Social Media Headhunter

Back In My Day, We Didn't Have Experts, Just Moderately Experienced Marketers

Is it bad to call yourself a social media expert?  There sure seems to be a lot of anger about it. Hard to tell if the knee-jerk response to snort at a social media expert is honest derision, or a superstitious attempt to to ward off evil, the 21st century version of "There but for the grace of Google go I."

Given how big an area the definition of social media can cover, one can either throw up their hands and say it's not possible to be an expert, or one can accept that social media is a preference layer that has more to do with our target audiences than the discipline itself. 

And make no mistake, social media is a discipline.  It's not enough to call it a tool in a tool box.  It's a skill set that is distinct from marketing, PR, and customer service.  Do you know how we can tell?  Experts with decades of experience in marketing, PR, customer service, and sales are often completely clueless when it comes to using social media to bring value. 

If social media is as easy as taking a piece of bread out of a refrigerator, why do so many people foul it up on their own?  Why are there so few true examples of social media success, if it's so easy?

It's because it's not easy, and we're not driving it.  Social media is the public's way of learning. The mass communication and connectedness of our audiences is driving change that companies cannot keep up with, and they know it.  It's simple math. There are more of them, than of us.  Because there are more of them, they learn faster.  So why do they need someone who is an "expert" in social media?  it's the same reason they need a recruiter. 

Here's a dirty little secret about the recruiting industry. We're not that much better than internal Human Resource departments.  But we don't have to be.  We just have to be a little better, a little faster, than internal departments.  And we are, because we have structural advantages, from representing multiple clients to being sales-oriented to spending more time searching and calling candidates and less time on paperwork.

Some people hate recruiters, but the industry continues to do well, because the marketing of the industry says we're experts in hiring.  Some of use are, some aren't, but the industry has a reputation of solving problems a little faster and with less hassle than internal departments (on average).

Do you know what you don't say as a recruiter to a client?  You don't say, "I'm slightly better than your internal people." You say, "I'll do the job, with my massive database, and I'll be accountable solely to you because I'm an expert."

That's mostly true, but it's still marketing.  We're marketing ourselves to sell our services, just like every other industry.  Do you know what we call ourselves?   Headhunters.  Staffing experts.  Talent acquisition experts. National Account Executives.  It's title inflation, common to everyone from teachers (educators), to Senior Digital Communication Vice Presidents for Advertising and Messaging, International Markets. 

Thus, the social media expert, or whatever they call themselves, from consultant, to strategist, to connector, to integrated marketers, to social business analyst, is engaging in a form of marketing called personal branding. Everyone does it.  Everyone does it. 

Calling yourself an expert in an area is an attempt to convey the idea that you are worth paying for your advice.  It's a rookie move, when you can call yourself better terms like Digital Integrated Director, Social Business Communicator, but it's all the same.  And mocking it is disingenuous.  

There is no difference between calling yourself a "social media expert," and describing a product you sell as a "revolutionary step forward in household disinfectants."  It's just marketing.  We can complain about it, we can mock it, we can judge it, but let's not lie to ourselves that making fun of someone for marketing themselves is authentic criticism, if we ourselves do any form of marketing, or if others do it for us (so no ducking if your job is help desk.  Someone markets your services for you).  

We have nonsense titles in most companies.  We have training programs that have little value to anyone not sorting resumes.  We have college degrees for people who can't write or speak in public.  We have Master's and Doctorate programs for 2nd grade teachers who now call themselves "educators," but whose children can't read when they leave the classroom.  We all market, from fake hair and nails to car leases we can't afford in neighborhoods where are house payments are based on no interest loans.  

Social Media Experts don't get special passes because of their titles, but do we really think they're horrible people?  They tend to be small fish trying to sell (and often failing), but sometimes they are people who recognize that social media is sexy, and thus it gets attention.  When attacking social media experts, why is there so much venom?  Is it because we're mad about title inflation?  Or is there something else? 

 

The Power Of Community In Minneapolis: Jim Durbin and Craig Fisher At #MNREC

 
I'm a big fan of a number of Minnesota recruiters and marketers, but until last week, I'd never actually made it up there (outside of A New Year's Eve social call a decade ago).  My main contact is Paul Debettignies, the MNHeadhunter, whose blog, writing, and friendship I have enjoyed since 2005.

Paul invited us to Minnesota (Craig Fisher, @fishdogs, and the other owner of Social Media Talent), and we had the pleasure of speaking to 210 folks in the recruiting space inside Best Buy Headquarters.

I spoke about the power recruiters have to drive social through the organization.  Craig discussed new ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile.  A third speaker, Amy Langer from Oberon talked about her journey in building an HR, Finance and Accounting staffing firm after working as an accountant for the then Big Six. 

While the presentations were awesome, and yes, I can say we were all great, the really impressive spectacle was this interconnected group of corporate and agency recruiters joining together to learn and share and make friends. The group was tight, and that's not something you always see.  Maybe it was just my first chance to see Minnesota nice, but my impression walking away from the mini-conference was that working in Minnesota would be a blessing for a lot of people and lot of companies. 

While it's impossible to judge a market from such a brief time, I walked away impressed.  While I knew folks like Gregg Dourgarian (Tempworks and Staffing Talk), Steven Rothberg, and Joshua Kahn were there, that's true for every town. There are always a few great people you can get to know online.  What struck me about this was how many others I wanted to meet while up there.

Minneapolis-St Paul is home to some big companies. Target, Cargill, Deluxe, 3M, Best Buy.  It has a stable workforce and a cool, active downtown.  It's a place to keep your eye on.  It was certainly a place I'll visit again.  

SXSW In Small Bytes: What's So Wrong With Being A Douchebag?

SXSW has some funny traditions.  One of the chief ones is not selling while you're there.  It's strange, because not looking for leads at a trade conference is a bit like not picking up women at a bar (hint: those who don't try never succeed at it).   From what I could see, the ethos of sharing and smiling and not bringing any revenue to your company with a direct pitch is alive and well.  Like the early days of blogs when making money was considered beneath us, SXSW is all about spending money without asking for anything in return. 

We even have a fun name for it.  People who market at SXSW are douchebags.  There was even a whole panel devoted to it.  Being a douchebag covers all manners of sin, including looking at someone's badge to see where they work, spending too much as a company instead of participating in engagement, and even trying to get into a cool party or checking in too much on Foursquare.  Also, don't introduce yourself to people you don't know.  That whole meeting turning online contacts into real world contacts?  That's out of line, buddy!  

And no matter what.  Don't even think about discussing how your services or product can improve a prospect's working situation.  That's for douchebags.

Ha ha ha!  See, selling is for losers!  Just like being cool enough to have women fawn over you is better than having to come up with a lame line to get attention, so is being awesome enough to have people throw money at you instead of trying to do icky things like picking up the phone and cold-calling or making pitches to people you don't know well.  What's wrong with those people?  Don't they know that selling is so 1995? 

That's actually the pitch, and it is supposed to represent the new way to make money.  Show up, make friends, and only work with the most awesome companies that see the value of what you're selling, I mean offering for free, and then magical VC money leads to being the next Google!  Magic! Unicorns!  Scott Baio!

If you want to stop any conversation short at SXSW, just ask how they plan to make money.  The younger folks there will give you some version of "we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it with volume."  The older ones will sheepishly admit that yes, they sell their services, usually for a pretty penny, but they just don't feel that doing it at SXSW is useful.

They're right of course.  You get information at SXSW, not sales leads.  The corporate folks who arrived in droves and paid several thousand dollars for the privilege weren't there to be pitched.  And yet, selling still went on.  I'm a recruiter, and so over the last 12 years I've learned to attend networking events and listen while I'm talking.  Picking up information and working a cocktail party takes experience, and recruiters are very good at it.  So despite all the warnings, selling at SXSW occurred, but it occurred under the table, accompanied with vague promises of working together, and probably forgotten the next day and never followed up on.

It's not that you don't sell at SXSW.  It's that people sell poorly.

I come from a hardcore sales traditions of cold-calling to set appointments in a jaded market.  Yes, the world is different than it was when I was making 125 calls a day selling vacation incentives in Florida, but in some ways it was better back them.  We were honest about it.  And while I hated it at the time, the skills I picked up in three years of phone sales, followed by six years of staffing, and five as a business owner still rely heavily on my first year of training.  It was hard, but it had a purpose. 

Get them to sign on the line which is dotted.  It's a great line from GlenGarry Glen Ross, and it underscores a simple truth about business.  There is no client relationship until someone signs a check.

When you do something like travel to SXSW on the company dime and you're not selling, you're spending the company money to play.  If you choose not to talk about your company and seek out relationships with people who can keep the lights on, that's your right, but just don't lie to yourself that no one is paying for it. 

Salespeople usually get a bad rep, because most salespeople are bad at what they do.  I hear it all the time - people complain about salespeople (and recruiters, who are really just sellers of people) because they don't like to be bothered.  And yet, what does a salesperson do?  They ask you to come to a decision.  Talk to them or don't talk to them.  Listen to their pitch or do not listen to their pitch.  Buy, or do not buy.

Asking someone to come to a decision isn't douchebaggery.  It's the basic function of business.  Covering it with social or marketing or PR and saying that inbound marketing is the new selling lacks one essential historical fact.  It's always been rude to sell.  Just ask rich people.

The elite have a unique way of buying and selling.  You join the right clubs, wear the right clothes, go to the right schools, give to the right foundations, and when the time comes, you do business with one and another (and with their children).  It's not a new way of selling, it's a very old way of selling.  What we're creating at SXSW is a new elite.  A group of people with a set of rules on the right and wrong way and the right and wrong time and the right and wrong people to work with.  We're subconsciously doing what the uber-wealthy have always done.  We're doing business based on pedigree, and not what you can do for a company.

 

Does that sound about right?  We use social shaming and social pressure to warn people away from doing what they're paid to do - drive results for their company in a tough economy.  And then we celebrate it and laugh at those who didn't get the message. 

Because they're douchebags.

Of course, there's one problem with calling someone a marketing douchebag.  A douchebag at the club is someone who gets hot women, but none of us can figure out why. A douchebag is someone we think is ridiculous, but something they are doing works, because they're there with the hot woman.  It's so ridiculous that we take pictures and put them on websites and marvel at how they do it.

The douchebag, for all of their douchebaggery, is asking for the sale and then closing the sale.  They're getting the digits.  You can mock them all you want, but if you ever find yourself lacking the right pedigree (as many people find out when they leave MegaCorp to start their own business), you're going to wish you focused a little more on learning to sell, and a little less mocking those trying to do so.

Douchebags at least can't be accused of not trying. 

Now don't get me wrong.  I'm sure many people are going to be offended by this, and I'm not defending bad selling practices.  I'm no more suggesting that hard pitches at a conference are welcome than I'm suggesting that douchebags are role models for happy hours.  I'm saying that selling, good selling, is a respectable action.  Discovering how to fit into a social situation and turning it into an exploration of a prospect's needs is a good thing.  Asking questions, and learning new things, and expanding your mind are all good traits you can practice at SXSW without coming across as a jerk. 

Knowing when someone doesn't want to hear your sales pitch is a skill good salespeople have.  We sometimes forget, or charge ahead, or just get tired of pussyfooting around, but annoying someone isn't an effective sales strategy.  You know what else isn't effective?  Never asking for a sale.

Let's make a promise for the next SXSW and for all conferences in the future.  We'll do our best to understand the atmosphere, but keep our eyes and ears open to people who want to hear from us.  And when it's all said and done, we won't contribute to the public shaming of anyone trying to pay their mortgage and put food on their table for their children.

Because doing so?  Yeah, it kinda makes you a douchebag.  And not in a good way.

SXSW In Small Bytes

It's going to be impossible to dig through my notes from SXSW, as the overwhelming nature of the five day event has my brain firing in multiple directions on possibilities and pitches.  While unable to see everything I wanted to, the interconnected maelstrom that was the recruiting and marketing community let me talk to dozens of people I respect from reading online, and another hundred I've just met and now follow.

While a number of reports will talk about how crowded and big SXSW got, I found it possible to connect one-on-one with a lot of people.  Must be a recruiting trait - I spoke with people on elevators, in line at coffee, standing around at parties, and even in the shuttles back and forth.

I'll be writing out a lot of my notes and trying to link those I met, both here, at StlRecruiting, and at the Brandstorming Blog, in an attempt to pass on the knowledge I received and to give some link love to those I met.

In the meantime, keep this nugget of wisdom close to you for future SXSW and conferences in general.

Most people who go to events like SXSW don't know a lot of people there.  Even those who do, can often find themselves on the outside when they attend a new kind of panel or a party that their friends haven't shown up to.  These people are not only happy to speak with you, they're grateful to have someone to speak with.  Ask them questions, like any good recruiter, about where they're from, what they do, and what they hope to get out of the conference. 

We had a product and a company to sell at SXSW, but we weren't there to get leads.  I was there to find out where the world was going and what it currently looked like from the highly-connected.  Sure, Craig and I talked about the company when it was appropriate (except once, when I had too much Red Bull and got excited, but that's another story for another time), but other times we jut sat back and listened.

The online network can seem big, but it's really just a series of subconnected groups and individuals.  It's the same thing as being onsite at large conferences.  There is a lot to learn if you can focus on the people around you and what they have to teach.

More to come. 

#TNL, Talent Net Live, at pre- #sxsw

March 11 in Austin- Join us for a speed networking version of TNL. Held in Austin during the highly popular SXSW Interactive, we expect to host over 150 attendees.

 

REGISTER NOW! at http://tnlaustin.eventbrite.com/

 

The first of three TNL conference events that we are planning to host in Texas this year will be a social recruiting kickoff to SXSW Interactive.

What can you expect from TNL Austin? Those who have attended TNL events in DFW in 2009 & 2010 know that this is no ordinary conference.  This mini conference will be FAST, FURIOUS, and FUN!  Attendees can expect to learn about hands on methods that will not only prepare them for the SXSW Interactive panels to follow but give them information they can put into practice that day.

Some of the top Social Media and Recruiting industry experts in the world will share their tips for Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Employer Branding, Content Development, Locaiton / Mobile Marketing, and the latest Cool Tools!

Plus, you get to meet Craig.

Connecting This Blog To Social Media Talent

Social Media Headhunter is going through a transition stage from a retained search firm to a social staffing firm, and this blog, is going to become the main social blog for SocialMediaTalent.com

We're working on the MindMaps and the Sales pitches to put up on the site, in addition to creating an employee handbook and signing all the documents for the payroll and back-office.

The site, socialmediaheadhunter, will retain the url, and will continue to discuss hiring and jobs in the social media space, but we'll just have more leeway to talk about how to buy, sell, and implement social media from a business standpoint.

We agonized over what to do with the Tiki head, because it's just so cool, but a headhunter icon makes no sense in Social Media Talent.  At least not visually.  We will, however continue to offer retained search services, but only through clients we are working with in support of their long-term goals.

 

Fortune Magazine Talks To The Social Media Headhunter

There's a nice interview today in Fortune Magazine about the future of social media jobs.  Fortune reporter Anne VanderMey does a great job sharing the opinions of different sources about the future of the industy, but the big surprise was her inclusion of our new staff augmentation firm for mid-level social media strategists.

There are several levels of expertise within the social media profession. Most commonly, there's the community manager – the feet on the ground, so to speak, who oversee a company's online communities; the analyst or strategist -- who builds and monitors social media campaigns; the product developer – who is responsible for keeping the company's software up to date; the editor or publisher -- who oversees content and the brand; and the executive -- a rare position, usually filled by a public relations professional...

As the field matures, Durbin and others foresee widespread restructuring. To prepare, Durbin is opening a social media consulting and placement firm designed for mid-career professionals, where he sees the most growth potential.

Sadly, the site is not up. I was going to use the Brandstorming site and logo, but now I'm thinking this would be the perfect time to launch SocialMediaTalent.com (not yet up).

The most important thing is we've got the financial backing and pedigree to make this happen, and the growth is going to work for a lot of different companies selling and buying social media.  I want to carve out the middle niche and be a supplier of mid-level social media talent.  We've built a unique hiring structure with the help of some recruiting friends, and I intend to maximize our sites in pursuit of the hot talent and the companies that need to hire. 

January 2011.  What could be more exciting?

And read Anne's entire piece. It's well-written and well-researched.

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.

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.

Twitter Used To Boost Local Retailing

The connections you make in social networks are the primary value of spending time in social media. It's not the marketing or advertising that makes you money, it's the people you meet who refer you business, solve a problem for free (or for a fee), and drive attention and traffic your way.

Until of course, enterprising business owners realize that being connected to a community can yield profit.

Enter Twitter as the ultimate traffic driver for retailer. Leave it to a small business owner to do this, but a coffee shop/lounge owner in Houston decided to join Twitter, he didn't realize it would double his traffic.  His store traffic, that is.

For real.

When J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas first heard about Twitter from one of his customers, he was puzzled but intrigued. Today, he credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way to build Community.

What's interesting about this is the owner just joined to make friends, and the business aspect happened as a natural outgrowth of his success in becoming a personality online.  Once a customer was comfortable that he would be reached, the customer asked a question about business, and the result was a "slap yourself in the head and say why didn't I think of it" moment. Those are the best ideas.

It makes a lot of sense.  Twitter is basically a texting tool that is online instead of on your phone (and the apps on your phone don't count, as they are online as well).  Individual texting for business is okay, but Twitter adds the personal touch that allows CoffeeGrounds to get a Word of Mouth campaign going.

It's what happens when people start joining networks.  They naturally start to look for ways to use the networks for their own benefits  Using Twitter to order food is  a natural outgrowth of being on Twitter all the time. It's easier than calling and waiting, or calling and talking to someone.  And it beats having to get up and walk up to the counter if you're sitting with a client.

It's a great, heart warming story, and I want to hear more.  As of this writing, over two hundred RT's (ReTweets, where someone copy and pastes a Tweet to send it to their audience) have hit Twitter.  That's a big number.

I'm also heading down to the local coffee store to see if they might be interested in hearing about a new idea I have.