Recruitment for Jobs through Social Media

Social Media has gained in popularity in leaps and bounds. Whats fascinating, that today beyond the social networking, professional networking is also increasing in popularity, which has led to the recruitment efforts of HRs through Social Media. In fact, there are openings for people who enjoy indulging in Social Media, like brand managers, community managers, social media strategists, content creators.In fact, due to the importance of Social Media, there have been conferences (e.g. Social Media in Recruitment) which explores the various dimension of this emergent phenomenon.

While the importance of Linked In has been recognized for a long time for recruitment of new talent in the mid-senior levels, very few recruiters would like to admit that they check the Facebook profiles of the potential candidates. A person’s social interaction not only is an indication of his emotional quotient and with whom he can connect through his social networks, it eventually links up to his professional quotient. Business Schools like Harvard, Yale or other premium schools have networks which can help to identify a member uniquely from these institutions. Thus the potential for actually evaluating the claims of candidature and their association with with niche institutions increases manifold, and hence correctness of professional membership is stamped in the social profile.

Not only for checking a candidates professional aptitude, but also to evaluate a candidature’s fit for a particular profile, a professional Social Media profile is of paramount importance. Its often that recruiters check Linked In for suitable candidates for niche roles. Hence a profile with details which can provide greater insight to the recruiters, can actually create a one-off linkage for the perfect skill specific job with a right candidate.

So why is social media increasing in importance in the recruitment scenario? Actually it has to be recognized that the job portals offer paid services to the recruiters while the social media is free for the basic users. Also the job portals are region specific, social media is more global by its very definition. Job portals target only the active job seekers whereas social media potentially has access to both active and passive job seekers. Hence one may just become inquisitive on seeing an advertisement of an opening which may have a high fit with the candidate, although the latter might not be actively searching for openings at the time.Thus the potential reach to the perfect candidates increases manifold, even if the latter are not actively searching for opportunities.

Also, one can observe social interactions of a potential candidate on social media unlike in job portals. However, social media is difficult to use for the recruitment purpose while job portals are highly user friendly and easy to use, being more targeted for the purpose.  But if offers one benefit that cannot be obtained from job portals. The candidates cannot re-organize their profile for a particular opening, since most have a time stamp, which offers ingenuity to profiles with a truthful mapping of candidature with the openings, although the potential information for evaluation may be low.

So what do you think about the importance of social media and professional recruitment? Do let us know your thoughts on this topic.

Top Social Media Marketing Channels

In an independent survey conducted by Business Fundas, the top channels as perceived by social media marketers were identified and ranked. For this study, the over 20,000+ twitter followers (and also other social media marketers on twitter) were presented with a questionnaire for understanding the perceived importance of the various media for these marketing experts with a conversion of 1034 respondents for the study. Based on the results, the following results were obtained:

The top social media marketing channel based on our survey results was search engine. It performed extremely well as a channel to improve brand or service or product awareness, as well as a channel to improve conversion rates from potential leads to actual customer engagement.

The results for the best channel for creation of awareness for the service or products are as displayed in the graph below:

As these results indicate, some of the more popular and initially perceived important social media channels like Twitter, Digg, Reditt, Stumbleupon received lesser votes in confidence when it came to actual performance in terms of a channel to increase service or product or brand awareness.

Similarly, the top social media resources to convert potential customers to buyers are as follows:

As is evident from the results of the graph, the top resource, as perceived by the social media marketers in both cases are search engines. This was closely followed by Facebook and Youtube. However, some of the more popular and initially perceived important social media channels like Twitter, Digg, Reditt, Stumbleupon received lesser votes in confidence when it came to actual performance. Maybe since these are perceived as more of a media for capturing interesting sources of stories and / or multimedia, they are losing their importance as channels of social media marketing.

Do let us know what are your feedback about the social media marketing channels. How do YOU draw traffic to your blog? Is that a sustainable source of traffic or does that depend on daily marketing efforts and link exchanges amongst colleagues to promote your content? Do let us know.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

In an independent survey conducted by Business Fundas, where we sent a questionnaire to our 20,000+ strong twitter followers consisting mainly of social media marketers, we tried to find the perceived benefits of social media marketing. The responses of the questionnaire were analyzed for understanding the perceived benefits of social media marketing and the responses of the same are demonstrated in the diagram below.

The survey was administered through not only our twitter followers but also to numerous followers and subscribers of our mailing list and finally 534 responses were collected on our questionnaire, all of who are marketing experts on social media websites and have their own online marketing venture.

The responses clearly portray the perceived benefits of social media marketing campaigns by the marketers.

From our personal analysis, it appears that today, social media marketing can become even more fruitful to reach out markets for small businesses targeting social consumers and probably investments on marketing through social networks like Facebook are more likely to generate better results. Also targeted advertisements in search engine (since that is where most consumers first turn to for information query) are also more likely to impact sales conversion figures.

However, bigger firms are more likely to benefit from greater brand awareness, greater brand recall and greater brand association from investments in social media marketing. So purely from a Branding Exercise,  social media marketing makes sense to larger consumer focused service providers or product marketers.

By the way, did you read our article on how to attain success in Social Media Viral Marketing?

You CAN Judge A Facebooker By Their Profile Picture

You’ve heard the saying “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover”, but the truth is you really CAN. If I see a book with the title “Ravenous Love Affair” with a picture of a Fabio lookalike feeding strawberries to a desperate housewife, I know that’s not the book for me. I have no interest in romance novels so I don’t even need to pick it up. Although I might be pleasantly surprised by the superb writing and nail biting story line, I will never know because I wont touch it.

This same type of prejudgment occurs when confirming my Facebook friends. A picture is worth a thousand words. You may be unaware of this fact, but your profile picture speaks to your friends and gives them an insight into who you are. Below you will find a list of profile pics that persuade me to ignore, block and delete Facebook friends.

No Profile Picture

No photo or as I like to call it, the white Facebook shadow should always be avoided. It was brought to my attention that several individuals with no photo and limited profile information are actually hackers and spread computer viruses. No profile photo is a potential threat to my computer. I prefer to add those who have photos of their children, favorite books, movies, animals, etc. rather than no photo at all.

The Fake Profile Picture

I really don’t like it when people have pictures of other people as their profile picture. I’m not talking about photos of celebrities. Some people take photos of other people and try to pass them off as themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve see profiles with the same photo or stumbled upon these generic pictures in google images. This type of behavior is deceitful. If I can’t trust you to be honest about who you are…I can’t trust anything you say.

Inappropriate Profile Pictures

This is pretty self explanatory, but everyone has a different opinion about the boundaries of inappropriateness. Half naked photos and images of you passed out with a bottle of Tequila in your hands isn’t professional. If you use Facebook to promote your business and network with other professionals, you should consider creating a separate page if yours is a little to racy for the business world.

In the end, I like to see who I’m talking to. It’s hard enough to form a connection with someone you’ve never met. A poor profile picture or lack there of will only widen the disconnect. Select your profile pictures wisely and let your friends see who you really are =)

10 Success Mantras for Viral Marketing using Social Media

By definition, social media marketing describes the use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing. In recent times, this has been used extensively to market content (blog) and products, even those with B2B utility. Commonly this had been achieved using social media like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Digg, Stumbleupon, Flicker, Reditt, Twitter, Delicious and lots of other upcoming new sites like Yahoo Buzz, Mixx, Fark, Shoutwire, eBaumsworld and others (e.g SWOM, the latest kid on the block). So how does one use the power of social network to market one’s  content or product? Following these few steps may ensure success of your marketing efforts.

1. Don’t launch your product first. Spend time to understand the dynamics of the social network which you want to use before using it. The dynamics of Digg are very different from Stumbleupon. So the same strategy won’t work in all places.
2. Create a network on that media before using the same. Always introduce yourself to your network. This creates a long term benefit. Also collaborators are crucial for your success. Identification of these collaborators are extremely important before you launch your product.
3. Decide your media based on the product which you want to sell. Not all kinds of content/products are suitable for all the social media. Research has indicated that multimedia content is more preferred in sites like Stumbleupon, Facebook and MySpace, while information (textual) is more preferred in sites like Digg and Reditt. Flicker for instance is only suitable for photos.
4. Interact regularly with your customer segments. Degree of personalization will impact the success of your marketing efforts. A humanitarian approach always speaks volumes and increases trust of the consumers. A relationship is beneficial in the long run, as then he will promote your product (promotion without investment and may start a chain of promotion)
5. A unique strategy is always crucial for your success. Remember, everyone is using the same tools which you are using. How can you make a difference when you are doing the same thing which others are doing? Decide on a long term goal before focusing on the short term implementation necessities.
6. Ensure that the fans of your product can promote a message themselves to their social network in multiple online social media venues using WEB 2.0. These buttons must be highly visible to actually prompt them to do it, and the process must be very easy.
7. Never SPAM! Your customers can always see what you are promoting in your group/fan page. A no reaction from them may mean they are not interested in this particular offering. Overdoing may irritate them enough to leave your network altogether.
8. Remember “Viral marketing” based around “online conversations“. Social media marketing cannot be controlled by you. But try to encourage user participation and dialogue so that the chain can start. A badly designed social media marketing campaign can potentially backfire on you.
9. Respect your partners and customers. Always remember they may be seeing through your intentions, even if they may not express that clearly, if you are trying to tweak around. Trust is crucial for your success.
10. You must learn to collaborate with others and be transparent about it with your partners. Always be clear about the benefits the relationship will have on both. Both are here for a professional reason only. Be sure both the collaborators are clear about that, to ensure a long term relationship.

Following these simple steps may do wonders for your social media campaign. Let me know how you fare.

A Guide To Using Facebook Gifts

Remember E-cards? I used to love sending E-cards to my friends and family members during the holidays and for special occasions. It was a fast, free and efficient way to get in touch with them and share my love without having to worry about postage and writing dozens of individual letters.

Facebook gifts should be used for the same purposes as E-cards. They are to remind your friends that you are thinking of them and wish them well on specific occasions. Unfortunately, several Facebook users are abusing this feature and destroying the value and the sentiment of gifts.

If you send Facebook gifts dozens of times per week and leave the generic “I got it just for you” message, you diminish the sentiment of gift giving. Essentially, you are just spamming the walls of your Facebook friends.

I understand that as online marketers it’s hard to keep in close contact with the hundreds and thousands of connections we’ve made via social media outlets. Facebook gifts are actually a great way to drop your friends a message and let them all know you are still around and keep them thinking of you. However, if you abuse this feature, you’re friends will think of you in a negative way.



Here are a few things to consider when sending Facebook messages:

1. Facebook gifts are good in moderation

Sending too many will only aggravate and annoy your friends. What’s too many? Honestly, I think that anything more than once a week should be considered excessive. I know I don’t have an anniversary, birthday, holiday or special event every week. Sending blessings and prayers are thoughtful, but how thoughtful are they without a personal message?

2. Personalization = Value

Personalize the message in the Facebook gifts. Don’t just say “I hope you like it”. Make your messages genuine and your friends will appreciate the fact that you aren’t sending generic messages.

3. Send relevant gifts

Don’t send a Christmas gift in July. I’ve seen this happen and again, it diminishes the value.

What’s your opinion on Facebook gifts? Leave some feedback below and let me know what you think….

5 Secrets on How to create a winning PPC Strategy

For all the online marketers, Pay Per Click (PPC) can be a really powerful strategy for online marketing, but if you don’t know what you are doing then PPC can drain your money in a day. PPC is one of internet advertising methods on websites that has created quite a stir. For example, Google, Yahoo, Bing, even Facebook, they all have PPC program, using which businessmen can advertise their products or websites, but the cost can be huge depending on how many clicks were clicked on your posted ads. Here are some tips for PPC program that will help you lower your cost for advertising and increase your sales or visits.

1. Facebook PPC : Facebook PPC program will be the best to start with for your business. Why? Facebook ad is actually cheaper than other sites like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Also, it can target ad details to another different level. It’s really easy to use and the result will be faster than others.
2. Do Your Homework : You will need to do your homework before you get a good grade in class, right? That means do your research on popular keywords before you actually put them in your ad. There are so much different ways you can do. For me, by using Google Adword, Alexa, and Quantcast are the best ways to find out the popular keyword.
3. Capture Page : For most online marketers, the Capture page is the most important page. The Capture page is a webpage that allow people to put in information of themselves and provides several lines to insert contact information. Why do I need to have their contact information? Because 97 percents of visitors that view your site will not come back again. But by creating a capture page, they will leave you information such as email or phone number that you can contact them with. This will increase the visit rate. PPC charge money whenever people click on your ad, so in order to make sure you are fully using PPC, create a capture page for your visitor.
4. Details of Your Ad : How convince people to choose your ad over your competitor’s ad? It’s very easy! You need to make your ad different from the others. What I mean by different is give more details of your product’s effect and how to use them. You are not promoting your product, but you are promoting your knowledge of this product. By promoting your knowledge, this will give viewers the sense of trust and they will look further into your product.
5. Budget Range : Lastly, if you want to start PPC marketing, you should be prepared to spend around $1,500 to $2,000 for a good start. How come the budget is so high? For the first two months of PPC marketing, result will not come out as good as everyone wish. That’s because you will need to start picking up your leads and momentum for all the promotion you are doing. It’s like a snowball rolling down the hill. As it picks up speed, it becomes bigger and bigger. That’s the budget you might spend to start PPC, if you know what you doing.

These are great tips for a successful PPC marketing online. I will tell you one thing: learn as much as you possibly can before you start any marketing. That’s because the more you learn, the faster results you will receive. PPC is a great way to earn income faster, but if you don’t understanding the process it is the fastest way to lose all your money.

10 shortcuts for success in affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing appears to be the buzz-word of the day. With the increasing trends in internet usage and penetration, affiliate marketing appears well poised to make a kill. But many marketeers fall prey by not being able to create that network which will generate the revenue. So the burning question is how to successfully transfer a flickering effort to a burning one.

• Always have your own domain while developing your website to sell your product. A domain can be purchased for even less than a dollar now days.
• Always add pictorial details of your product in your page. A picture speaks so much more without taxing your target audience to go through hundreds of words.
• A video helps. Who would not prefer a video telling you every thing that you need to know, without reading the intricacies of the details.
• Create your own social network comprising of your target customers. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Youtube and Flicker is the need of the day. Without these social media tools, your campaign can never be a success. Remember: A social network is a must have these days.
• Create your brand name and logo. Ensure it is in each page of your website. Your customers are less likely to know you today. A brand lowers product purchase dissonance from not knowing the seller.
• Do not always try to post links on social media. Ensure you also post things which would interest your network.
• Try to generate trust amongst your customers. If you need a system that requires online payments, ensure international standards are met with. Having a Paypal account to receve payments will help.
• Personal interraction with your users will always help. It helps to generate confidence.
• Targeting is a must. Remember, it will pay you more to have 100 faithful customers following you from a network of 1000, rather than 20 following you from a network of 10,000.
• Avoid spamming your target customers, or at least try keeping that to a minimum level.

Following these 10 simple steps will create that unique position for you to be successful as a affiliate marketeer. Do let us know if you have any queries or suggestions regarding the same topic.