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Archives for 2016

Messaging and Seaside Rock

seaside-rock

Have you checked that your messaging is consistent… all the way through?

I went to yet another university open day recently, and was very impressed by the tone of voice used in the large, attractive posters around the campus, and by the style of the imagery used. I’d enjoyed the personality shown in the emails we’d received from this university. It all matched the prospectus, the subject brochures and other marketing material that we’d received, and was warm, welcoming and had an authentic feel. It also successfully, and apparently naturally, used a diverse group of students in the imagery. No stock images of students sitting laughing on the grass here.

But when we went to hear the subject talk by the department, there was an element of dissonance. Although the person presenting was animated and interesting, the material that he was presenting was out of date and the slides were out of order (for both of which he apologised). There was no carry-through of the university-wide messaging. And the images in the presentation included no images of female students at all. Probably 30% of the audience was female, so it did skew male, but still…

It is important that the messaging used in recruitment is consistent throughout the experience. This includes every single touchpoint… anecdotally, we hear of some applicants who click through from the shiny-cool new website to apply, only to find themselves on a very familiar ATS, at which point they abandon the application. Especially if they are using a mobile device.

Every touchpoint matters, from top to bottom and end to end. Just like a stick of seaside rock: it should say the same thing all the way through.

Attention, Personalisation and the Holodeck

attention span and perceptive media

Attention and calm technology

A while ago, a study by Microsoft suggested that the human attention span is now about 8 seconds – shorter than that of a goldfish. Now that grabbed some media attention, even though the study wasn’t necessarily good science.

Is it really true that our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter? Certainly we are all busy-busy, and the technology that we’re using tends to interrupt us, disrupting our attention. On the other hand, expert gamers develop extremely high levels of attention to their fast-moving games. At least, that’s what my son tells me, and I can confirm that it is indeed difficult to distract him…

Studies show that in general, we manage not to pay attention to most of the many thousands of things going on around us. We have to deliberately ignore almost everything in our environment, in order to be able to focus on the things that matter, whether these are threats or things of intense interest to us.

One of the problems with some of the technologies we’re using at the moment is that the devices (and the programs that run on them) are trying to attract our attention with incessant audible notifications, designed to interrupt us—and everyone else around us. There are other types of alerts possible (lights or vibrations, for instance) and using these other techniques could help users to keep some of their notifications private.

Designing so that the user could personalise their alert styles to suit their lifestyles might help us all lead a calmer life; of course, everyone would need to take some responsibility for doing this, and the technologies would have to allow it.

This was entertainingly discussed by Amber Case (@caseorganic) at Thinking Digital Manchester (she has a book out called Calm Technology which has gone straight into my wish list and is likely to be well worth reading). If there was an overarching theme to the conference, it was about audience attention—and distraction.

Fascinating.

Attention and tailored media

Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden, BBC R&D) talked about perceptive media: media shaped in real time to suit an individual’s preferences and aspects of their personality, presenting differences in scenes, perspectives, colour and sound-track. At the moment, this is done by the viewer completing a profile, and the data then used to inform which media assets are used in which order, and which effects should be applied when.

And he talked about scalable documentaries, where the extent or depth of the information presented depends on the amount of time available to the listener—that is, how much attention they were able to pay; for example, rather than a podcast of a set 45 minutes on the journey to work, your device could contract or extend that podcast based on the predicted time of that journey on that day (38 minutes…52 minutes etc).

And that’s really interesting.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Star Trek holodeck, where storytelling is immersive, interactive, and tailored to an individual’s preferences and interests.

Attention and the corporate website

One of the lenses that we use to look at website content is to consider the likely attention span and interests of different visitors, which will depend on the intent with which they are visiting the page.

For example, a junior buyer may explore a B2B website in detail, and review a great deal of information in order to collate options for a corporate purchase and make a recommendation; but the senior budget-holder is likely to be interested only in an executive summary, and may have less time available to view it.

Individuals also have different preferences for absorbing information; some prefer information to be graphically presented, while others prefer text or video.

Imagine a website that could dynamically present information to a visitor at different levels of detail, and in different modes, depending on their interests on that visit, and depending on the time they have available on that day—that is, the amount of attention they can afford to pay on that day. Of course, a visitor may come to a website multiple times for different reasons: to investigate products on one day, and as a potential jobseeker the following week.

What do you think? Would that be a convenience, or just another example of a filter bubble?

The Combination Approach: Using Multiple Recruitment Strategies

I invited Raj Mistry to write about recruitment strategies for us. Raj worked in the corporate world for over 30 years, recruiting people both internally and externally, so has a lot of experience in recruitment.

sliced apple representing recruitment strategies

The Combination Approach: Using Multiple Recruitment Strategies

As a recruiter, you’re probably aware of the statistic that says 80% of available vacancies aren’t advertised. So how do companies find the right candidates? They use multiple strategies: the most important being promoting their brand. Brand awareness is a crucial aspect not only for hiring top talent but also for your business as a whole. Establishing your brand makes you memorable, but how do you effectively build it?

Company Branding

Your brand encompasses everything your company stands for: your reputation, your values and your goals. It’s the one thing that can separate you from your competitors and every other business on the market. Who doesn’t instantly recognise the Starbucks logo or the golden McDonalds ‘M’?

Strong branding isn’t just important for earning custom and establishing your expertise to your target audience. It’s also one of the key strategies for finding the right candidates for your vacancy and gaining a large amount of applications. Increasing your brand awareness will not only make people want to work for your company, but it will make the right people want to work for you – those with the skill set and traits you need in an employee.

To define your brand, you need to ask yourself some difficult questions. You may already have a brand and be the leading business in your industry, but you should reevaluate on a regular basis. Your business is constantly evolving with every decision you make, and so your brand and marketing efforts should too.

What Is Your Company Mission?

Your company mission is what sets you apart. Every business wants to provide expertise and the best customer or client service, but this alone won’t make you stand out. Make it personal. Your audience aren’t just customers or a potential pay packet – they’re human beings with aspirations and personal goals of their own. Make your mission statement inclusive, align yourself with the values of your customers and make yourself accessible. Regular communication with your customers is particularly helpful here. Everyone likes to feel valued, so asking them about their lives will make them feel appreciated. Not only can this earn you more custom, but potential employees will identify with your brand. This means you’ll be able to employ people who are excited to work with a business with a solid brand awareness (meaning more productivity) and who understand your company’s mission.

A Quick Word on Job Boards

Whether you like them or not, job boards are still the most effective recruitment tool for employers. The majority of active job seekers will regularly be utilising job boards in their search. In fact, job boards are searched by millions of people every day. For job seekers, this makes for a hugely competitive environment, but for recruiters, this is great news. They may not be the most innovative form of recruitment in an age where social media is king, but they’re definitely not going anywhere in a hurry. You can maximise the effectiveness of your job advert by using niche job boards: those catering either to your industry or your location. This gives you a much more specialised pool of candidates to choose from, who are more likely to have the skills and experience you seek.

Using Social Media

Hailed as the “key to recruiting in the 21st century”, the impact of social media on the industry is undeniable. Social networks provide companies with a way of being constantly on their audience’s news feeds. They’re available for instant communication and, with the right marketing strategy, visible at the optimum time.

How to Use LinkedIn

Out of all social networks, LinkedIn is the preferred choice for social recruiting. 79% of candidates hired through social media came from LinkedIn. As a professional network, it allows employers to connect with potential employees, who themselves can state their qualifications and experience and earn testimonials from their own connections.

As a company, it’s important for you to extend your brand to your LinkedIn profile. Cultivate a positive work culture by inviting your employees to join your page and establish your expertise by regularly sharing and posting relevant articles. LinkedIn allows you to assess a candidate’s profile to see whether they’re a good fit, and you can ask for references from trusted individuals in your network. However, not every potential prospect will have a LinkedIn profile, as they may not be actively searching for work. You should also be focusing on passive candidates.

Connecting with Passive Candidates

Did you know that on average, passive candidates require 17% less skill development than active candidates? This is for a variety of reasons.

Passive candidates – those not actively seeking work – are more than likely already employed in a relevant position, meaning they possess the skills and experience that could be perfect for your company. If active prospects have been out of work for a while, or are applying for an entry-level position, you may have to provide them with significant training before they’re confident and able enough to perform their job role autonomously. So how do you target passive candidates?

With 2.2 billion people worldwide registered on a social network, there’s a goldmine of talent waiting for you on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not a simple case of alerting your followers to work opportunities, but about having a solid marketing strategy. Do a little digging and find out what hashtags your ideal candidate is using, or incorporate relevant news into your updates and add a personal touch to your business. Innocent Drinks is a great example of a company that engages regularly with its followers and doesn’t focus all of its social media efforts on blatantly marketing its products. It comes across as personal and fun, a great recipe for creating a brand that candidates want to work for.

Innocent's Twitter tone of voice

By creating content that gets noticed and shared, you may find it appearing on the timeline of your perfect prospect. The added bonus is that it works wonders for your brand image. You can see the incredible levels of engagement that can be earned, even if the update itself has nothing to do with your product!

Putting It All Together: The Combination Approach

Each of these methods can work independently, but to achieve maximum outreach, you should be combining all of these efforts — with each playing a part in your meticulously organised recruitment strategy.

Passive candidates may on average require less training and recognition than their active counterparts, but that doesn’t mean you should neglect those seeking work. Active candidates are just as likely to have a social media presence, so make your updates count and alert them to your vacancies with a link to the application.

The use of Twitter has cultivated the art of brevity, but it’s still difficult to sell something in 140 characters. So how can you make it count? Rather than an endless list of skills, emphasise impact. What can you do for your employees, and what will they do for you? Invite candidates to get in touch for a brief, informal chat, and uncover what motivates them and what their interests are (their own profile can be a treasure trove of insight into their personality).

The days of traditional recruitment done through a CV in the post are long gone, and digital is taking the charge. From online job boards to social networking, these strategies will prove most effective when used together. With brand awareness in place, combined with a structured marketing strategy, you put your business on the path to attracting only the best talent.

Raj Mistry is a partner at Top Suffolk Jobs, a jobs board dedicated to helping recruiters and job seekers in Suffolk. Having worked in the corporate world for over 30 years, he was involved in recruiting people both internally and externally. This brought challenges of finding out how individuals learn, identifying their strengths and developing their potential. After leaving the corporate world in 2014 he set up his own business managing property which he runs with his wife and has recently set up an internet marketing company.

B2B Social Media: do’s and don’ts

I invited Adrian Cordiner (who founded DigitalRhinos) to write a post about B2B social media for us today.

Do’s and don’ts of social media for B2B companies

b2b social media
For business to business marketing campaigns, you really want to get it right the first time. How you engage with your audience online shows how much or how little you actually understand your audience. Social media for B2B takes analysis and strategy, and like everything else in marketing, it must continuously evolve. The best way to make better marketing decisions is by using real data. Here are a few tips on how to (and how not to) approach your audience and create content they want to click on.

Know your audience

You have to determine where your audience is and decide if your account is going to be global or localized to specific country/location – this is extremely important, as audience location will determine the time of day you share content. Learning when your audience is tuning in, and therefore when to post, is mandatory for any successful campaign. You can easily access all of these details through the analytics sections of your Facebook Business Manager, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

Choosing the right content for your audience

Content creation is easily the hardest thing to get right when it comes to marketing. A slip up in the content creation can cost you an entire campaign. Your content marketing has to be tied into the core marketing efforts of the company as a whole, so before you can expect to nail B2B content marketing successfully, you need to know why you’re doing it. What are your goals in content marketing? Lead generation? Sales or brand activation? Define it. Write it down, and then roll out a content marketing plan that supports those goals. Once you have those goals set, choose your content.

DO Use Imagery – A great photo provides a great opportunity to illustrate and promote your company’s culture, values, and philosophy and to showcase important events.

DO Use Video – not just video, but GREAT video footage. Don’t allow bad videos or imagery representing your brand or product to go online. Quality is the key to success.

In your video content – be straight to the point. Don’t tell the story you think people should hear, tell the story that people want to hear.

Know what is trending socially

Knowing what is trending is one of the most difficult tasks for a marketing department, and especially when your marketing budgets are done annually, you might fall behind rather quickly if you don’t have some sort of marketing clairvoyance. A great tool for monitoring trending content is Buzzsumo where you can search for currently trending content by keyword searches or set up alerts for competitors’ activity and your own content.

Apart from the obvious, and already touched on video content, one of the latest trends for B2B marketing online is live video broadcasting. Two of the apps which make livestreaming possible are called Periscope and Blab – and both are currently creating a ton of buzz in the online world. These two apps are extremely valuable for platforms like e-Learning (creating a live ‘classroom’ for viewers).

Make your campaign easy to access

Mobile devices are currently being used more than any other form of media viewing, so make sure your campaigns and content are easily viewed in mobile format, and don’t forget your website. There’s nothing more tedious than clicking to a seller website, and not being able to navigate on your mobile phone, except maybe not being able to get there at all. Don’t forget to ask yourself “Can people find you?” Optimise your social profiles so that you can be at their thumb tip with ease.

The ultimate goal for a marketing campaign is to brand build, and brand build as effectively as possible, (leading to sales). Don’t lose track of that long-term goal. Always remember the importance of B2C in your B2B campaigns and don’t be afraid to use these techniques that worked before.

Adrian Cordiner accidentally stumbled into digital marketing after starting an online travel company and realizing there was a whole world out there of SEO, SEM, Analytics, CRO and so on that he knew absolutely nothing about. Many years of reading, researching, testing and making lots of mistakes along the way have lead him to where he is today, running his own digital marketing agency (Digital Rhinos) and founding a content marketplace startup (Prozely), still reading, still researching, still testing and hopefully making a few less mistakes.

Promoting CSR & Employee Volunteer Programs

I invited Hattie James to write a post for us about employee volunteer programmes. Hattie has experience in building an employee volunteer program, and is interested in how they can help with recruiting as well as corporate social responsibility.

Over to you, Hattie!

volunteers

The concept of social responsibility is key for corporations. For many organizations, it can make or break public relations, profits, even the company’s existence. Today, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is just as important to the people in the organization as it is the people who support it.

There are many facets of CSR and ways of promoting it. Typically, CSR is seen as the corporation’s responsibility with its business practices, from how sustainable its manufacturing might be to how it reacts to a global crisis. However, CSR is bigger than that.

Larry Parnell, director of the George Washington University’s Strategic Public Relations Program, differentiates between traditional CSR and strategic CSR in his presentation Corporate Social Responsibility. According to Parnell:

“Strategic social responsibility is this concept of doing well by doing good. That’s both operationally, in terms of how you manage your resources. And your people, but also in the community and in the world at large, what kind of activities, programs and undertakings are you involved in that benefit the market that you are hoping to serve. An example of this would be IBM or other technology companies donating used recycled computers to homework centers in cities where access to computers is hard to get for economic or other reasons. And training students on how to use computers and use computers to do science, technology . . .”

Under Parnell’s model, IBM uses employee volunteering to do more than just serve its community. The donations are paired with employees training students how to use the hardware and software, thus making the impact on the community greater and benefiting the company by encouraging the students to use computers.

How, then, do you go about promoting CSR through employee volunteer programs (EVPs) like IBM’s?

Find Your Experts

Chances are, you already have a number of employees who have spent years doing volunteer work or giving their time to a nonprofit. If you don’t know, or don’t know who they are, put out a call via internal communications, letting your organization know that an EVP will be built.

Seek out the employee volunteers who do the most but seek the least personal publicity. These are your true EVP ambassadors. When your EVP is built, these are they people you want to be the face of your company.

Their participation in the EVP serves a dual purpose. It builds participation by drawing like-minded employees to the program, and it builds external PR through the example set in the community by the participants.

The expertise of these volunteer ambassadors is also needed to build the EVP because they are the ones most experienced with this type of CSR, even if they don’t realize it.

Find Their Skills

Once you’ve identified your volunteer ambassadors and created your EVP planning committee, it’s time to decide how you’re going to structure how employees give their time. Corporations that are large and niche-based, like IBM in Parnell’s example, are set up for large-scale volunteer days, or even weeks.

Private organizations that can offer employees paid time off for volunteer days can partner with a single nonprofit. This deeper relationship with a charitable organization is a great way for your business to get involved, as it can last years.

However, if your organization is smaller or encompasses multiple business units, building a skills-based EVP can prove more beneficial for your employees and your community. Skills-based volunteering matches individuals and groups of individuals with charitable endeavors that match their personal or professional skills. If you’re a large engineering and architecture firm, you can, for example, encourage one business unit to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity and another to complete environmental clean-up.

This model EVP will attract more employees to the program, as pairing your EVP with one nonprofit partner can alienate employees who would otherwise participate. Employees want to care about their volunteer experiences as much as their jobs. Letting them choose how they interact with the community. Suggest to the legal team that it volunteer with community justice programs. If, however, they choose to use their skills for a different nonprofit, herein lies the beauty of the model.

Find the Recognition

Employees participate in an EVP for a variety of reasons, but they’re rarely about recognition. Just building an EVP in your organization can go a long way to recognizing their efforts and to boosting CSR within the company.

However, that doesn’t mean your EVP should be without recognition or reward of any kind. Leaving it at, “They do it because they care,” is not enough. Incorporate participation in the EVP into the corporate reward program. Look to the example of how nonprofits recognize their volunteers, and begin a Volunteer of the Month award in your company. Publicize this internally and externally.

If your organization can afford to do so or is allowed to do so, offer employees paid time off to do their charitable work. Offer the financial reward of matching any monetary donations made by the employees. Not only are these matches tax write-offs, they can be communicated to the public as a sign of CSR.

Find Your Voices

Once your EVP is built, it’s time to roll it out within the organization and the community. Plan your roll-out strategically. Depending on your location, find out when volunteers are celebrated nationally, and use that as your rollout month or week. In the U.K., National Volunteers Week is being celebrated for an extended period this year: June 1-12. In the U.S., National Volunteer Month is celebrated every April. Create your own organizational volunteer week to highlight both facets of the EVP and volunteer opportunities within your community.

Share any information via social media channels so that your community can see what you are planning. Once employees begin volunteering as part of the EVP, encourage them to share with Public Information Officers their own pictures and stories.

During large-scale volunteer days, media officers should be made available to document the efforts of employees. This documentation is key to the promotion of CSR among employees and to the community at large. Without it, no one knows what efforts are being made.

Writing for inc42, Kevin Kruse defined employee engagement as, “People give loyalty and discretionary effort to those who foster growth, show appreciation, share a compelling vision and are trustworthy.”

This extends to efforts to engage customers as well as potential employees. Both customers and recruits care about how corporations are impacting communities, not just about products and money. Planning a thorough EVP will be key to CSR and employee engagement.

Thanks Hattie!

Hattie James is a writer and researcher living in Boise, Idaho. She has a varied background, including education and sports journalism. She is a former electronic content manager and analyst for a government agency. She holds an MBA and enjoys local ciders and the outdoors. Follow her on Twitter: @hejames1008

What’s in Your Tone? How to Communicate Effectively

I invited Stuart Hearn, who has worked in HR for over 20 years, to write a post for us about how internal communication can affect external communication.

internal-external-communica

What’s in Your Tone? How to Communicate Effectively

It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it.

Getting your point across while simultaneously acknowledging the point of the person you’re talking to isn’t always easy — particularly if the other person is an employee receiving feedback, or a customer giving feedback.

Internal and external communication are both extremely important to a company’s success. External communication is often prioritised because it’s focused on the customer, but internal communication could be impacting your company’s external communication.

External Communication

Brand voice is something that companies spend a lot of time considering — how does their brand sound? Is their brand voice connecting with their customers? Is their brand voice consistent across their website, social media, customers services and sales team?

A brand voice should be singular and consistent. Brand voice can have different tones, just as an individual’s own voice can. Tone should adjust to empathise with the customer being communicated to.

Your tone online and in marketing materials should reflect your style of business. Finance based companies tend to use jargon to create demonstrate authority and come across as well informed. Contrastingly, a children’s party business would be friendlier and bouncier in tone and use more simple sentences.

In scenarios involving customers, the tone needs to be able to adjust. Is there a disgruntled and frustrated customer on the end of the phone? The tone of voice needs to be empathetic and diligent. How about a client who is worried, teetering dangerously close to the edge of panic? A reassuring and informative tone of voice would be needed.

Getting the tone of voice pitch perfect is an integral part of effective communication. Without it, a dialogue can become frustrating or simply hard work when the two or more people involved aren’t on the same page. As a business, it’s down to them to get the tone of voice right and make sure they’re making the utmost effort to be on the customer’s page.

This is easier said than done, and actually the tone of internal communications may play a larger role in external communications than businesses realise.

Internal Communication

A company’s internal communication impacts external communication. Employees who feel valued and satisfied in the workplace through clear and motivational communication with their managers and co-workers will make customers feel valued and satisfied.

The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences (PDF) states: “Internal communication activities focus on better informing and engaging an organisation’s workforce. The way in which such news and information is received, discussed and acted upon by employees will ultimately have a positive or negative influence on business performance.”

Think about the tone of voice in internal communication. An employee spoken to tersely by a manager may be quick to turnaround and converse in the same manner with a customer, whereas a manager with a lot of energy in their voice can instil that same passion in employees. As Sue Shellenbarger writes: “An energetic voice comes across to listeners as authentic, inspiring trust.”

The way companies communicate internally is changing for the better. The influence of the digital world and social media has affected the way we communicate in the workplace. We expect instant, real-time communication and the introduction of innovative performance management software reflects that.

Increasingly companies are introducing feedback apps that can be accessed by any employee, from any device and any time they choose. These apps allow teams to collaborate constantly, enable employees to give and receive real-time feedback and give managers directions on how to ensure that the tone of feedback is always constructive.

When the right tone is used, internal communication can motivate employees and, in turn, improve external communication and customer satisfaction.

Thanks Stuart!

Stuart Hearn is an HR Director and entrepreneur specialising in performance management software. Stuart has worked in the HR sector for over 20 years and previously cofounded PlusHR, a leading UK HR consultancy organisation, and Onetouchteam, a cloud-based HR management tool. Connect with Stuart on LinkedIn.