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 Insights from a Recruiting Specialist [19:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (18)

We have a special guest on the Overflow podcast during the holiday break.  Randi Shapiro is the Founder and President of Recruiting Specialists, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Randi specializes in advertising, marketing and public relations placements for client companies ranging from creative shops to Fortune 500 companies.

Randi has been actively involved in the direct hire staffing business for many years, as a second generation recruiter.

The online world has allowed Randi to mine sites such as LinkedIn and Monster.com to get introduced to people who she might not have previously encountered, while simultaneously gaining insights into companies who she can help find candidates. As a relationship business, using all of these tools helps maintain contact with people and growing the extended network.

Randi stills sees hiring taking place even in this challenging economy, particularly with people who have interactive marketing experience.  She cautions candidates not to jump at the first offer simply because the need to find is job is so strong …. rather she tries to counsel that candidates should not settle on a salary unless absolutely necessary.

It truly is a collaborative effort among recruiters, candidates, and client companies so that the best placements are made for a win win scenario for everyone.

Randi’s Rules for successfully finding a position:

• Be proactive, work to establish a relationship with the recruiter so they may best represent you.

• No matter the circumstance, always put on a happy face. You can’t complain about the situation that you find yourself in.

• Have a great resume that demonstrates successes in the previous position. It is also vital to have good recommendations who will vouch for your work.

For those of you just entering the work force, Randi cautions about posting things online that may impact your ability to locate a position in the future. It may be cute and funny now, but there are employers who are constantly using Google search to find more information about a candidate than appears on a resume.

If you would like to contact Randi to see if she can help you to locate that new position, she can be reached through her web site at www.recrutingspec.com, via email she is at Randi @ RecrutingSpec (dot) com, or phone 770.392.4255

 

 Sports Fans Get Closer to the Action [23:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (23)

At Fluid Media we have two topics that we love to talk about .. Sports and  Social Media, and as the two start to intertwine we look at a myriad of opportunities for those associated with sports to use the tools of social media to strengthen and expand their community, or in their vernacular, fan base.

Sports organizations have not embraced the features to any great degree yet, but for entities ranging from professional teams to youth organizations there are ways to ensure the participants and fans can be integrated into the efforts.

At this stage there are many more sports bloggers who provide insights into the workings of the teams that they cover, than the actual teams or organizations themselves.  Some of our favorites are JB_Launchingpad,  Coryh64, DodgersBlog, Ducksnorts … even an auto racing blogger on twitter, Brutonnb.

For the younger generation of professional athletes, Cameron postulates that by developing and nourishing a group of followers, the athlete will gain an advantage in terms of landing lucrative endorsement contracts. Nascar auto racing is a perfect example of how the fan and player already interact and allegiances are formed, but now with social media tools the drivers who connect at a more personal level will have a long term benefit for their team and their own success.  For example, Joey Logano is a rookie Cup Driver who we have had some connection with in the past, we could see him participating directly in social media, providing insights into the inner workings of the race team, communicating directly with the fans and growing a more engaged community in order to reach the pinnacle of the racing elite.  In this sport in particular, success can be measured by how well you race and how well you develop a fan following.

As an early tactic for building these greater communities, sports organizations could provide a more in depth look at the action on the field through the eyes of the participants.  Why not have an after the game breakdown by an “insider” with details and analysis on a forum, blog or a live chat session with Q&A.  In order for it to be truly unique transparent dialogue that is the hallmark of social media, it can’t be a marketing or broadcast person assigned to interpret the situations. It must be an participant’s point of view that will gain a loyal following.

For the amateur sports or organizations such as the Cape Cod Baseball League, social media can lend itself to assisting in fund raising, maintaining top of mind awareness during the off seasons, and generating excitement for the players who will be participating on that team during the upcoming season.

This is a topic that we will focus in on with much more specificity detailing specific sports and levels of organization.

But in the spirit of the holidays, here’s to hoping that all of the listeners to the Overflow podcast have a very special season.  We truly appreciate all of you tuning in while we work through this new media, and wish you significant success in 2009!

 

 Selling Amway to Your Family [22:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (46)

The Social Media Club Atlanta hosted it’s most recent gathering at Manuel’s Tavern in the Highlands neighborhood. The event really solidified for Cameron and I that there is a burgeoning social media marketing scene in Atlanta.

We met some really cool people here locally who are also going through the process of establishing their networks and providing their expertise to either clients or employers.  It would be great to help us post-meeting to see info about who attended, and who we might want to connect with on Twitter and other social platforms.

Acting in our previous businesses, we haven’t attended many of these types of events because they turn out to be groups of people trying to impress one another by name dropping clients and proclaiming expertise through buzzword hyperbole.  There was some of that going on Thursday night, but actually the social media space appears to be different (at least for the time being). I think there was an attempt by many to truly get beyond the “buzzword bingo” and more after helping to develop the group expertise.

The stated topic of conversation was social media in retailing …

There are some customer service aspects to SM in retail of course that could be explored in depth:

• listening tools in order to hear the online conversations
• ways to be responsive to what customers are stating
• sharing relevant information about policies and pricing structures
• product support
• understanding customers expectations

…….. but it turned mostly to a discussion about Spam & Twitter.

One attendee brought up a project that he is working on, where during the checkout process you can tweet to your friends about the purchase and get an incentive discount. This generated a lot of discussion. His concern comes about because he has recognized an ethical dilemma in his technology. Although he can accomplish it, does he, and does the entire community want that capability to be an option during a transaction? He gets big props for even considering this issue.

In the end, I suspect the technology would end up being misused and potentially ruining the huge benefits derived from a service like Twitter.  When you are directly compensated for sending a tweet, it equates to selling out the network for a price.  You could do it, but it’s too big of a risk of turning off your entire community … It’s like hiding affiliate links in your tweet stream, or “selling Amway to your family”.

Don’t do it, there is no good to come of it. It’s the same backlash towards the Magpie ad network, which also entered into the conversation but actually did have some supporters in the group.

We were very glad to have attended the event and believe that we will be able to benefit greatly as the conversation continues to evolve within the group. We would like to suggest scheduling a followup session that excludes the dominant topic of Twitter, so that we can focus the session on all of the other elements within social media.  We could help each other determine the best practices for using all of the elements of social media in retailing.

The sponsor for the night was a blog aggregator called ReGator .. they were in the top three of Mashables Open Web Awards which should be announced later this week. (Followup note: It looks like Regator lost to Hubdub.com in their category — Congats on making it this far guys, best of luck going forward!)

 

 Living on Social Media Time [22:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (39)

We start out in this week’s Overflow podcast talking about the fact that you get out of Twitter what you put into it. If all you are doing is putting statements out there without engaging in actual conversations then you are missing the entire point of Twitter. Twitter is meant to be engaging, allowing you to communicate with other individuals no matter where they are in the world.

Cameron and I were involved in a conversation this past Friday evening with StorySeeker from the land down under. According to his bio: “Generation W - succeeding at not thinking old. Looking to help the ’scared to start’. I speak in the stupid english language” The night turned into a fun conversation about music and politics.

Unfortunately, the night had a negative moment when a user profile with a sexually explicit name started following me.  I got really upset, not that I’m offended by seeing it, more that the entire Twitter experience could be completely undermined as new adopters come on board and are harassed by this type of communication.

Others quickly informed me that the Twitter folks are very active in keeping this type of thing out of the stream and have made concerted efforts to filter this type of spam.  I have to give kudos to the team since this is the first time that it has happened to me, but should this issue become pervasive, the experience of the community will quickly disintegrate.

Cameron’s concern is also about auto reply message spam when picking up new followers.  When the first impression of someone is a “thanks for following, now here is my link”, the pact between individuals is tainted in this social community.  Blatant, pervasive selling is not the point of social media, the point is to engage in real human dialogue and if it also leads to connections and networking, fantastic.  If selling is the first thing out of the gate, then you are the proverbial insurance salesman at the dinner party, hawking your business.

Amber Naslud (AmberCadabra) at AltitudeBranding.com did a great post about this topic, called Thanks For Following, Now Click On My Junk. She has taken it to a whole level of “rebeling against craptastic links”  with a Click My Junk meme, plus apparel at Cafepress. In true community fashion, $1 of each item is given to Autism Research.

We also need to address a fine line regarding maintenance of social networks, while balancing a healthy home life.  In the consultant role we need to be able to effectively recommend the best approaches for our clients, so are therefore burdened to adopt early and participate often. However, wives and children aren’t communicating with us via these tools … so we need to unplug and be available to them.

In our business roles we need to prioritize the most appropriate places for clients to see ROI, and to be in a position to respond when their customer base arrives on the scene. We want our clients to give their customers a great greeting when they arrive.  It is a given that in order to understand a community, you must participate fully in the community.

One final question for social media marketers.  Is it part of the job description to “ghost write” or communicate on behalf of a client in the social media space (with the caveat that you are not representing yourself as that person), but are spoon feeding words to the client and pointing out where to speak?

Let us know in the comments what you think.

 

 Faux Pas Recovery [21:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (37)

Our special edition Overflow Podcast called In the Red Zone with Frank Singleton, addresses the storm that appeared this week after an online entrepreneur named Matt Bacak distributed a press release proclaiming his “elite status” among the twitterverse.

Our concern is not whether his claims are right or wrong, whether his business claims are accurate etc… Our concern comes from the point of view of a Crisis Communications standpoint. How should he respond now that he has reputation has been challenged and negative criticisms have appeared in numerous blog posts? How will he repair the situation now that any new client will come across this fire that flamed up online?

Frank makes the distinction between reputation management and character management. Reputation management is what you “hope” people believe about you and character management is what you “are” … Matt is going to have to deal with repairing the character element.  By being somewhat contrite and stating the case that he took his action without understanding the full ramifications .. and letting it die down, he can then get to work on building back his reputation.

In the end, he wants to be relevant, so he needs to start acquiring testimonials identifying specific claims as accurate. Although there will be positive and negative response to these claims due to his reputation situation at the moment, Frank coins the term O+ Communications as what he is striving for .. more positive than negative responses.

As Frank says, “A good apology can keep you in the White House, ask Bill Clinton”

Most importantly, Matt should start to develop a dialogue, getting feedback by personally asking for advice from other online sources. This will turn the one way communications of a PR Web blast and a simple apology into the basis of Social Media communications which contains two-way input.

In the end he shouldn’t pout about the situation, just take solid efforts to engage the online community to help him eliminate his mistakes in the future.