract more members? Repair a damaged brand reputation? Your marketing and social media activities should match up with these business goals. What does success look like and how do you measure it?

After goals are defined, determine who you’re trying to reach, where they are online and what you’re trying to get them to do. If your target audience is not using Twitter, don’t make Twitter the crux of your marketing campaign. You wouldn’t send a direct mail piece about mortgage refinancing to a bunch of apartment renters. So don’t try to reach teens and college students on LinkedIn.

I’ve been talking with too many organizations lately that want to skip right to implementing social media tactics. Maybe it’s because they’re caught up in the hype and buzz surrounding social media or feel that they’re behind the game and need to get moving. Perhaps their competitor has implemented and seen success with social media and they don’t want to be left behind. It still doesn’t mean that skipping the strategy part is okay, though. Even if you see “results”, without a strategy you won’t know what those results are achieving.

Stop. Take a step back. Start with strategy.

Photo via Flickr user Emilio Labrador

Six ways to add social sizzle to internal communication

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So much of the hullabaloo about social media is focused on the way brands engage with consumers that we often forget that these new Web technologies are great for internal communication, too. Having spent a good chunk of my career in employee communications, it’s an area that I know could benefit from a little more social sizzle.

Here are 6 ways to spice up an internal program:

  1. Video. How many employees actually read those 1,500-word missives that the CEO sends out each week or month (even if they’re craftily ghost-written by a communicator)? Probably not too many. Try recording the message with a Web cam instead. Execs will love it because it takes less time than the back-and-forth editing of a written piece, and employees will connect more with a real person talking to them than stiffly-written corporate updates. Embed the video on the company intranet and allow employees to rate or comment on it.
  2. Wikis. Version control on a document has been the downfall of many a project. When you have a dozen people working across continents and time zones, e-mailing around a document for review can result in a mishmash of comments and input. Set up an internal wiki for a project that allows team members to edit, review, comment and approve aspects of a project so that everyone’s on the same page.
  3. Internal networks and directories. A great feature of the Web is it’s ability to exploit the “weak ties” among people. A product developer in India may be struggling with a problem that a technologist in Brazil has expertise in. Create an employee skills database that’s internally searchable and allows them to fill out a profile with their interests, expertise and qualifications and post requests. Don’t have the resources to build out your own system? Try creating a private LinkedIn Group for your employees (just make sure they’re not sharing information that’s company-sensitive).
  4. thumbsupGather Feedback. Think of what Ford is doing with the Fiesta Movement: allowing a select group of people the opportunity to test a product, provide feedback, and share their experiences. Why not do this with employees? If you’re thinking of implementing a new system or policy, pilot it at a single location first, but allow the employees there to publicly express their thoughts about it via an internal microsite. Most importantly, listen. Take their feedback to heart and make changes to the program before it’s rolled out company-wide.
  5. Develop knowledge communities. Create forums for a particular function, process, location or project and allow employees to ask and asnwer questions. Incentivize them for participating — not necessarily with money or reward — it can be as simple as giving them points or a ranking based on their answers (think Yahoo! Answers). Make it easy for employees to draw on their coworkers’ knowledge and show off their own.
  6. Mobile messaging. Create a short-code system for employees to get messages on their mobile phones. Inclement weather? Let them know the parking lot won’t be plowed and they can work from home (score!). Alert them of urgent, time-sensitive news. Use this platform sparingly (text message still cost many users money, so make sure it is opt-in). For a distributed workforce that may not be at a computer very much (like a field sales team or line manufacturers), text messaging can be a good way to reach employees with must-read news.

What else have you got? How have you seen Web 2.0 concepts used innovatively for internal communication?

Image via Flickr user ..Lodi

3 reasons even “social media types” still need a resume

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Remember Elle Woods and her scented, pink-paper resume in Legally Blonde? She’d be an anomoly today, as most people don’t print paper resumes anymore. But despite lamentations that “Google is the new resume” or “Resumes are useless in the Internet age,” you still need one if you plan to apply for a position at a large company. Even a social media position.

While those of us who blog, tweet, post, message and tag each other all day long would like to think that our online presence is enough to stand on its own as a testament to how smart and savvy we are, the human resources department is still going to want you to submit a formal application, which often includes uploading a resume. If you’re trying to land a job with a funky little start-up or a tiny shop with a handful of employees, then the resume matters less and all of your other online work will likely be a bigger factor. But if you’re looking for a job with a big brand or company, have it ready.

I’ve worked very closely with the HR department in some of my previous jobs, so I’ve had the chance to observe some of the machinations that go along with trying to hire someone at a large company. Here are three reasons why, no matter how sexy your blog, Posterous, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or “personal brand’ might be, you still need to have a resume:

1. Your blog can’t be entered into a corporate resume database

There are several reasons big corporations use resume database-systems like BrassRing or HireGround. Probably the most important one is compliance. In order to be in compliance with myraid hiring laws with acronyms like OFCCP, EEO, and FLSA, companies with more than 100 employees need to show ratios of applicants to interviewees to hires, show that they have consistent hiring practices across the company, and show that they actively sought out diverse candidates.

Making each candidate go through an online hiring system, which usually includes a resume upload and screening questions, allows for easy data collection for compliance purposes. Companies can’t run your blog or Google profile through its screening processes when it comes time to file compliance reports each year.

2. The first cut of candidates may be made by someone who doesn’t know what a blog is

Often an HR associate sorts through the company resume database– sometimes arbitrarily, sometimes by keyword– to find an initial group of candidates to screen. This is where networking is huge. If you submit your resume online, it can be a total crapshoot whether it even gets viewed. But if you know the hiring manager or someone who can pass your resume along and help it move to the top of the pile, you’re in a much better position.

In all likelihood, however, the HR associate probably isn’t going to find and read your blog. It would be extremely time consuming to do that for each candidate in an initial screen. They may check you out on Google or LinkedIn in a cursory manner, but their goal is to fill the role as quickly as possible. That’s their metric. So unless someone tells them to flag your resume, you’re at the mercy of whether or not you appear in the database search results (so make sure you have the appropriate keywords in your resume).

3. Many companies still aren’t comfortable with social media for the hiring process

The mere fact that a company would hire for a social media position is a step in the right direction, but if they’re looking for someone with expertise in the area, it’s because they lack it. The hiring manager may not know where or how to start screening candidates based on their social presence. Should they be looking for quantity or quality of blog posts? Does number of Twitter followers matter? How many LinkedIn connections should the candidate have? Why aren’t they on FriendFeed? What is FriendFeed? Corporate HR and hiring managers are used to resumes, comfortable with resumes, and still expect resumes. They’re not quite sure yet how to integrate social media into established hiring practices.

Even a company like BestBuy, ahead of the curve on social media adoption, didn’t quite know how to structure a traditional job posting for its Emerging Media Manager role. Kudos to them for reaching out to the community and crowdsourcing ideas for key skills and requirements for the position. But anyone who applies  for the role must do so by submitting an application and uploading a resume via BestBuy’s corporate career site.

Yes, it would be great if someday we could all just let our work stand on its on merit wherever it happens to live online and not have to put together verbose and formal resumes. You certainly should mention and even highlight your online outposts on your resume (at least your blog and LinkedIn profile), and as you move further along in the hiring process there’s a greater chance that someone in the hiring process will take the time to look at your work. Just don’t expect the traditional resume to disappear any time soon.

The Message is the Message: Albany Ad Club social media panel

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This morning I attended the Albany Ad Club’s annual meeting and social media panel discussion, which featured five local PR, marketing and advertising professionals discussing their current use of social media tools and strategies. All were from different backgrounds and it was neat to see the contrasting methods and platforms that each preferred for communicating to their audiences and the various strategies they highlighted:

  • Steven Jeffes of EdgeUp Marketing uses LinkedIn and manages several groups. He connects with more than 15,000 professionals through his moderation of eight different LinkedIn groups. Jeffes manages employee groups for GE, Lockheed Martin and the Wharton School and also the popular Albany, NY Professionals LinkedIn group. He’s gained several consulting clients through the connections he’s made on LinkedIn.
  • Megan O’Toole from the New York State Bar Association has found that a combination of blogs, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook groups and pages have been an effective way to reach out to her organization’s members. She often uses traditional media (direct mail, e-mail newsletters) to promote these new media channels and the NYSBA is budgeting for Web advertising in 2010.
  • Gina Hyams works with several arts and non-profits in the Berkshires. She used Twitter to promote the Berkshire International Film Festival and to interact with filmgoers during the event. As a “Tweeter-in-Residence” for the festival, Hyams shared links to film trailers, film makers’ Web sites, and general information about the festival. During the festival, she would monitor and retweet mini-reviews of the films and would tweet information about parking and ticket availability and line length.
  • Patrick Boegel and his firm, Media Logic, have redesigned their business model and offerings to focus on a conversation-centric model of marketing. Through new tools, like their proprietary custom “Zeitgeist and Coffee” social media monitoring dashboard system, they are encouraging their clients to become involved in the conversations that are already happening about their brands. He stressed the importance of starting with a strategy and letting that dictate how and when you use social media tools for communication.
  • Paul Fahey of Zone5 discussed how really the “old school” principles of communication are the core of social media. He referenced Dale Carnegie’s book, published in 1936, that focused on how to establish good relationships with people. That’s what social media is really about today. He noted that there’s a lot you can’t control in social media – but you can control the way you respond and the principles you use to guide you in a conversation or interaction.

Following the panel, I captured a quick reaction from my table mate Jim Stagnitti, general sales manager for Clear Channel Radio. Here were his three takeaways:


(Free videography tip: Get a Gorillapod. Do not try to use a full glass of water to prop your camera on, or you could possibly knock it into the glass. Not that I’ve ever done that. Like, say, this morning.)

I had a side conversation with Jim and some of his employees about social media ROI after the panel. I agree that none of the panelists really did have a good answer when the question of measurement came up, but that’s about par for the course these days.

I directed them to Katie Delahaye Paine’s blog and talked about how ROI in social media is a lot like ROI in sales: How do you put a value on building relationships? Taking a client out to dinner? A round of golf? It’s still the million-dollar-question as to how you take the customer engagement and relationship-building that happens as a result of interactions in social media and link it to revenue gained or costs avoided.

As for Jim’s assertion that the medium is no longer the message and the “message is the message”… exactly. Social media is allowing information to be seen/heard/shared across platforms and with loads of added commentary, perspective and criticism. Consumers are no longer bound to receive messages exactly as brands or organizations dictate. As Patrick stated during the panel, “consumers are in control now and clients have to understand that their brand is not all their own anymore.” Right on.

Geni.com: Stealth social media

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My mom is a Baby Boomer, and I don’t really think she could be labeled as an early adopter of technology. She teaches elementary school and uses the computer in her classroom probably better than most teachers (she made a blog for her kindergarten class one year and had the students post a sentence each day about what they learned). But my mom doesn’t really participate in social media on a personal level, and in fact, she’s pretty skeptical of it. I’m pretty sure she’s never heard of Twitter or LinkedIn, doesn’t subscribe to any blogs, and definitely, definitely doesn’t want anything to do with Facebook. She’s wary of posting personal information online and thinks that Facebook is “something that you young people do.”

Geni

But a over a year and a half ago, I started creating our family tree on a site called Geni.com. You can create profiles for members of your family tree and invite them to join. If they do, they take over control of their profile and can then add additional family members. My family tree now stands at 500+ members, stretching back to Tipperary in 1816. Each family member can add photos and videos to their profile, edit personal information, and post messages to other family members’ pages. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

My mom and her siblings love Geni. They post birthday greetings, anniversary messages, and comment on pictures of relatives’ kids. My mom’s oldest sister has really gotten into it and added scanned images of birth, death, and wedding certificates of some of our first ancestors. She’s connected with our third cousins twice removed (Geni calculates those weird relationship rules for you) and added all the family genealogy data that previously was scattered around on a dozen different paper trees.

My mom is all over this “family” version of Facebook. She doesn’t view it as social networking; maybe because it’s a little more controlled and she knows that only her family members will see her profile. But she’s actively participating.

The PEW Internet & American Life Project recently published a report on Internet usage for American adults. According to the report, 19 percent of online adults aged 45-54 have some sort of online profile (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.) and only 10 percent of online adults aged 55-64 have one. These numbers are increasing but the report shows that by a wide margin, social networks are, as Brian Solis puts it, “still a phenomenon of the young.” The report also indicates that 60 percent of adults restrict access to their profile so that only their friends can see it.

My extended family’s online presence seems to mimic the age splits in the PEW report. Most of the cousins in my generation have multiple social network profiles and have joined Geni, but we all prefer to connect to each other through Facebook. We post pictures there, send birthday greetings to each others’ walls, and connect and share family news. Many of my cousins are fairly open and don’t restrict their profiles.

Family members in my mom’s generation use Geni for all the same purposes, but almost none of them has a Facebook profile. In many cases, Geni is their only online profile, and they’ve set it up so only members of our family can see it. I’m not sure if my mom is intimindated by Facebook or just thinks it’s not for her, but I’m wondering if Geni will serve as the “gateway drug” for her to branch out and start accepting social media more openly. We’ll see.