Sirona Says

How to get started with Facebook Pages for your social recruiting strategy

 

We all know the scale of Facebook by now - 550 million people on Facebook growing at millions every week - but ARE YOU taking steps to make the most of it in your business? Have you realised you are going to need a social recruiting strategy very soon? Don't for even one second think that Facebook isn't for you - it is for everyone that wants to engage with their candidates and their clients.

And please don't give me the excuse of people saying bad things about you and making derogatory comments on your wall - if you haven't realised they are saying it about you anyway, just in a different place! Don't be naive on that count!
[Note to that effect: you have got alerts for your brand, URL's and key names set up with Google alerts and Socialmention haven't you? If not, how can you say people are talking about you is you don't even know!]

Facebook pages are now becoming a must-have item for companies in the recruitment space. There is now a high level of expectancy from candidates that companies have them - to them it is just normal. Obviously just putting up a Facebook page without thought and objectives isn't the way forward. But creating a simple social strategy including Facebook, and designing rel event Facebook pages for your needs certainly is.

From a recruitment perspective, Facebook pages can be as simple or as complicated as you need to meet your objectives.
You can have a Facebook Fan page that is a branding and information sharing site like this one,  you can set up your site to use a Facebook application like Work For Us or you can invest some ££ in a professionally built fully interactive recruitment pages like this one from the awesome Net Natives.

If you currently don't have a Facebook page and are considering setting one up, then you will certainly find these 10 tips from the Facebook Legend that is Mari Smith. Her advice is excellent, and if you are not going to use an external company to create your social recruiting strategy, then please take note of these excellent tips:

   1. The design strategy for your Fan page needs to clearly address your objectives for having a Facebook Fan page in the first place. Such objectives might include building your candidate pool; driving traffic to your blog; promoting your products/services; increasing event registrations; getting media contacts and attention; connecting with joint venture partners; establishing yourself as a leading authority; improving customer service.
   2. When you create your Facebook Fan page, you need to be very careful about the category and name you select for your page as those cannot be changed.
   3. Add custom tabs to your Fan page, especially a custom Welcome tab. A recent study has shown that 47% of those who see your Welcome tab as a landing page will Like your page, whereas only 23% will Like your page if they first land on your Facebook wall.
   4. Currently, custom tab content is created mostly in FBML (Facebook Markup Language), which is similar to HTML but with its own proprietary tags and attributes, or through Facebook Apps. At some point in the near future, Facebook will only allow iframe coding, but they’ve promised they will continue to “grandfather in” any tabs you’ve already set up using FBML.
   5. A well-designed landing page will accomplish these purposes: Increase conversions, help visitors know immediately they’re in the right place, be inviting and compelling and provide a positive, interactive user experience.
   6. There are a number of great Facebook Apps you can use to create tabs for your Facebook Fan page. Apps that push content onto your wall (in addition to updating the tab) are better for engagement because that content is more likely to get noticed by your fans because it’s placed in their feed.
   7. You shouldn’t just post content that’s about you or geared to making a sale on your Fan page. Content sources for your Fan page include blog posts, articles, podcasts, videos, photos, interviews (transcribe) along with other people’s content (OPC) available through email subscriptions, ezines, Friends lists, Twitter lists, etc. Fans appreciate content “curators” as it saves them time and allows them to find a variety of useful content in one place.
   8. Allow fans to post items. It’s easy enough to remove anything spammy, offensive or off-topic. Respond promptly to Fan comments with personalized comments of your own. Try to provide daily updates to keep your page fresh.
  9. Conversion strategies may include: regular calls to action, contests, fan-only content, special offers, coupons, etc. If you mix up your content to add sufficient value you’ll find better acceptance of your promotional content.
  10. Remember that Facebook is just ONE marketing channel. You can use a Fan page as a hub for your content or as an outpost. Use your Fan page to educate your marketplace about all that you do, but be sure to enhance the user experience for your fans in the process.

For your social recruiting strategy you should be looking at Twitter, LinkedIn,  blogs, You Tube and even Flickr as well as Facebook, which all need to be incorporated into your existing recruitment process and (of course) your career site.

If you have a recruitment Facebook page at your company that is working for you, then please share it with everyone in the comments below - Facebook is all about sharing, after all.

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Increasing recruitment agency costs are your own fault!

When was the last time you actually checked the candidate user experience on your career site? When did you last do a test application?

Go on - go and do one today..

I would like to bet you will be shocked how poor the experience is.

Now sit back and think of all those good candidates you have delivered the same level of experience to!

And you wonder why your recruitment spend on agencies is rising again, and the rates are slowly increasing?

Hardly surprising is it when you have failed to grasp the concept of the candidate user experience, is it?

The Beginners Guide To Twitter Video

Over the last few weeks, when speaking at a number of social media conferences, there has been a common question amongst the social media virgins, "What is Twitter?"

So I thought I would put together a short video explaining; 'What Twitter is', 'What Twitter looks like' and 'How exactly you get started with Twitter'.

I hope you enjoy watching it -  and if you do have friends or colleagues that don't know what Twitter is or simply don't understand it, make sure you send them a link to watch it.

And remember, don't forget to follow me on Twitter - @andyheadworth

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How to use Foursquare as a candidate sourcing and social recruiting tool

 

 
When companies develop new social media products, services and applications, do you think it ever occurs to them that they are indirectly helping recruiters out?  Probably not, and quite frankly, I am pleased. Maybe it is the mind of the recruiter that is the problem (now you're talking!) - with the way we look at new applications from a completely different perspective.
Today I am referring to Foursquare the location based social network that uses the GPS chip in mobile phones. A little while ago I demonstrated how using a combination of Foursquare and Twitter could find you candidates easily at target companies. I want you show you another Foursquare tip today that also helps you find people at specific organisations, but in a little more detail. This really is social recruiting!

Some Foursquare things to consider that make this relevant:
Check-in's: People mostly check into a work place location for one of three reasons; they work there and want to be Mayor of their workplace, they are going for a meeting (and so are likely to be in the same industry) or (maybe) they are going for an interview there.
Mayor: People who have become a Mayor of a workplace, will need to have visited that location on several occasions and will therefore likely work there.
Foursquare is mainly used by early adopters, people tuned into social media and tech savvy people (and by default smart phone users).

First stage is to get yourself a Foursquare account - don't worry it is very easy and free to just sign up for one.
Next in the search bar put in the name of the company you are targeting to find people from:
This will show you all the different offices/locations (and even different names) of the company, that people have 'checked in' at on Foursquare.
Then you need to find the one(s) that you are looking for. As you can see in the example above, I selected Accenture as my target company. Click on that company and it will show you who has checked in to that location recently, and of course, the Mayor of that company location.

As you can see Mike H is the Mayor of Accenture Interactive - he is an active Foursquare user, he has many badges and has checked in to many locations. Better than that though, is that he has his Twitter account linked to Foursquare. Click on the Twitter icon (many people also have their Facebook accounts linked as well) and open up the Twitter profile.

It tells you his name, his website (with contact details on) and some details about him. If you use Twitter (which you should be doing as a recruiter by the way), then you may want to follow him and engage with him that way.
If you then want to take it a stage further then simply do a search in LinkedIn for him. Don't worry if he is outside of your network, because a simple Google x-ray search (site:linkedin.com "name") will show you the full profile.

There you go - from an innocuous and seemingly irrelevant social media tool, you now have a clever way of identifying and sourcing targeted candidates.

Not everyone, attaches their Twitter or Facebook accounts to their Foursquare profile, so if the first search doesn't deliver, keep trying. As with all candidate sourcing, a good dose of guile and lateral thinking are required!

If you know anymore Foursquare sourcing tips let me know!

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The Why and How of Social Recruiting for Recruiters (Presentation)

Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation on the subject of social recruiting to 110 members of The FIRM - The Forum of In-house Recruitment Managers.
As promised to the attendees here is a copy of the presentation slides from yesterday:

The Why and How of Social Recruiting for Recruiters

View more presentations from Andy Headworth.

If you have any questions regarding the presentation or you would like to talk to me about presenting at your company or an upcoming event, please just drop me an email.

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Are Job Boards trying to kill off social recruiting?

Social recruiting is gaining momentum ......and fast! With the technology available for everyone to get involved anywhere, it has become accepted that recruiting via social channels like Facebook and Twitter etc, will soon become the norm.
Companies are quickly coming around to it, candidates are already there and recruitment agencies are slowly getting the fact that they need to be using that channel.

The question is, do job boards actually want social recruiting to happen?

There are some that have embraced social media and are genuinely using it effectively, namely www.jobsite.co.uk , who have taken the time to understand the channels and how the they are used.
But (I believe) the majority still don't get it and, quite frankly, would rather it died tomorrow!

There are two primary objectives of a job board - to get jobs placed on its board and candidates visiting the board to apply for the jobs. So why wouldn't they embrace social media to help them? Why are so many still not doing anything social at all?

More annoying is the lack of understanding that a good number of job boards are showing on sites like Twitter. For example, just simply "hijacking" seemingly popular #hashtags and blasting out jobs is pointless and short-sighted!!
Maybe this is their way of "carpet bombing" Twitter and killing its effectiveness for job seekers?
Are they naive enough to think they can go back to what it was like two years ago, where job boards were the primary channel? >> GET REAL!!

Have they ever heard of the words, 'candidate engagement'? Of course not, they are job boards after all!

My message to job boards is a simple one - social recruiting isn't going away, anytime soon.
So get with the program and start to understand what a benefit social media can be to your business!

A creative social media acronym challenge for you!

Facebook and Twitter have created a massive sharing culture, with its 'LIKE'  and ReTweet buttons  everywhere - from blogs, to web pages to job listing etc. Facebook and Twitter encourage you to share everything with everyone and give you the medium to do it.
 
With this in mind, I wanted to share something with you that Brian Solis said recently at the Facebook Success Summit in the US, that is very releveant to recruiters that want to make sure that other people share their jobs and information on Facebook and Twitter.

You have heard of the acronym 'KISS' (keep it simple stupid), well Brian has brought it into the 21st century:

Keep It Simple and Shareable

As with all these things, now he has said it, it of course makes absolute sense, doesn't it?

Now I know the readers of my blog are a creative bunch(!) So, in the spirit of a challenge, can you better Brian? Can you come up with a better social media acronym in the social media space? (not necessarily using KISS - use anything you like!)

Here are a few to get you started...

SMM (should be social media marketing) - Social Media Muppets

SROI (should be return on investment) - Silly Results Of Insanity

UGC (should be user generated content) - Users Gone Crazy

I know you can do better......

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Free e-book: All the top Social Recruiting articles from Sirona Says

Over the course of 2010 (so far) I have written a lot about one of my real interests, social recruiting. Of course they are all within this blog, but I wanted a way to bring them together into a more readable document - initially just for myself. Then I came up with the idea of putting the best blog posts into an e-book so that others can also share in them again - just in case you missed them when I first wrote them.

There are 70 pages of articles, including insights, opinion, tips and tricks and case studies as can be seen in the content list below:

Don't worry there is no charge for this, it is FREE. All you need to do is fill in the simple form below to be able to download your copy, either in a PDF or Word.

 

So here you go, something for reading over several cups of coffee!

 

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How Social Media has changed the conference landscape for ever!

 

Remember the days (I reminisce for a moment) when you booked your (usually expensive) ticket and rocked up to an event. You sit through all the presentations, you network, you fill a feedback form in at the end and you go home (or to the pub). You might have texted or emailed a few people to tell them how good or bad it was, or to moan that the speaker was crap, but that is as far as it could go. For the most part, people who didn't attend the conference, didn't get any information or output from the content (unless they were lucky enough to get a copy of the presentation!)

Social media has turned conferences on their head and changed the landscape of them forever (and created headaches for organisers at the same time!)

Now things are a little different:

• Full real-time feedback via twitter back channels (some of which are more interesting than the conference itself) using specific #hashtags to track all the conversation (note to conference organisers - please choose short hashtags!)
  
  
• Venues need to support free wifi to satisfy the proliferation of netbooks and laptops that are now prevalent at each conference for the expectant audience.

• Speakers can no longer hide. Poor content or poor delivery will be 'outed' very quickly in the Twitter back channel. Conversely good speakers and great content get wider recognition, as good feedback spreads fast.

• Live event blogging is now a regular occurrence (a new expense for the organisers!) and one that I hope continues.

• Live video streaming is now expected. The US conferences are better at this at the moment, but I hope the UK gets up to speed next year on this! If the conference really wants to tap into the power of social media then, they need to reach out to all the people who couldn't attend the conference, by giving a video feed.

• Information can no longer be restricted. The moment you share anything at a conference now, it can be spread across the social networks like wildfire. It really is a case now of, 'if you are not prepared to share the information, then don't mention it!'

• The rise of informality. We have seen unconferences take a huge step in breaking down the traditional conference format. They encourage debate, conversation and participation like never before. For me they are the biggest revelation in the way conferences are run, and should be integrated with every conference going forward.
  
  
• Expectation has changed. Attendees now expect all of the above, and to be honest, are disappointed when things like free wifi haven't even been considered. Organisers now have to really earn their ticket prices!
  
  

Please note: If you call yourself a social media conference then make sure you practice what you preach (and are charging for!) and ensure that hashtags are set up (before a conference), video is being streamed, external participation is encouraged via the web and you are transparent with all of this.

Social media conferences have spawned like rampant rabbits, with many people seemingly looking to make a quick buck. While many provide excellent speakers, content and knowledge there are now more that are simply doing it to try and make a quick buck!

Over the last year I have both spoken at and attended a good number of conferences in the UK, both large and small, as well as watching some on the Twitter back channel, and others like Recruitfest, Social Recruiting Summit and Sourcecon via live video streams.
In my opinion, it is no longer just enough to satisfy the attendees of a conference, ensuring that they have comfortable seats and good coffee (don't get me started on that one!). It is now important (and you could argue more important) for conference organisers to ensure the audience online has the ability to participate as well, via video, Twitter, Q &A widgets etc This is where the sponsors are going to really want the traction and visibility.

Conference organising was never easy, but now there is a another audience that needs to be considered!

 If you have been to conferences this year, what other changes have you seen take place because of social media?

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Twitter is not just for geeks, freaks and hobbits!

 
(Ok, so I might be exaggerating about hobbits using Twitter -  but I do know some people on Twitter that actually look like hobbits!)

I want you to be honest.

When you are talking to people about using various social networks, how many times when you mention that you use Twitter does it prompt a repugnant reaction? You know what I mean - the eyes roll, the head goes from side to side , they look to see if you have big hairy feet and something intelligible comes out of their mouth! You might even get the immortal words geek and freak thrown at you at the same time!

Hardly fair for simply using a social media platform is it? For many, Twitter has a strange stigma attached to it, seemingly akin to strange behaviours!

It gets even stranger when talking to some companies about social recruiting! They simply don't get it, that something as 'simple as Twitter can be used effectively in the recruitment process. DOH!!

So for all the non-believers out there, who think that they have every right to stick their noses in the air, disregarding Twitter as just a bad smell, here are ten reasons why you should be reconsidering your opinion:

1. 105 million people using it, signing up at 300k a day is hard to ignore
2. 69% of Twitter users are in your target audience (18-49 yr olds)
3. It can be a powerful real-time engagement platform
4. Information gathering tool
5. Candidate search tool
6. Job distribution platform
7. Candidate engagement tool
8. Real-time customer services platform
9. Community builder
10. Real-time reputation monitoring

There is a another great bonus with Twitter, and that (combined with RSS) it links and shares across all the social media platforms - Facebook, Blogs, LinkedIn etc. This is essential when looking at automating some of the information posting tasks, and looking to save time in the process.

You may well think that only geeks and freaks (I will leave the hobbits out for now) are users of Twitter, but you make that assumption at your peril. It is a very powerful tool that will soon become just a regular default communication tool within social recruiting.

So if you are a twitter virgin, best you get over to Twitter.com and get started sooner rather than later! While you are there, don't forget to follow a few people including me .

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