Author: Buyer Advertising

Mobile Recruiting? There’s an App for That.

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

With smart mobile devices such as the iPhone touting itself as a “gaming machine,” it’s no wonder “apps” have gotten a bad rep. Short for application, these third-party developed software programs live on Droid, iPhones, and BlackBerry devices tucked away inside pockets across the world. But it’s not all fun and games—applications are providing real value. In particular, specialty programs are connecting job seekers with open positions.

Job hunting is an unemployed worker’s game. On-the-go types with current positions looking to further their careers may find themselves with less time to spend on the job hunt. Yet, they remain an important demographic for job recruiters. Mobile applications help HR staff link up with qualified candidates by reaching out through their phones—and on a job seeker’s own schedule.

Such search apps include CareerBuilder’s program and Job Compass, and are already providing value to seekers and recruiters alike. Functionality includes detailed job descriptions with searchable criteria, the ability to view vacancies on a map, and to forward details to a computer for further inspection. As the nation’s workforce migrates away from the desk and becomes increasingly mobile, consider mobile recruiting as an effective, long-term goal for your hiring strategy.

Until next time,
Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

Do Your Online and Offline Brands Get Along?

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As an established company, you recognize the importance of your brand. More than just a marketing tool, your brand has established itself as a platform for potential customers to remember and interact with your staff, learn more about your organization, and infuse real emotion into the services you provide. But when businesses flesh out their online presence, brands all too often make a shift too. And it’s no wonder. With completely separate sets of tools that build out your identity online and offline, it’s easy to get the message confused. Here’s a short checklist to see if your two brands are working in unison—or if they’re duking it out for your customers’ attention.

Graphic treatment. You obviously want your mark to live in offline and online media—don’t forget to include it prominently on your website. In addition, keep your color palette similar so incoming customers can recognize your business from your “IRL” brand.

Voice of your content. Your copy isn’t just a means of disseminating information, it’s your attitude. Is your tone professional yet edgy? Hip and young and full of energy? Keep your voice consistent across all media.

Your message. You have a value proposition, and whether your customers are streaming in from the World Wide Web or you’re reaching them through radio and TV, that doesn’t change. So don’t change what you want to say. Abbreviate your content for the Web, by all means, but stay on target for maximum results.

www.buyeradvertising.com

Entertainment Meets Advertising: A Love Story

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Fusions give rise to terrific innovation and success: just look at peanut M&M’s, cockerpoos, and the smoothie. Today, the latest combination that’s stirring things up in the social media world is mixing games and advertising venues. Mobile media is making it all possible.

MyTown, a game for your iPhone, lets you scan barcodes of stuff you having lying around your house in order to to build up your player score and obtain titles such as “The King of Rum” (for owning the most rum-related paraphernalia, of course). You share your rankings with friends for fame and bragging rights. The marketer’s swing on this, of course, is integrating special offers into the application itself. The guts of the software tracks the amount and types of the items you own, shares that information with participating companies. From there, based off of your own profile, companies craft marketing plans targeted for individual players. Today, 3.1 million users are already scanning to their hearts’ content.

It’s important to keep up with these trends. As younger consumers grow up hard-wired into social media and applications such as these, ignoring new media means opportunity lost. Instead, take stock of what mobile marketing, games, and new applications can do for your business, and play the game to win.

Until next time,

www.buyeradvertising.com

Onboarding Online: Twitter Edition

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Although the buzz on popular news outlets would suggest otherwise, Twitter is still a newcomer to the social media scene. It’s radically different (read: there’s a 140-character limit), so companies and individuals alike are still learning to use it. Today at Buyer Advertising, we’re focusing on one of the ways that Twitter benefit your organization: as a recruitment tool.

To maximize your time effectiveness online, there are some essential elements you should be hitting every time you hop online to post about an open position. Here are some basics to get your started.

Provide a clear call to action. It’s great to promote job openings at your organization, but unless you tell casual Twitter surfers what to do next, they’ll be stymied. Get a link in that describes the open position in more detail while qualifying yourself as a reputable workplace. Don’t forget to include a website link where they can apply online once you’ve piqued their interest.

Fill out your profile completely. 140 characters isn’t much when it comes to qualifying you as the best place to work in town. Although you may get responses, you want responses from exemplary candidates—and that means they need to learn about your company before applying. Fill out your Twitter profile; it’s a good way to make the case for your company without bumping into character limits.

Link to your career site. Often. Always remember: Twitter is a portal service, not a content distribution site. It’s a good idea to have a landing page built specifically for Twitter leads that describes your organization, culture, and career opportunities before getting into the nitty-gritty of job descriptions. Remember your audience, however: keep sections colorful, focused, and brief so Twitter’ers don’t suffer from Web-shock.

Make Way for Mobile Recruitment

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

It’s more than Facebook: the upcoming trend known as mobile recruitment allows both you and employees-to-be access to send and receive information about job openings. Simply stated, mobile recruitment uses mobile phone technology to update a variety of social networks and involve potential recruits in a much more personal way, including the ability to ask and receive answers of their own.

One essential element of mobile recruitment is the job seekers’ ability to learn about your company. Smart phone technology is a must. Oftentimes, mobile job recruiters will advertise open positions, and include a link or a way to access special, mobile-optimized landing sites where they can learn about the position in detail through prose, pictures, and multi-media.

Another role mobile recruitment satisfies is the desire for affordability. Instead of job boards, billboards, and costly—through expansive—campaigns, reaching out and responding using mobile devices is an effective, soft-spoken way to reach results. Through mobile technology, recruiters are already seeing results at a much lower cost-per-hire. Get involved!
Until next time,

www.buyeradvertising.com

Beyond the Job Board

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It was the 20th century, and job boards were all the rage. Sites like www.monster.com sprung into being, linking beleaguered career-seekers with more opportunities than the classified section of their Sunday newspaper could provide. Since then, aggregators and site scrappers have snagged and deposited job listings and descriptions in centralized locations site for complete ease of access.

Of course, times change. What seemed like the pinnacle of online recruitment is changing as employees-to-be spend less time on traditional websites, and more time on social networking webpages.

Facebook remains the go-to source for social networking, and combined with the raw mass of human beings logging in every day, and excellent way to talk about jobs. And that’s the trick with social media: it isn’t simply listing positions your company needs to fill—it’s just as important to start a dialog with people. Friends recommending friends for open positions. Answering questions about your work environment. Sites like Twitter offer quick, popcorn glimpses into your workplace, while LinkedIn perfects the art of connecting people with positions in a way that’s more personal than “click-n-apply”.

The switch to social media is exciting, but it can also be confusing. Sometimes it takes months to plan the right strategy. Agencies like Buyer Advertising help.

www.buyeradvertising.com

Mobile Coupons Are Here

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These days, it seems like everything is going online. Advertising campaigns, genealogy trees, even farming (we’re looking at you, Facebook). And now: coupons. Designed for touch-enabled smartphones like the Droid and iPhone, mobile coupons work work at the app level by displaying a coupon with a specific code that can be either scanned or entered into an online ordering system. And if the coupon out of date or expired? Too bad—it won’t display anymore.

Mobile coupons seem like a cute idea, but they make a lot of sense, too. It brings chronic coupon clippers up to date with new technology, and leads the bargain-savvy into logging on daily for the latest deals—meaning you’ve got an audience just itching to learn about your products. Mobile coupons are green, too. No paper needed.

Of course, there’s a ways to go before you can shelf your zip-lock bag full of Shaw’s coupons. You won’t find many storefronts (especially in mom and pop operations) that are happy to accept a coupon in the form of a picture on your phone. But the technology is both catchy and catching on: two ingredients needed for future growth. Keep an ear to the rails (and your hand on your smartphone).
www.buyerads.com

Tweeting for Jobs

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

It’s a simple task, yes? Simply boot up Twitter, log in with your company account information, and soon you’ll be uploading a 140-character job description for every position you have to fill. Easy! But hold on there. Before you go flooding your followers’ logs with line after line of spam, there’s one important realization you need to make: Twitter isn’t a job board. It’s a social tool.

Most people who log into Twitter aren’t looking for jobs—yes, even with today’s economy—they are human beings looking for recreation or searching for information (or both). To present your company in the best light possible and attract the most qualified candidates, you need to reach out in a human way. One way to approach Twitter is to think about helping other people—not yourself. Instead of focusing on the positions you need to fill, invite questions about your workplace. When commenting your answers, be specific, and answer honestly. Offer insight into your company day.

If there’s a golden rule in the Twitterverse, it’s this: connect. Find your niche, and interact with your followers. For some, reaching people is all about humor (think of the Old Spice guy and his recent campaign of individualized, video responses to questions). To others, connecting is all about opening the door to a play-by-play of their Friday afternoon Foosball match. How you go about it is up to you. Just remember to be kind, gracious, and human.

Your Recruitment Strategy: Play Ball!

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Every time you invest capital into your recruitment efforts, you’re stepping up to the plate. Like the best baseball teams in the nation (as to exactly which ones, we’ll leave that up to debate), you obviously want the most effective players on your side. Not only the top performers, but candidates who would best suit the environment of your offices and your culture. Let’s round the bases with a few coaching tips.

Keep your eye on the ball. Oftentimes, as strategies grow more elaborate, the goal is lost, having given way to packing in as much flash and pizzazz as possible. Even award-winning campaigns are still failures if you’re not attracting the population you want to hire. Gathering attention is great, but don’t forget to plainly state the type of candidate you’re looking for, and what they can exact as your employee.

Cover your bases. An extensive recruitment campaign brings to mind subway posters, giant billboards, and magazine inserts aplenty, but it doesn’t cover where America is spending most of their time: online. Most job seekers, especially young ones, spend more time logged into their personal computer than ever before. Don’t forget to post job opportunities and promote your employer brand on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, through blogs, and on your company site.

Swing as hard as you can. Carry campaigns into other mediums. Have mailers than send recipients to your website, and have mailing sign-ups on your site.  The more candidates you can gather, the smarter, more effective workforce you’re find yourself working beside.

Are You a Good Brand Steward?

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It’s a war of two worlds: the flash, fun, and razzle-dazzle of your brand and its advertisements, versus the reality of workers within the walls of your business. While the big players of a company can plan out a fantastic marketing campaign, oftentimes it takes longer for the employees themselves to catch up with the hype (if they ever do at all). When employee engagement lags behind, opportunities are lost.

There’s the story of a customer who wrote an email to the makers of Axe Body Spray with the single subject line, “HELP!” followed by an energetic, creative appeal. Apparently, this ppor soul had used their product, and just like Axe’s commercials, had been immediately accosted by hordes of lustful women. Instead of rolling her eyes and hitting “delete”, the rep at Axe HQ responded to this gentleman’s message instead played along, offering suggestions over the course of several emails such as where the hunted homme could hide out, and how to scrub off man musk off his body in the most effective way possible. At the end of the parlay, the rep wished the customer well and sent along a gift basket … as well as asking for his phone number. The quick-witted and engaged employee played into Axe’s brand strength—and likely earned themselves a customer for life.

Take the time to build brand appeal not just for customers, but for your employee base themselves. When your brand becomes a vessel for your promotions and lives in the minds of your employees, magic happens.