Mashable has named June 30th Social Media Day. Let’s celebrate by Tweeting, blogging, and connecting with friends on Facebook. In Buffalo there is a meetup at a restaurant downtown, click here to see if there are any Social Media Day events going on in your city.
And if you have been meaning to get on the social media train, what are you waiting for? It’s fun, easy, and if done properly can improve your website and help you connect with clients and prospects. Give me a call at 888-696-2900, I’d be happy to discuss how you can get started with social media today!
I was in a store recently that is owned by a friend of mine, and the employee who was taking care of me mentioned that she was a bit bewildered that so many people were talking about their store on consumer review websites. Apparently, none of her teammates at the store even knew that there were conversations about them taking place until very recently. It turns out that even though the majority of the discussions and posts were positive, there were a few negative posts that went unanswered for some time. She even went on to say that she wondered how many people were talking about them in other places that they are unaware of.
What can I do if this happens to my staffing firm?
Nowadays, feedback is left for all kinds of businesses, and staffing firms are no exception. You may receive comments from recently placed candidates, current or former clients – even job seekers that you didn’t place. And as you might expect, it’s extremely improbable that every comment will be positive. Some important steps to follow:
Pay attention to the conversations about your business. Know what people are saying about you and your firm shortly after it’s said; not days, weeks or months after the fact. You can tailor these alerts to include not only your company name, but the names of your recruiters, salespeople – even your competition. Our Director of SEO & Social Media, Brad Smith, wrote a great article about this a few months ago: Tracking Social Media Conversations About Your Staffing Firm. Additionally, make it a point to visit different social feedback sites like Yelp, Insider Pages and Merchant Circle and see what’s being said. You may find there are old posts about your business that you never knew about.
Address feedback offline. If you’re receiving positive comments, meet with your staff and share them. Focus on what’s working and find new and creative ways to expand upon them. Reach out to the writer of the positive feedback (if you have the means to) and thank them personally; they’re almost certain to continue to sing your praises. Likewise, make sure that any negative feedback gets addressed properly and promptly. This will often result in turning a frown upside-down and ceasing any further negative comments, and ideally, you will maintain a healthy business relationship with that person.
Address feedback online. Take a moment to respond to comments publicly. This shows gratitude and involvement, and is especially important in responding to negative feedback after it has been addressed offline on a one-to-one basis with the once disgruntled client or job seeker. Use this as your opportunity to show that you care about everyone’s feedback, and that you not only acknowledge negative issues, but that you do your best to correct them quickly.
Be proactive. Utilize blogging to show your current and potential clients how your firm really is different, and how that translates to them and their businesses. Write blog posts that give your candidates valuable job search tips. Get involved in discussions on LinkedIn groups. Build your Facebook and Twitter followers. Automatically feed your blog to post into all of them. Position yourself as an expert in your field, and as a trusted source of educational information.
By taking an active role in all aspects of your social feedback and media, you take the lead in crafting exactly how your company is seen. If you don’t, your company image will still be shaped, but you may not have as much control over what it is shaped into. If you have questions about how to be more active in social media, or any other aspect of your marketing initiatives, please call me at (888) 696-2900 or email me at dmcmullen@haleymarketing.com.
Think businesses can ignore Social Networks? Think again!
A recent study conducted by Harris Interactive found that company or product reviews on social networks now hold as much influence as more traditional print media (newspapers/magazines).
According to the report:
“…what people say online about companies, brands and products matters. In fact, nearly half of Americans who use social media say reviews about a particular company, brand or product from friends or people they follow on social networking websites influence them either a great deal or a fair amount (45%) – the same number as Americans who say reviews in newspaper or magazine articles influence them (46%).”
Q: I’m interested in beginning a blog. Can I just use one of the free tools and host my blog at WordPress or Blogger?
A: You certainly can, but in the long run, you are much better off integrating the blog into your website. Let me explain…
WordPress and Blogger are two publishing platforms that make it easy for just about anyone to create and update a blog. With each platform, you can create a free account at WordPress.com or Blogger.com and begin writing your blog today. In doing so, your blog’s URL would look something like one of these:
http://YourCompanyName.wordpress.com
http://YourCompanyName.blogger.com
Once your blog is setup, people can visit your blog, see your posts, and interact and leave comments. Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, from a strategic marketing standpoint, using a free hosting service is a BIG mistake. Here’s why:
Inconsistent branding – If you use one of the free templates from WordPress or Blogger, you’re most likely not carrying through the same look and feel you have on your corporate website. The disconnect between the blog and the website can make your firm look less sophisticated and have a negative impact on people’s perception of you.
Traffic isn’t going to your website – When you host at WordPress.com or Blogger.com, all of your blog traffic doesn’t count as traffic to your website (you’re driving people to WordPress or Blogger). On the flipside, if your blog is housed under your domain, such as http://blog.yourcompanyname.com, then all of the additional traffic is coming to your website and people can then easily navigate to other areas to learn more about your services.
You’re losing out on great SEO value – With Search Engine Optimization, content is king. In order to get more people to your website from Google and other search engines, you need to rank highly. And the best way to improve your ranking is to regularly add fresh, relevant content to your site. A blog is the easiest and fastest way to build a library of this great content. But to get the SEO value of your content, it has to reside on your website, not at Blogger.com or WordPress.com.
Personally, I feel that a blog is one of the easiest ways to add value to your website, engage your audience and drive more traffic through search engines. The key, though, is setting things up properly to begin with–carrying through your corporate branding and ensuring you drive traffic to your domain, not WordPress or Blogger. And if you need help, just call!
Q: I understand the benefits of social networking, but I just don’t have the time! All of this Twittering, LinkedIn, blogging, etc. could be a full-time job. Please help.
A: A common problem for many businesses is managing the time spent on social networking. With the plethora of social media available, networking and marketing can be time-consuming and overwhelming!
To help, here are five time management strategies to help you work smarter:
Pencil it in. Set aside a few hours each week to focus on social networking. Block out the time on your Outlook Calendar, close your office door and plug away. Spend 15-30 minutes a day getting to know the sites, posting information or working on your strategy. When time is up, move onto your other responsibilities.
Avoid being a “jack of all trades.” YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter–and the list goes on and on. You don’t have to be an expert on all of the social media platforms out there. To start, focus on getting to know one or two before moving onto others. (And if you’re not sure which tools would be best to focus on, give us a call–we’d be happy to help you navigate the social media landscape!)
Connect accounts. Many social media accounts can be connected. For example, you can add Twitter to your Facebook account. This way your Tweets will appear on your Facebook profile. You can also add YouTube or other videos to your Facebook account. Plus, you can set up your blog to feed new posts to your Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn accounts. You’ll save time by not having to log in and repost information several times.
Reuse & recycle. You don’t have to come up with five different pieces of content for five different social media platforms. Instead, you can leverage your one piece of content in several different ways. For example, if you write an article and post it to your blog, you can Twitter about the topic, create a status update on Facebook about the concept, post information from your article to your LinkedIn groups and even use the theme of your article as a basis for a video. You can also use social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon to help others find your content.
Ask for help! As a busy professional, it can be intimidating to take on social networking alone. And if you’re not into social networking, then you’re not in the game. So, if you’re not sure how to use Social Media to build your staffing business we can help. From creating custom profiles that match your corporate branding, to building your network, to writing and posting content on your behalf–Haley Marketing will help you take advantage of all Social Media marketing has to offer. Just give us a call today at 888-696-2900 to learn more.
I just saw this article and thought I would share it with our Ask Haley readers. It’s a great example of how recruiting and hiring has changed with the popularity of new technologes and specifcally social networking sites.
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jeff Reeder from Staffing Industry Analysts for the cover story of the April 2010 issue of SI Review magazine. The feature titled “Developing a Social Media Plan” focused on how staffing and recruiting companies should go about planning a social media strategy as well as setting expectations and evaluating ROI.
Here are a few of the key takeaways from this great article…
UNITEMP is a temporary staffing firm located in New Jersey. With more and more of thier candidates–and clients–using Social Media in their personal lives, they understood the importance and value of using social networks as a communication tool. UNITEMP’s new blog provides visitors to their website with value added HR, career and job search tips. Their blog also integrates with their Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. Every new blog post made to the UNITEMP website is automatically published and distributed to UNITEMP’s social networks. In addition, UNITEMP leverage’s Haley Marketing’s job board to not only post jobs on their own website but also automatically publishing jobs to Twitter, Facebook, Indeed and Simply Hired.
UNITEMP’s website traffic has seen continual increases and their online network continues to grow–all without having to spend their time networking online.
Digital Marketers have been telling us for years now that ‘everyone’ is online, using Facebook, Tweeting or whatever is new and shiny. This video has some great numbers to help prove that they finally may be right. I consider the music Not Safe For Work, but if migraines are your thing, grab your glow sticks and crank it!
Want to have a little fun (and maybe even add some marketing value) to your Facebook status updates? 
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