Month: March 2012

Recruitment Online: Metrics vs Results

Posted on by 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
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Facebook Timeline Revolution: To Choose or No?

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

Chances are, you’ve seen it already: The Facebook Timeline, a radical departure from the traditional social media giant’s GUI and a re-imagining of the way user events and happenings are portrayed. Stated simply, the Facebook Timeline looks to display user information in a more editorial, time-based manner, with more of an emphasis on blocks of data rather than lines of text. It’s a move not unsimilar to smart phones and the blockish, scroll-heavy way they display information.

But that’s all beside the point. Here’s the deal: whether you like it or not, Facebook is switching all users and business pages over to Facebook Timeline on March 30th. No more “classic”, no matter how much you may have enjoyed it.

This presents a problem. While it may be a superior interface (or not!), making the switch mandatory takes away the illusion of choice that many social media outlets present as their backbone. It’s also an obvious maneuver to directly compete against Google+’s format—a move that’s proving to be, perhaps, not all that necessary.

How big will the ripples of the changeover to on March 30th? And how do you feel about the new interface? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time,
Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com

Twitterverse Review: Connecting and Networking

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

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

Socialize Your Public Relations

Posted on by Buyer Advertising

Influencing public opinion is oftentimes the lifeblood of small-, mid-, and large-sized businesses. And there’s no medium where this fact becomes more sharply crucial than media relations. What many public relations departments are learning is that social media, mobile applications, and “gamification” of a company’s more traditional assets can offer huge boosts to PR success. Here are a few emerging spaces for your public relations content to live—and how best to engage.

Pinterest – As one of the fastest-growing websites/platforms in history, Pinterest has assembled hundreds of thousands of fans, followers, and “pinners”. It’s a great time to engage these ready-made consumers of media by re-pinning messages and developing your own place on this gigantic virtual pin board.

Youtube – This media mogul has stumped many PR professionals for years. The trick to getting noticed is NOT to use your company’s video presence as a marketing platform, but rather to tell the human story behind your business. Evoke drama, get personal, and stay funny.

Twitter – The key to success in the Twitterverse: have an opinion. With scant few characters to punctuate your point, it’s up to you to figure out a way to connect with industry issues people really care about. Be specific and chatty—a high frequency of posts will keep you relevant.

Good luck!
Buyer Advertising
www.buyerads.com