On Monday 16th November the second Social Recruiting Summit was held by ERE in New York City, much of the content is available online for you to reference. We have pulled together some of the presentations here so you can view them in one place, or view them on the main site.
Fred Wilson, VC and principle from Union Square Ventures (who have an impressive list of investments), is giving the keynote talk at the Social Recruiting Summit in NYC next week. He provides us with some of his thought and themes he will be talking about, go check out his post. But if you want the summary:
He rarely uses recruiters, he prefers to source top talent directly
He uses LinkedIn to develop a list of references
Just searching for talent is not enough, you have to promote your opportunities
There is a niche community for everything, find the one where your prospective candidate might hang out
His last point I suspect sums his whole presentation:
Social media is about showing up, hanging out, and earning trust.
Need a little help understanding this social media thing before you attend the event? Have a quick flick through this slide pack called “What the F**K is Social Media”
While focused on traditional marketing there are some clear messages for recruiters moving into social media. Firstly from Laurel:
Engagement, like all good relationships, often build slowly over time. The opposite of the short head of traditional marketing where there’s lots of activity for 4-6 weeks, quick return, then drops off/dies off quickly: social media is in the long tail, with lots of listening and discussion at the beginning and a quick seed into the community later, in the long tail. Six week stunts can only damage long term engagement campaigns. Or put it this way: social media becomes social advertising, a completely different kind of relationship.
Now Jeremiah shows us a great breakdown is your approach list a shotgun or a laser?
Shotgun
Laser
Description
Hiring multiple agencies to conduct social campaigns
Building a deeper relationship with a core group of influencers
Similar to
Interactive Advertising, “Fishing”
Influencer Relations, ‘Friending”
Benefits
Efficient way to get started, identify hot spots to pursue.
Deeper relationships with core influencers who may spread word of mouth, and become brand evangelists.
Risks
Brand burnout on community, risk of appearing disingenuous
Spending more resources on a smaller few reduces chances of spread.
Costs
Inexpensive. In this case, it was 15k X 8 agenices, for a total of 120k.
Costly. Relationship marketing estimated 50-100k in agency costs. Loaning 100 economy cars at 15k each around 1.5 million.
Takeaway
Ideal for the company that doesn’t understand social marketing and is willing to test on their own customers.
Ideal for company that’s ready to invest time, people and money on relationships.
So our questions to you are when you enter social media:
What do you hope to achieve?
Are you fishing or friending?
Are you looking for social advertising?
Are you looking for a long term relationship or a short buzz of activity?
Finally here is a great video from Laurel to sum it all up in 3 mins 50 seconds.
