LatinOcean – Digital Marketing Consulting

With “Linchpin”, Seth Godin has hit the mark as far as conveying a message that resonates with employers, employees, the self-employed, the entrepreneur: work is art in as much as it is a process filled with generosity provided by individuals that create, connect, produce; and ultimately has an effect on others.

Perhaps the book’s punch comes from the fact that the metaphors and actual advice avoid the usual career advice gaff and aims to engage the reader at the emotional level that is required to be an effective worker, as opposed to a ‘steady job holder’.

This post – the first in more than a few months – is direct result of his pep-write: I’ve been too busy to “ship” (deliver, produce, think, give). I had great excuses: I am dedicating a lot of time to other projects including Digital Reach, and I had ruined the original template of this blog (it still is as you can see), so I did not want too many visitors.

I am getting out there again: selling, writing, consulting, pushing the things I stand for; which as you know it’s double-shit scary. Double because you can fail, which makes you feel you want to go hide under a rock and never come out; or you succeed, which means you have to get tense again and deliver so that your client is happy to pay the bill you sent them and then want to come back for some more.

Obviously if you dislike Godin, this will likely not be the book to make you a convert. It’s more of the same, perhaps sharper than ever, less sympathetic and with a desire to shake the ‘factory worker’ mindset and bring out the unruly genius in all of us.

If you get to it, let me know what were your impressions.

Have a great rest of the week

Recently, I had the chance to review a recruitment website. I thought it was appropriate to include in that report some recommendations regarding the nature of the content that needs to be created and published to have a good go at getting people to come back to the site, interact, refer, etc.

So I pulled out a little framework that might make a bit more sense that just saying ‘this content is/is not engaging/appealing’; the acronym for it is SWIFT (self, work, influences, fans, transaction) and is built to be used for all types of websites, but I elaborate a bit on it below thinking about recruiment websites, specifically.

Self

Describe your company, your offering, the value that you intend to provide your candidate and customer base. The majority of websites in the HR and recruitment vertical you will come across, dedicate all their time and pages to this area.

Work

Show case studies that demonstrate how your expertise has helped your customers. This helps materialise the claims made in the Self section to your readers.

Influences

This is a very important section for artists and freelancers (see the MySpace profile for indie bands, because it offers their readers and followers an insight into their craft, whilst also creating a bond founded on compatibility and identification with one another.

For a company website the influences section can translate to Links page showing who the company follows from a business philosophy or operations perspectives, as well as including recommendations to their readers

Fans

This is the testimonials component of your website; this element of content is effectively produced by clients, candidates, suppliers and partners; and it is intended to confirm that the claims made in the Self section are accurate. The unadulterated content from Fans and friends is very powerful when developing online word of mouth. The ‘to-do’ for the publisher/owner is to enable function that enables this interaction.

Transaction

These are the dynamic content sections that will allow publishers to interact with its web audience. The range of services is vast, but the commonality is that they permit the website visitors make an exchange online. Apply online, call for help, self-assess, register are all transactions need to create relationship depth with the website’s constituents.

That’s it! I guess you can also use this approach to evaluate sites and assess if there are any gaps to address. Let me know if you can build further or see glaring omissions, etc.

Have a great week

Usually I write a post and move on.

However this one got a good comment, which you may miss out on if you don’t check previous entries.

By good I don’t mean I concur 100%. I somewhat disagree with the outlook expressed in the last item. By good I mean it highlights a few key messages regarding using networks as a sourcing tool or advertising medium:

- The network environment gives you access to additional candidate info you may not get when advertising in the paper or a job board. It even gives you information about the people that decided not to go for the job; this has to be good intelligence for future postings

- Recruiting becomes more personal and symmetric. You as a hirer have a few more obligations in things like response management, to ensure that your ad increases the strength of your network as opposed to the other way around

- Networks as promising sources of good candidates may/will deteriorate IF the hiring processes do not adapt to a network environment and the behaviors it spouses

Here is the comment again. Thanks Anonymous

My first foray into empirical research as part of LatinOcean. It is really more a brief compilation on how recruiters are using the system in the region in an attempt to transcend the hype and the buzz.

Don’t go too hard on me re. sample sizes and statistical relevance; nevertheless I hope it is of benefit to some of you out there, and feel free to pass. Enjoy