Social Media Headhunter

Social Media Article Done Right: Anne Deeter Gallaher

It gets tiring and it's more than a little counterproductive to point out bad columns and outrageous statements in our space.  Far be it for me to be a curmudgeon when the truth is I speak to a lot of highly qualified people with clear goals, great experience, and a desire to understand how social helps their companies and their careers. 

So here's a more positive take, based on an article I just read at Crowdshifter. 

Anne Deeter Gallaher delivers specific information  on how to pitch, understand, and ultimately do a better job in social business. Her article, Social Media and the CFO, seeks to explain how "business works," and the ways in which you can educate yourself and improve your selling proposition when in front of a number cruncher.

My two favorite in her list.

4.  Understand operational expenses vs. revenue generation. How can you use social media to generate revenue? If you use social media to sell cars or for customer service, can you follow the conversation into a lead into a relationship into a sale? Can you use social media to connect with a decision maker or learn something valuable about the company (e.g. the CEO tweeted that she was attending a Penn State University football game and you’re an alumna)? If so, then it’s a good investment and worth the resources...

6. Read what they read.

Read the whole thing.  Both for what it can teach you, and as an example of how to write.  When we compare this to the normal column on social, what we see is a clear point of view expressed with specific recommendations on how to create change.  This is a good thing.

One of the harder things to do as a consultant is to give enough information in a column or a speaking opportunity without giving away the farm.  Without a doubt, writing great content is important, but the third time you see some joker steal your material and get paid to rewrite it, you began to rethink your content sharing strategy might be flawed. 

Ms. Galleher's column solves the problem by going ahead and telling you what to do, while recognizing that actually doing it takes a range of experience most consultants lack. Great ideas can't just be stolen, they have to be acted upon with competence. Sure you can suggest that consultants read the magazines their clients read, but who actually does it?  Only the successful ones who plan to stick around.   

This touches on a bigger problem social media faces.  Our lack of the ability to sell as a community leaves us prey to someone else adopting our ideas and claiming our reward.  Before I did the work, I had this problem.  It's originally what led me to stop writing advice.  My solution was to become a solution provider, and not a strategist.  Being a solution provider meant learning how to sell our services, not coming up with ideas that took us 30 minutes to type into a blogpost.

In future weeks, I've got more interviews of practioners in the field on whom I rely to give me the real skinny of social business innovation.  We're going to discuss how they got their jobs, their range of experience, and what it takes to be successful as a social employee.   

 

 

 

 

Five Lies I'm Tired Of Hearing About In Social Media

Mikal Belicove writes a thoroughly banal post at Enterpreneur Magazine on the Five Lies About Social Media Marketing, and after reading through it, I just can't hold my tongue.  The column lists five of the most common complaints about social media, without actually digging into them at all.  And while Mikal applies the "absolutes" argument as cover, no one I've ever read or heard has ever made the claim that these "lies" are absolutes.   

I'll give him kudos for writing a numbered list that plays well on Twitter, but his post deserves a response.  His five lies, with my responses below. 

1) Size matters.

 From the number of connections on linkedin (allowing you to see more full profiles) to comparing conversions against email and PPC, Size can absolutely matter in social media.  It matters as least as much as other channels, like television or email lists or calling lists. This is one of those feel good statements with no analysis behind it. 

2) The medium is the message

 Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Ning, Forums, email lists and television have different community expectations.  You can't be successful if you don't know those expectations and work with your community.  And it's another general comment with nothing on it.  Here's an example of how it's wrong.  Customers looking to get answers now look for Twitter and Facebook for company responses.  Prospects will often surf to a home page and click on links to social sites.  In both cases, the message is the medium.  They want to talk to you on those mediums.  The message is not important. 

And btw - young people weren't the first to use Twitter.  They also weren't the first in blogs, which really kick-started this whole thing 10 years ago.

  

3.) Social Media Gurus Do Exist.

This is one of those really bad statements that is never backed up. Name a fraud in social media.  No one wants to, so they go vague.  Better yet, name a guru in any field, outside social media, and we'll show you how they're not, really.  There is plenty of experience in using social media successfully.  Social media has no more problem with experts than SEO, marketing, PR, TV, politics, science (yeah, you heard me), or child raising. 

4) Social Media is "new media"

Social media started out being called new media because we differentiated blogs and social networking sites from "digital," which itself was differentiated from "Creative."  Aside from that, there's the truth that social media represented many-to-many communication, as opposed to one-to-many communication.  It was new because it enabled an audience to talk back, and to each other.  

5) Social Media can be effectively outsourced to a PR firm.  

On what basis is this considered a lie?  Successful PR firms don't brag about their work when they have confidentiality agreements, but it happens all the time.  What is needed is full client access, but outsourcing works fine in many cases.  It works better than internal work if you're being brutally honest.  It doesn't work for everyone, but this is another example of a general statement that is nonsense, unsupported by fact, and generally harmful.  Mikal knows this, which is wh he backtracks in the comments, but if you have to clarify yourself, it's because your column was poorly written.  

Mikal is no goofball, but he deserves to have his nose smacked on this one.  The column has no value, and instead is counterproductive in that it rehashes general arguments without an ounce of specificity and a number of arguments divorced from their historical context. 

We'd have been better off if he tossed this first draft, and instead published his comments defending his work.  

There Are More George Constanzas Out There Then We'll Admit

Seinfeld gets a lot of credit for pop culture references, but it's rare that we admit how well Larry David nailed office life.  

There's the brilliant scene where Kramer gets fired from the job he doesn't even work at. 

There's the entire sage of Elaine and her comically insane boss, J Peterman. 

And then there's George.  Wonderful George, who turns work avoidance into an art. 

 

He sleeps under his desk. 

He leaves his car at the office to pretend he's in early and works late. 

He acts annoyed all the time, to pretend he's busy (one of my favorites. It reminded me of the days I'd carry around a clipboard because it made people think you had a managerial task.  Another trick in that vein is to always walk fast, even if it's just to go to the bathroom or grab a smoke break. Walking fast is not only good cardio for you, it suggest you're going somewhere, and that's not just a metaphor. 

My personal favorite was the episode with the Penske file. 

George interviews with a manager about to leave on vacation.  The manager is vague about whether George has the job, so George decides to fake it.  He shows up to work, takes an office, and spends the day looking at an enormous file for the Penske account.

When the boss returns, George finds out that he actually was hired, but his failure to do any work causes the boss to fire him.

And that's what I want to talk to you about, because there's a lot more George in the current workplace than I'm comfortable with. 

This isn't going to be a rant about Gen Y, because the behavior goes through all generations. As a recruiter, I hear plenty of sob stories about companies that don't train, don't motivate, and who sell a different bill of goods to employees than the reality of the working solution.

Do you know what I've never heard?

I've never heard any employee ever complain that they were overtrained.  I've never heard someone admit that they were given all of the tools, time, and salary they wanted, but their lack of ability to take advantage of the situation was the single greatest reason they failed to succeed.

Is that possible?  If it isn't possible, or even likely, then what we have is bad expectations of our responsibility to an employer, and inflated views of our own culpability in our employment situation.  And we all have culpability. 

So let me start off.

The last two jobs I held, I failed to maximize the potential offered me by the company.  The companies were not perfect.  They didn't have perfect people or perfect systems, but they did offer a framework that had I chosen to, I could have been more successful than I was.  

This is not to say I was a failure, but in leaving both companies, it's only fair to say that they provided an opportunity to me, and took on the risk of hiring me.  In both cases, one more than the other, I made them more money than I cost them.  In fact, in my last job, I was a bright young star that won a trip to Hawaii in my first full year.  I still could have done better.  

It was the recognition, after winning that trip, that I had more to offer than my current position that led me to start my own firm, but it's only fair to say that the company met their end of the bargain. 

Maybe it's maturity, and maybe it's simply an entreprenuerial spirit, but when I hire, or hire for clients, I want someone who understands where they failed in their last jobs.  I want to hire someone who is making a career move not because they can't succeed at a company, but rather because they can make a bigger impact at the new company. 

George Costanza was funny, because he was a loser who couldn't hold down a job.  We laughed at his foibles and wondered how much we could get away with ourselves.  And we laughed at the too close for comfort depictions of work life.  In real life, George-like behavior isn't funny. Can you be honest with yourself about your George-like habits, both now and in the past?  

 

 

 

 

Choosing A Salary Level For Your Social Media Strategist

It's been a busy couple of weeks, with the phone ringing off the hook as companies look for social media employees.  A major difference in this year from the last couple seasons is that companies have realistic salary expectations for the positions they are searching for, in comparison to even 2010, when expectations and salary offers for off by 50% and more between candidates and companies. 

In fact, this year, not a single head of HR has blinked at the salaries I have given, as they did their research and have a good sense of what is out there.  That's the sign of a maturing market. 

So what are those numbers?  And if you're a candidate, how much are you worth?

 

You're going to kill me for this, but of course, the answer depends.  We've delved into grade school math before on this blog, discussing the mean, median, and mode of salary decisions. 

"When salaries are evaluated throughout the corporation, the relative value of each skillset based on its importance to the company has been established over time. "

In plain language, your salary in a maturing market is based on your perceived value versus other people at the same salary. 

For example, if you're a Vice President of Social Strategy, you're going to receive a similar salary as a Vice President whose budget and responsibilities are the same as yours. 

If you're a Senior Manager of Social Strategy, your salary might be similar a Senior Manager of Digital Strategy or a Director of Onine Marketing. 

What happens is the corporation evaluates the importance of their perceived value of your job, and pays you equally to someone else of equal value. 

It's really quite fair for everyone, as the dirty little truth is they aren't hiring "social" people so much as "Marketing" and "PR" and "Digital" people with social tacked onto their latest accomplishments.  These are of course high value positions - no one is calling me to find social media specialists at $24,000 a year, but then again, that's not so much a position as a title change from Jr. Copywriter.

The one difference I can see is in the Community Manager space, which is more of a pure social play.  Those salaries are still max out at $80,000 (unless you're part of a huge global empire), and go as low as $40,000 for smaller communities. 

If you want to share your salary level, confidentially of course, please forward me a note to jim with an at sign and followed by the domain social media talent.com. 

 

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That's Impossible! I Can't Do It Unless...

 

Sometimes all we need to understand something is to stop believing we know everything. 

Churn Notice: Intelligence Work With An Eye To The Future

 

Gamification Of Business Has Always Been With Us

Business is a game. 

My first sales job was an inside position where I was required to make 125 outbound calls a day.  Those contacts were supposed to yield 12-15 direct contacts, which would yield 3-4 appointments, of which 3-4 would close a week.

We tracked our numbers, and often had contests and spiffs to hit those numbers and more.

My first recruiting experience had activity KPI's.  They included a point system where phone contacts were one point, meetings were 10, job reqs were 5, placements were 10, and handwritten notes after a meeting were two points.  For recruiters, they included, interviews, submissions, phone calls, placements, and reference checks.  Those recruiters with the best totals were lauded, promoted and also given cash rewards. 

My first retail job bonused managers when they kept theft levels down.

My first corporate recruiting job bonused managers on keeping Gross Profit Margins at 25% and above, and managing employees to hit a minimum number of entries in the ATS.

My first private recruiting job included bonuses for managers who made diversity hires.

My first customer service project utilized call center metrics that included time-to-answer, time-on-call, Survey results, escalations, and a monetary figure for each minute of time. 

My first marketing project included number of views, earned media, expansion of paid media, clicks, conversions, and email addresses. 

My first web design project included traffic to the site, calls from the site, email form submissions, and sadly, award nominations. 

What these all have in common is a series of metrics that are measured, accumulated, often rewarded, and tabulated for success. 

There is no functional difference between any of those metrics, and gathering coins, experience points, eaves, check-ins, corn crops, gems, mayorships, and badges.  The difference is what we value, not the system with which we measure the value.

Take a 15 year old World of Warcraft player who runs a team of other players, and compare him to a 40 year old executive with Microsoft.

 The executive uses KPI's to measure actions and track experience in their organization.

 The player uses game statistics to measure actions and track experience in his group.

One craves virtual goods, experience points as measured by the system, and team interaction that helps them accomplish goals. 

The other just likes killing orcs. 

The Recruiting Animal Show just finished a somewhat frustrating call trying to interview Dups, the CEO of Empire Avenue.  The recruiters wanted to know what value the game had.  Dups pointed out the game had the value you assign to it.  That's not a circular argument, it's an accurate description of what to look for in a gaming layer. 

Empire Avenue can be used to amass fake wealth, or it can be used for recruiting. 

Empire Avenue can be used to create a reputation as a social player, or it can be used to self-train on social platforms. 

The Game is not what's important.  It's recognizing that all of business is a game.  We can dress it up as much as we want, but the sooner we push aside our views of what things are supposed to be like, and recognize how things are, the better prepared we are to utilize all platforms, social and otherwise, to achieve our goals. 

Maybe Gary Larson was right after all. 

 

Above: Gary Larson's "old FAR SIDE" cartoon, nicked from the Psychology Today site. Yes, Psychology Today! (The Far Side ® and the Larson ® signature are registered trademarks of FarWorks, Inc. Copyright © 2000, 2007 FarWorks, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

via Mike Lynch Cartoons

 

 

Silverpop Email Marketing Consultant Available

One of our contractors is a Silverpop expert, and we're looking to increase the number of hours we have him billing. 

Our consultant can test emails, troubleshoot, and build emails directly in Engage.  He can test all the big email client (iPhone, Hotmail, Outlook 2007, Gmail and Yahoo! Mail).  For those of you have the too, you know that Silverpop can be a very technical and tricky tool to use.  Though powerful, it rescripts code on upload, and inexperienced people using it ofter render unexpected results. 

This kind of project is perfect for companies and divisions that use Silverpop and need someone to craft a few monthly emails, but can't afford an inhouse designer.  Our guy is reliable, is a personal friend has worked with us for 18 months, has Fortune 500 experience, and most important, likes working on a project level.  All he has asked is for us to find him a few more steady gigs. 

Some highlights:

• Experience using Silverpop software: ESP, Advanced Training, Survey, Transact, RSS Direct, ClickStream, In-Box Monitoring, Reporting & Analytics, etc. 
• Experience in Social Network Marketing 
• Basic knowledge of HTML development
• Experience with  web analytics package such as Google Analytics, Coremetrics, Web Trends, Silverpop Analytics, and Omniture 

If you need someone to help you manage your Silverpop account, this is the affordable solution.  It helps that he has a great design eye. 

Contact socialmediaheadhunter@gmail.com for rates and an interview. 

 

 

 

Business Uptick In Social Media Searches

When I started in 2008, finding social media openings was challenging. 

Companies knew they wanted someone working on social media, but they didn't know who, and were unwilling to pull the trigger on hiring anyone.  

In 2009, job openings were plentiful, but there just weren't enough people with the ability to fulfill expectations.  Companies were willing to hire, but finding candidates who understood the position was far more difficult.  The biggest problem at that point was the salary expectations.  Companies were paying well, but not well enough to temp the best talent.

In 2010, companies finally started to get it in the marketing and PR space, so many adopted a strategy of hiring and training internally. That led to an explosion of talent that is just now hitting the market.  

It's now halfway through 2011, and my phones are ringing off the hook with clients looking to hire very specific positions that are fully funded and set with proper expectations on what is available.  That's a good sign for the market, even if it is anecdotal.  I say anecdotal because I'm just one data blip on a bigger screen.  My best year would only be a dozen successful direct placements (this is for Social Media Headhunter, not Social Media Talent,which is the contract side).

My digital presence is the same relative size it was in the last few years, and while traffic is up, the quality of leads coming in has vastly improved.  That's very important, because along with the use of headhunters to bring in top talent, companies are making plans to hire low and mid-level candidates as well.  This has a big impact on the health of an employment sector, as hiring and training the next generation prevents the price shock of a talent war.  It's a healthy sign mid-way through the year, and should continue right up to the beginning of the fourth quarter.