Social Media Headhunter

Social Media Forecast: Facebook Skills Finally Will Be In Demand

I've not been a big fan of Facebook for marketing.  Facebook is a difficult beast with low clickthroughs and far more potential than ROI for the majority of marketers, and so when I'm looking for a social media expert, Facebook is about having a profile, not necessarily driving results.  Sure we've seen results, but they've tended to be as a traffic driver for traditional websites.  Lots of folks spend time on Facebook, and thus its natural you have a presence there.  Do some conversion pages - create some groups, and that's about it, unless you have the time and money for apps and contests.

Well, no more. 

Based on my own traffic stats for blogs that range from politics to marketing to fashion to small business, I see Facebook becoming an ever-increasing important aspect of a social media marketing campaign.

This article on Hitwise's estimate of Perez Hilton's traffic was the first clue.  Google typically will deliver 80% of your non Rss traffic if you optimize well, and the revelation that Facebook can outpush traffic is no small one.  You may say that Perez is a gossip, and the only people who want to read gossip are heading there from Facebook, but that's exactly the point.  Facebook is built to keep people in.  When click traffic goes outside Facebook, it's highly targeted.  Those wanting to read gossip go to Perez Hilton.  Those wanting to say, get a job, or buy a product, or watch a video, or learn about a service are also going to self-selecting to be interested.  And they'll be coming from referrals.  Currently, if you have the viral chops, you can drive traffic using your update feeds and getting people interested in joining, writing, and posting content to your pages and groups and updates.  If you have a big network, that can lead to a lot of traffic, but it's entirely based on your network (and their network).  That's some hard slogging, and tends to only work haphazardly.

But now, there's the Facebook search beta, which is rumored to be like Twitter search.  If it's executed properly, which is to say if it actually dredges up content, it could be a tremendous boost for traffic for those outside Facebook.

All of a sudden, those not in your network can find you.  Furniture designers, car enthusiasts, political causes, and job seekers can now search by brand through updates, instead of profiles.  That's huge.  It's a microcosm of what Google and Twitter do, and with the sheer traffic of Facebook, it guarantees some very hot, targeted opportunities for marketers.

I don't see a lot of people getting involved in this.  They're making a huge mistake. This is big.  Much bigger than BING, which is sending me traffic, but not nearly as much as Facebook is.  If I can almost double traffic to every site simply by improving my content to my network, imagine what you can do with a targeted marketing campaign.

It's big.  Gird your loins, and figure out how to build community on Facebook.  6 months from now, the winners will be those with networks in place.

Facebook For Recruiters: Updated Live Webinar

Kennedy Information is having me host a live Facebook recruiting webinar this Thursday at 12:00 CST.  Those who know me and have been through my training before know this is something to add to your schedule - we cover strategy, sourcing, marketing, branding and integration unlike any other trainer out there.

My background in social media and the fact that I run a desk makes a difference in my training.  I'm you.

So check it out, sign up, and join us for the new, new Facebook training

Facebook is the hottest social network out there, with user demographics spanning generations and regions. It’s a gold mine for recruiters; but for different reasons than you might think.

For recruiters, the real value of Facebook is in its messaging and referral capabilities. This time-saving interactive seminar will highlight the different ways to use Facebook to communicate with and hire top candidates.

Join us on June 25th and find out about:

• Real-world strategies for setting realistic expectations with candidates
• Tactics that leverage your current talent pool to help you find, and connect with, new prospects
• Effective communication approaches that yield higher response rates to initial contact
• Powerful marketing and branding techniques to attract top candidates and support your employment brand
• An overview for managers as to when using Facebook is appropriate for employees

Can’t make June 25th? Register now to receive access to the full recorded event following its conclusion and listen to it at your leisure from anywhere with web access!

A Great Value Set up the interactive seminar in a conference room and pay one low fee for as many attendees as you wish.

Registration includes the link to the online event; a PowerPoint presentation a 15-minute Q&A session; and email access to the speaker before, during and after the event.

Find Me A Pediatric Nurse In Dallas? Get Your Stopwatch.

I'm reading through RecruitingBlogs, and yet another uninformed yahoo says social media is worthless for recruiters.  In this case, David Ryan writes

If I need to find a pediatric nurse in Dallas, social media cannot do this. Facebook, titter etc....totally useless. I cannot understamd how is is that there is so much koolaid going around. No hiring manager or recruiter is going troll facebook or twitter looking for a pediatric nurse in Dallas. So silly.

David - try  a basic search string like site:twitter.com "pediatric nurse" + "dallas"

http://twitter.com/susantpreston - pediatric nurse
http://twitter.com/NINTINK - pediatric nurse

How about a pediatric trauma specialist?

http://twitter.com/smedic185

You now have three names to check in with, follow, monitor, look for referrals (for those who don't put pediatric nurse in their profile, or may live in a suburb of Dallas).  If you want to get fancy, you can use more advanced boolean terms and bring up names and companies and compare those to your database or find contact info.  Other recruiters are doing this.

Look, a recruiter of pediatric nurses! - http://twitter.com/NurseJobSearch

You could also check MySpace, where people list their profiles and oh by the way is heavy with health care practitioners.   Got a Stopwatch? 

http://www.myspace.com/nurseypoo5

There's one!   Took .33 seconds. 

Look folks - if you don't know how to use social media to source names - the fault is entirely your own. That you can't find people doesn't mean we can't.  It is a sourcing and messaging tool for recruiters, and the best ones are learning.

Insert Blatant Product Pitch for Twitter Recruiting and MySpace recruiting ..ed)

It took me longer to write this than it did to find those names.  Imagine what I could do with the hour you spent trolling through the job boards.

World's Strongest Baby Training

Here our lovely daughter practices for ESPN 7's new reality series, World's Strongest Baby contest.  We hope the winnings and the promotional tour with Pediasure will pay for our retirement.

Do Social Media Hires Equal A Job Market Upswing?

Jeremiah (@jowyang) tweets that social media hires are up - and wonders if the economy is picking up.  His regular posts showcasing who is promoted and hired are a boon to the industry, and he's been kind enough to include me on that list. 

Incoming calls and interest from the client side has certainly increased, but the types of positions have a heavy sales focus as of late.  Most calls from from executives who have not been successful finding what they wanted, and are looking for expertise (it helps that I do what they are looking for).

When I first started SocialMediaHeadhunter.com and branded myself as the SMHeadhunter, I wondered about the size of the market.  There's niche recruiting, and then there's tiny crack recruiting - and with social media being, well, social, there's the danger that everyone I would place has a significant presence online. A company can find my candidates easily, so why would they hire me?

The answer is noise.  It's not easy hiring the right person for any job, and even if you know the industry well, we all have significant blindspots.  Even bloggers who have done this going on 10 years don't realize just how big this universe is, and the old adage that you only know who you know is more true now than ever.

In my own town of St Louis, large groups of online folks from Twitter to blogs to Facebook don't realize they're a small subset of a larger group.  There are hundreds of millions of folks online - and understanding how to map out a community and contact the right people is a skillset few have.

So yes, business is on an upswing, but It's hard to draw conclusions to the general economy.  Recruiting is actually harder in a down economy, so we're a poor marker.  And the assumption that social media is a luxury probably contributes to the idea that more social media means a better economy.  It's far more likely that social media hires are a recognition that this tool can cut costs, but only if you have a full-time person.

Steve Weiss On iPhone Applications

Steve Weiss of Grindvision gives me some background on how to build, sell, and market iPhone applications.  Steve is a small business social media consultant with a background in SEO, branding, development, and social media.

He's an online video marketing expert, and has actually sold quite a few applications for the iPhone. He also works on Facebook and MySpace applications

One thing to note - rumor is the new iPhone is going to be a different store than the old one. New applications will run differently, and developers have to decide which version to code in.