Mobile marketing is huge. In fact, if you’ve picked up a cell phone in the last 24 hours, then you’re a potential segment to be tapped. Studies such as a survey by M-Metrics suggest that SMS response rates are in excess of 15%. That means when customers are texting, if clients are talking, there’s an opportunity to gain new business.

Unlike traditional mediums, the most important thing to remember about mobile marketing is this: it’s not a single market channel. There’s a whole micro-universe of utilities and mediums tied in with the mobile world. Here are a few methods to plug into this opportunity-to-be.

Apps. Once only a niche market for Tetris-heads to get their fix, gaming on mobile communication devices has gone mainstream. With the advent of the iPhone, and now the hot-off-the-shelves iPad, the casual consumer has opened up to mobile gaming. Advertising opportunities within these markets include specialty games themed off a company itself (Pizza Hut’s “Pizza Builder”), or advertisements placed cleverly within the virtual world (games like MapleStory and derivatives).

SMS. The goal here is to gain customers by sending out a bulk text messages to consumers. The challenge, of course, is advertising responsibly. The best way to achieve a nice response rate is messaging only to customers who express an interest in your organization, or who indicate a wish to be alerted with job openings, contests, or any special promotions you offer.

Youtube. Whether you’ve developed a catchy commercial or something bizarre enough to spread like wildfire, a mobile medium could work wonders. Thanks to generous storage capacities on new mobile phone devices, videos can be sent and stored entirely on individual devices—meaning there’s plenty of room to spread the next big viral wonder.

Once upon a time, job hunting was pretty straightforward: agencies and newspapers did the heavy lifting. Even the advent of the Internet kept things pretty much in line with one-stop-job sites such as Monster.com. But these times, they’re a-changin’.

What seemed like the pinnacle of online recruitment is transforming now that 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

Have you gone mobile yet? It’s a face: 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!

Signing off for now,
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It’s a fact: job fairs remain a great way to connect a community with an employer, and get to know perspectives hires before they even sit down to an interview. But when promoting a job fair, many organizations overlook the importance — and utility — of social media. Using the built-in utility of the new timeline-optimized Facebook, you can create and promote event happenings in a quick, easy, and very visible way.

– Choose a job fair venue that is close to where the majority of your Facebook fans reside. Consider integrating a Tweetup, holding a seminar, or hosting a hiring event for your business that would tie marketing in to your job fair event.

– In order to promote an job fairyou must first have a business Facebook page. A personal account won’t cut it—you need to have a central portal your attendees can “fan” as part of your registration process.

– Send out invitations. Decide if you want your job fair to be invitation only, where the only people who can accept and view details are ones you have sent to, or open to all.

Job faires are a great way to show that your Facebook page isn’t just for looks — things are happening, and that keeps your brand foremost in the minds of your fans.

Until next time,

Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

HR is changing, and along with streamlining comes bold new changes for the future. Here are some changes that HR departments are already implementing, and how improvements make their way throughout their organization.

– Greenifying: HR staff are being called to take an active role in reducing the company carbon footprint—that means finding new ways to eliminate paper in favor of electronic storage, initiating recycling drives, and sponsoring employee riding-sharing programs.

– Humanizing strategies with perks such as daycare, flex time, and work-at-home opportunities, and a looser attendance policy.

– Cutting the fat—as budgets continue to tighten, HR personnel are called upon to be the gatekeepers of effective programs, and to help eliminate what doesn’t work.

– Succession planning: more than cross-training, there’s a growing demand for battle-preparedness in the likelihood of staff turnover.
Until next time,

Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

As the economy turns and the once vast pools of hires start to dry, it’s now more important than ever to keep your top talent happy. Maintaining the best hires that your recruitment strategy has drawn in is a solid strategy for maintaining productivity and future-proofing the success of your organization. So, how do you make it hapen?

Consider allowing more personal expression into the workplace. Although an admitted time sink, companies are experimenting with opening up sites like Facebook and Twitter—often for business, networking related purposes. Companies are also providing time for music and exercise, finding that the resources they’re expending catering to high-performing employees is more than worth the investment.

Above all, remember that a plethora of available talent doesn’t necessarily translate into increased productivity, and ultimately higher revenue for your business. Taking the time to plan a thoughtful, fun, creative, rewarding workplace is a great strategy for truly utilizing emerging graduates with a lot to offer your organization.

Signing off for now,
Buyer Advertising

Advertising online remains the heir apparent to the future of marketing, and what once was cloudy, is starting to clear. Companies such as Google have vastly increased their metric capabilities, providing companies shelling out advertising some much-needed information. However, when you’re advertising as part of your recruitment strategies, there are other important considerations.

The most important thing to remember is that an online hiring campaign isn’t strictly a game of numbers. You’ve furthering your employer brand. You’re increasing engagement. You’re disseminating information about your place of business. To evaluate effectiveness, you need to look at traditional online metrics including page views, landing page visits (if you’ve set up your system that way), and fan/follower counts. Actual conversions or hires remains a solid method to determine whether your campaign is working or not.

New, Web 2.0-savvy ways of tracking your hiring efforts include counting the frequency of re-tweets and searching out mentions of your campaign in other “new media” sources such as blogs and on personal posts. Using traditional and emerging metrics, evaluating your campaign makes a shift from quantitative to qualitative, but is still a very real and obtainable goal.

Signing off for now,

Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

Big companies don’t necessarily translate into big social media followings. Sometimes, it seems like the best-laid plan result in a few followers on Twitter–and that’s if you’re lucky! As you tweet your little business heart out, here are four effective tactics to employ to rein in friends, followers, re-tweeters, and everything in between.

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Make it diverse. By changing up the tone and subject matter of your posts, you’re proving that there’s an actual human behind your machines. That’s a good thing.

Keep it to 170 characters. No, really. Short-linking makes it very easy to gush about your latest product or service, but people read Twitter because they like brevity. Give the people what they want.

Re-tweeting isn’t cheating. While your Twitter account shouldn’t be a directory of other people’s offerings, don’t be afraid to re-tweet the latest buzz from another source.

Be interesting. Seems easy, but the art of pushing out interesting content for users to consume is, well, an art. Some companies never get it right. The ones that do enjoy more online sales and better candidate pools.

Until next time,

Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com