Why aren’t you using Google advertising for recruitment?

As always, of course, Net Natives would always recommend advertising broadly across the major UK job boards. But we’re an online recruitment company, NOT a job board reseller – we want our clients to engage with the best talent, directly. We always challenge our clients to do more. We say, ”Why not compete against the job boards directly…!” If over 75% of job seekers turn to Google at the start of their job search and “Jobs” is consistently one of their top search terms, it should be pretty obvious why you would want to back up a job board advertising campaign with an effective Search Engine Marketing Campaign using Google. Coupled with effective online recruitment advertising, it is perfect for specific or ongoing recruitment campaigns. And here’s why…

• It’s a completely targeted approach – the correct advertising will only appeal to those who have searched for your requirements
• Geo-targeting –only showing ads to candidates in your geographic location. But…you could show your ads to those in one town or the whole of the UK (worth considering for contract roles or if you think people would relocate).
• Drive direct traffic to your own site – Cut out all middle men (especially the recruiters). You have control of the look and feel of your careers site and candidates can quickly find out what you’re all about.
• Promote your company as well as the recruitment – Candidates may also be your customers so even if you don’t employ them they may buy your products, or just talk about you to their mates. Win win!
• You set the budget – You never have to worry about overspend when you have established an effective budget and bidding level.
• Only pay for relevant clicks – You only pay for those who have actually clicked on your ads. Your ads could be seen millions of time but you only pay for those who look on your site, ones who want to apply.
• It’s cost effective – By only paying for relevant clicks and being very targeted with your advertising, if done effectively, Google could become your lowest cost per hire model.
• Turn it off when you want – Adwords can be stopped with a click. You can also edit your ads and keywords during a campaign and Adwords won’t charge you a penny extra.
• Be completely specific – You can keep your Adwords costs down by bidding on very specific terms. For example “C# developer job Brighton” would only cost you 4p per click as it’s so specific.
• Be creative and have fun with the adverts – As Adwords ads can be edited in real time and the costs are so low, you can experiment with lots of different Ad copy. Why not try emotive and factual copy to see how each performs. You can then use the feedback to improve your other marketing.
• Target “passive” job seekers - don’t just focus on jobs or recruitment. Think about how your ideal person would engage with searches and terms and bid for those terms as well.
• Target your competitors – Not everyone agrees with this, but it is within the “rules” to bid on your competitors keywords. This way if candidates are searching for jobs with your competitors you can make sure your company appears above them in the paid search results. Cheeky, I know, but it works.

All well and good. But be warned – ALWAYS make sure that your advert relates to the landing page you are driving traffic to and make it easy for candidates to apply when they are there. Right, here endeth the lesson. If anyone wants to talk to me about recruitment PPC campaigns in more detail or has more comments to add feel free.

5 Best Practice Considerations For Advertising On Facebook

If Facebook advertising works (and it does), why aren’t more business using it as an effective advertising or recruitment tool? I’m hoping that this article will share what www.netnatives.co.uk know and help build any companies out there considering using Facebook as a tool to build better campaigns. If you’ve got any questions or further suggestions, as always contact me.  Oh and I am not going to talk about company profiles or social media interaction in this post, will save that for later (needless to say, if you haven’t already begun building your company profile page on Facebook – get cracking).

Firstly some quick stats; these stats are always changing (for the better), but, in a nutshell, Facebook can rightly be called a phenomenon with 200 million active users, 18 million of those return daily. And its popularity is spread across all age groups; 12% of users are aged between 13-17, 29% aged 18 to 24, 30% aged 25- 34 and 29% aged 35 and above.  This demographically even split makes Facebook an amazing prospect for business advertising.

How does it work? It’s like Google…on steroids…

We all know Google Adwords Pay Per Click Platform enables advertisers to choose what keywords their ads would display against in Google search. Facebook have taken this a step further, enabling advertisers to only show ads to those targeted users who would be interested based on the detailed information captured by each user. Like Google, you are only charged when that relevant person clicks on your ad. Turn it off and on when you need. Simple.

The key to Facebook advertising is knowing and understanding your target demographic and making sure you reach them with adverts that resonate and are relevant.

So the first action is to work out who you want to reach and build a targeted campaign against that demographic. Below is an extract example of a targeted campaign to increase awareness and applications for a journalism course at a further education college we were advising. You can see how easy it is to target your campaign against age, gender, location, workplace, education and interests.

a snapshot of what targeting information you should include

Think about the possibilities here for who you want to reach and how they would register their interests on Facebook – the opportunities are endless. Think about the recruitment potential (both direct and branding), being able to direct specific campaigns to users who are working at a company you would like to target (Call Centre staff working for a competitor in an area, for example). Or a graduate campaign for specifc universities which have a distinctive talent pool. What about solicitors who have roots in Liverpool, but are finishing their training contract in London…

And don’t forget this is global. We recently ran a campaign for a global translation business that needed to hire Chinese translators in China. Through effective targeting we were able to pinpoint an ad to the 240 registered users who had registered their interests as “translator” or derivative – to ENORMOUS success…

But, and this is the real meat of the post, make sure that your campaign is relevant and resonates!

Here  are 5 key pointers to remember when designing your Facebook advertising campaigns:

1. Make Your Ads Campaign Specific.

So many businesses make the mistake of creating a general business ad with details of their company as a whole. The more specific the ad, the easier it will be for the viewer to decide whether it is relevant to them. Increasing relevant and cutting out irelevant clicks. It will also allow you to more clearly specify your key demographic i.e. age group, gender, interests.

Create an ad for each specific product/service you provide.

For example: For a Further Education College, instead of creating a general college ad they should create ads for their separate courses e.g.  a  journalism course ad with specific details about that course.

This leads onto the what you do with people when they get onto your site…

2. Think Carefully About The Ad Landing page

You could have the best ad in the world but if the viewer isn’t taken to a landing page that matches the ad copy , they’ll lose interest. If you are recruiting land on the relevant work for us page. If you are a college looking to increase enrolments, land on the right course page.

3. Make Your Ads Emotive

Create a reason for the user to click on your ad. Remember you are targeting ads to their interests. Ask your viewer a question.

For example: A further education college may ask “Do you want to be a journalist?” when alluding to their journalism course.

Making bold statements that grab the viewer’s attention will always gain you more clicks.

Be daring as well as informative with your ad copy and you’ll definitely get a higher click through rate.

4. Choose a Memorable Picture

Unlike plain Google text ads, Facebook allows you to include a picture with your ad. Your company logo won’t always gain maximum clicks. Good pictures of people get more clicks than anything else, but images that closely relate to your product are always a good choice.

5. Be Competitive and Realistic with your Bids

Although quite self-explanatory it is important to take note that you can run your advertisement for a specific time period and can specify the date and time the campaign starts and finishes. Impressions are the number of times your advert is displayed on facebook. I would always recommend paying per click instead of impression as this should be more cost effective.

Ensure your daily budget and cost per click is both competitive and realistic. It may take a certain amount of trial and error to gauge the right bid per click and you should start at facebook’s suggested bid when you first start listing your ad.

Why wouldn’t any business consider this. What stops companies wanting to engage in this direct approach?

Time and inclination. Look, everything I have put up here does take time and you need to put the effort in to get the results (or outsource to a reputable partner who will save you time and will be transparent in their charges). Whether you do this yourself or work with a partner (mmmm and maybe I know someone who could help…), I hope this post has helped focus on the potentials .

So to sum up, Facebook advertising can be extremely cost effective and a valuable advertising platform if used with thought and care. Don’t be afraid to be imaginative when writing your ad copy and choosing your picture and monitor your click through rate carefully as this will be a good indicator for how well your ads are performing and how much you should bid per ad. If you want more detailed help with setting up a facebook advertising campaign or want information on our flat fee recruitment service please get in touch.

thoughts on setting up an employee referral scheme

I wanted to put down some thoughts about employee referrals as there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information or help out there for businesses. Probably because it erodes the revenues of recruitment companies and the agencies charge a fortune to put something in place. Well, nuts to that. If it’s worth knowing, it’s worth sharing…

And look, of course, we want you to use our online flat fee recruitment service, that’s why we’re here. But let’s all try and shake up the prehistoric recruitment model and help each other become better at recruitment.
We know that sometimes the best person is the friend of the friend already working for you. You just need to make sure you are getting the message out to that you are hiring effectively to your cheerleaders.
My thoughts here should be seen as a basic structure and you can always ask call me for more advice if you need it.

Before you put any referral schemes in place consider the five key elements:
1. What type of people are your schemes aimed at?
2. Is there are defined timescale for the schemes?
3. What sort of bonus should the hires reflect?
4. How do the schemes fit with the culture of your company?
5. How will you promote your schemes?

So Rule Number 1. Plan, plan, plan is the name of the game. The more you put in, the more you put out.

 
Rule Number 2. Create an employee focus group, ask your key stakeholders what would incentivise them to refer people. Empower ownership from day 1.

How best to promote, what schemes would be best, are league table relevant, that sort of thing.
Remember that everyone is motivated differently, mix up the schemes and what people can get out of them.

Have fun with the process.

Rule Number 3. Give the scheme an identity, a name and maybe even a logo. Make it stand out, make everyone know what they are talking about.

Establish timeframes and cut off points.

Be clear with the message and incentives

Rule Number 4. Promote Promote Promote You can offer your employees amazing incentives but if they don’t know your referral scheme exists you won’t get any referrals. Pretty obvious, really…
1. Cleary explain the schemes with everyone in companywide of team meetings. Keep the schemes on the agendas.
2. Use email, work notice boards, newsletters, whatever it takes to keep everyone informed
3. Inform every new employee the scheme exists when they start working for your organisation
4. Even at interview stage, let your candidates know about the scheme
5. If you use them, send out the details of the scheme with employee payslips (this is a great medium with sales people!)

Rule Number 5. Embrace and use relevant social media networks. I may make this a seperate post, as this could be such a big topic because social media sites are perfectly designed for you to promote a referral scheme.

Take advantage of the fact that many of your employees will already be using them and it is direct. USE SOCIAL MEDIA!

Not only should you encourage your guys to use their own LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook network to promote the jobs and scheme you should at the very least…

1. Create a Referral Scheme Page on your Company page on Facebook and LinkedIn.
The page should have:
a. Details of the incentives offered for successful referrals
b. Information on all the jobs that you are trying to fill.
c. Details of all the methods staff can refer people .
e.g. email, phone, facebook application form etc.
d. Clear and eye catching imagery to get everyone engaged
e.g. images and video.
2. Regularly tweet about your scheme on Twitter making sure you engage with your network.

Rule Number 6. Keep your career page up to date – Again, I may expand on this later as this is a massive subject. Suffice to say, make sure that your career site (or work for us page) reflects the fact that you are hiring and is as clear as possible as to your recruitment process.

Rule Number 7. Always respond to every referral – you should ALWAYS respond to every applicant, but even more so when it is a friend of an employee!

Final Rule. Measure & Review - the only way you’ll know if your referral scheme has been a success is if you can measure all the referrals you receive. Simple.
1. Add all referred candidates to your applicant tracking system, even if it is just an excel spreadsheet. Even if they aren’t suitable for the role you’re recruiting for now, who knows, they could be perfect for a job you want to fill later on. Your candidates are your clients
2. Keep a referral database with a record of every referral made and who made the referral. This will be useful when you want to find out who to reward for the most successful referrals.
3. Measure which methods work and increase that exposure. If you find a lot of people through, say, Facebook, maybe try some focused Facebook advertising next time round?

I hope this has been useful. I think the key message is to give it a go and have a bit of fun with the format. I would love to hear about other ideas and schemes , though, so please get involved or get in contact.

lateral ideas for making money out of job boards in a tighter market

Posted 2nd February 2009

“It’s not the strongest or most intelligent that survive; it’s those that are willing and able to adapt and change.”

How many times are we now going to hear this quote now that we are so close to Darwin’s anniversary? Today I am going to appropriate it to use specifically in the context of Job Boards and how to increase revenues in this tightening market.

By the way, this is my first foray into blogging; those of you who know me know I love to put the world to rights (ideally in the pub), I am viewing this as a natural, viral extension to that process. Please know that there is no agenda, I want to open up the discussion and get feedback and constructive ideas. Feel free to link to me www.linkedin.com/in/stevevo (well, OK a small agenda).

Simple fact is that with fewer jobs available, employers and recruiters are cutting back on recruitment and advertising. Yet most job boards are receiving and reporting record numbers of users, visits, time on sites and applications.

Here are my thoughts (online not in the pub for the first time) on how to help increase revenues without impacting on the integrity of the job board.

1. Lateral advertising opportunities – with more people spending time on your site what opportunities are there for NON job advertising? Why stop at job ads when you have such a relevant and captured audience who are open to suggestions? First of all I would look at relevant higher education training courses and other “employment” related opportunities. But why stop there? Become ‘demand led’, don’t think about what you are and can offer as a job board, turn it around and think about what else your audience wants or needs. By thinking laterally maybe you could open up both B2C and B2B opportunities (amazon.co.uk, lastminute.com, anyone?).
2. Brand affiliation – whether they are recruiting or not, why not create space for your current customers to sell their services. This is different from point 1 (which could be anything from training courses to Waitrose), here I mean your current employer clients who are not recruiting. If I have a construction job board and Balfour Beatty are not hiring, I would be looking at ways in which I could still incorporate their services onto my site (content, microsite, etc). This would help  drive their brand affiliation with their audience – your audience, who are not just job seekers, but also valuable & relevant customers, business partners or affiliates. You could educate your clients to this opportunity and provide a platform to do so.
3. Get paid when people leave your site – if your site is driving NIL results, why not get paid when the job seeker leaves your site. I am thinking of a “reverse aggregator”, i.e. in thewww.workcircle.com mould, where a PPC model could be implemented. It’s scary, but if someone is leaving your site anyway, why not get paid for the privilege and help them with their journey? Another option is looking at what www.JobG8.com and map out more of the job board market.

Of course you can also look at online recruitment fairs, micro sites for campaigns, response management services, etc, but I want to focus on simple ideas that shouldn’t impact on your technology capabilities or cost yet could have a direct impact on your revenues.

I am sure that some you are already thinking in this way, but whether you are or not, I refer to good old Darwin’s quote, “it’s those that are willing and able to adapt and change…that will survive”.

Recruitment advertising – how to sell when the client says “we’re not recruiting”

Posted 12th February 2009

Recruitment sales has had it pretty easy – there I said it. I am not saying it has been all rosy (I should know, I launched a “not very successful” job board for a legal publisher a few years ago), but the sector has benefited from year on year growth since its inception.

We all know now how this has all changed and changed dramatically.

But why are most job boards still targeting their teams on just call numbers? Yes, it is a “numbers game”, but will 100 sales calls a day work in this environment when it is easy for the client to say “we are not recruiting”?

The last blog, I looked at creating lateral advertising opportunities, I want to look at some potential ideas for managing, targeting and rewarding online recruitment sales teams to succeed in this market. As before, these are just ideas, with no agenda, merely putting thoughts out there for feedback.

• When anyone makes any call, find out as much information as possible – who else are they using who signs off the budget, what roles/sector are difficult to hire, when is the next review, etc. focus the information for the next call.
• Sell to your strength, know your key markets which roles are hard to fill against your portfolio. Don’t just point to massive application rates. call with a case study.
• Sell that case study effectively to the competitors of your clients.
• Why just sell ad space sell recruitment services – what are the cyclical timings for recruitment services (grad campaigns, summer placements, major project works)
• What rewards and incentives are you setting your sales guys? Can you be flexible in offering days in lieu, mornings off for most client wins or any other stat that you want to focus on?
• If you have a print brand, are you doing enough to effectively cross sell campaigns across both platforms
• Again cross platform sales across various niches?
• Get campaigns working, review amend track. Account management should mean manage the accounts.
• Can you offer clients reward/loyalty points for annual contracts?
• Can you offer brand affiliation spots across the site?
• Hunter/Farmers – should your key sales people be doing the numbers or would be more effective to create some dedicated telesales teams, with the strategic clients and deals focused by the “big guns”

Finally if there are no jobs, with that client that only means no jobs now – keep in touch with updated newsletters, relevant industry trends, add value.

The list goes on and on and most people are doing this and more, all I am saying, early in the morning (well it was when I begun this), is that there ways and means of focusing your sales and helping to focus the mind of the clients (agents or direct), by doing more than just selling ad space – I’m afraid that those days are gone for now.

The future of recruitment; where do we go from here?

Posted 20th February 2009

Simple points reiterated; recession and a massive decrease in employment growth means that…

1. Employers are finally able to take a breath and look at strategic recruitment and recruitment strategies rather than ongoing reactive growth.
2. Recruitment budgets are being cut from advertising and consultancy fees.
3. Suppliers will have to become creative to match this change.

This is going to completely change the recruitment sector so this is the first of a mini series with my thoughts on how I think this will affect us all and ideas for change, firstly, this is what I think it could mean for the online recruitment industry…

• Job boards offering more recruitment services, not just through technology with price per placement but full “human” response management, blurring the lines between recruitment companies, advertising agencies and job boards. If I were a media owner with a portfolio of sites this is what I would explore immediately (Emap, Haymarket, Incisive, Centaur, UBM, RBI, step forward).
• Merger of the niche job boards to survive, either by acquisition or through centralised affiliation selling, creating gateway technology to host each others’ jobs.
• Centralised out source of job board sales selling via networks to media houses (why doesn’t RBI already offer this service and re-sell other job boards?).
• The growth of the corporate job board built to compete against the job board sites (tesco.jobs anyone?).
• Rise of the widgets for aggregators, with targeted jobs placed on blogs and other social networks (www.jobamatic.com becoming the norm and provided by the aggregators).
• More focus on the employer brand and employee communication driven via job boards and social networks.
• Rise of the flat fee online recruitment services selling across networks of job boards.
• A welcome return for traditional recruitment companies to actually provide real recruitment, with more demand for traditional search services regardless of the level.

What will hold the industry back from moving forward and taking this next stage effectively? The right people as well s the right strategy.

Despite what many may think - selling recruitment advertising is different to recruitment services and any company that will want to go through this route will need to carefully consider the strategy and who will implement it for them. All previous hires have been based on ability to sell ad space and increase revenue from that point of view, but this new world will require different skills.

There are big steps to take and the right strategy needs to be implemented thoughtfuly..

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts and whether you think this is all nonsense.

Job Boards and the passive job seeker

March 3rd 2009

What’s the silver bullet for attracting the passive job seeker online? Now more than ever, there is a distinct difference between the active and passive job seeker and I want to talk about some ideas for how job boards can attract and sell the concept of “passive” seeker sourcing and headhunting services through their sites.

I thought about this a lot after digesting the most recent NORAS results (job seekers turn to the internet shock, again!!!), the focus and terminology, as always, is on “looking”. Nearly all of the emphasis in job board technology development and sales strategy in the past 10 years has been placed on the active seeker. That’s fine when the market is buoyant – when, by increasing eyeballs onto a site you increase applications, job alerts and CV registrations – using these stats to drive advertising. And as I have said before, the job boards have had it relatively easy for the past 10 years, so not needed to change this model.

But how do you address the fact that not all of the best people will now be actively looking and your current business model focus is on the increased numbers of active seekers? I’ve discussed before that we will begin to see a return of the traditional recruitment techniques in recruitment consultancies. Any decent headhunt business will point out that a lot of good talent will not be looking as actively as before for fear of the unknown in this current climate, happy to stay where they are, unless directly approached.

I think that there could be 3 immediate ways in which online recruitment could focus on increasing and monetising their passive candidate intake.

1. Create a discreet headhunt specific part of the site. Create a part of your site that is entirely discreet, where potential candidates can register to be headhunted for specific, relevant jobs, a “make me an offer” section. Candidates create an anonymous CV that highlights their skills, experiences and job demands. These guys can be promoted to a select band of DIRECT clients, who have paid through for this VIP service, to then contact them directly with their highlighted job (again opportunity for double dipping revenue options). I can see this working best for the niche legal, finance, etc sites.
2. Improve your relationship with your database. I am registered as a candidate with a number of sites to see how they work, I am always sold to, never advised. I would strongly recommend understanding your database and start to add value to them. Provide salary surveys, industry content, update on news, build trust (not just sending them emails which are not read). I would look at ways in which I could find out as much as I can, are they still looking, would they consider a move for money, what are their fears and concerns? Make some phone calls! That way if you can get to a point where you can know which jobs could be highlighted to whom at which point, not just blanket ads. Add value.
3. Effective in-contextual advertising. If have you have a job board linked to relevant content, this is a massive way of charging premium and really drawing in the passive candidates. If I am reading an article about recruitment aquisitions and a recruitment director role appears – I am more likely to view it, because of the relevance to me, the reader. I know that many of you reading this will say you are doing this (Emap, CMPi, Haymarket, Guardian, Haymarket and the rest), but I don’t think that you are not doing it well enough. It needs to be manual, it needs to be sold, not promoted via an xml feed, it needs to be RELEVANT to the reader otherwise it is just another ad. I know this is not always possible with daily updates, but it can be done when sold at a premium for weekly positioned ads against content that resonates.

And I know all about the likes of www.jobfox.com or www.jobster.com screaming that one day we will all create active profiles to be hunted. But there are many reasons why it hasn’t, and won’t work in the UK (www.LinkedIn.com for one), which I am happy to talk about over a beer or two, but too much to go into now.

Again, as ever, hope this has posed provided some thoughts and your comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated. And happy to link up with anyone and talk about this in more detail.

job boards providing outplacement services

Posted March 13th

I want to talk about outplacement services within job boards, so please permit me a small “I told you so” moment. At the beginning of 2008, when I worked for a job board software provider, I suggested that during the last down turn in the economy for recruitment industry (2001, I was a Director at TMP-now Hudson), the businesses that thrived were the outplacement firms helping clients who were making redundancies. “Let’s look at outplacement job board solutions for our clients”, I said…

Fast forward less than a year and within the last month and we now have monster evolutions and IrishJobs.ie looking to provide these services. I am not just telling you this story as a case of I told you so, but this is another interesting new development in the merger of recruitment services and job boards, which I have discussed in previous posts.

In the cases of IrishJobs it seems that they are really just re-marketing their traditional job board service replacing the emphasis – similar to what Jobsite announced earlier this year with their new redundancy advice site. Monster is partnering with an outplacement company in the US so neither are really changing their busniess model, but why should that be the end of the service?

When positioned correctly, job boards can be the brand that candidates and employers identify with and place their ongoing trust in – unlike most recruitment companies. These are places that dedicate themselves to their sectors and niches, which can add value through content, branding, jobs and all other recruitment services.

Why couldn’t outplacement be a part of those services as well and add value to your clients and your industry at large?

On a simple level, just because your clients’ aren’t hiring, couldn’t they been seen to be doing something by promoting themselves positively on your site whilst you work to help the industry through promoting “soft services”. “As a leading client in xxx industry, we have partnered with xxx job board to help continue our support of our people and the industry…etc, etc.” I mentioned this brand affiliation in an earlier post about lateral online recruitment revenues.

Marry this with simple outplacement services (CV builder, career advice, etc) and you have an rudimentary online outplacement service or partner with someone such has been done with and Monster Evolutions.

But this would just be the start, why not create a true online outplacement service that actually adds value? Why shouldn’t you start to build business models whereby you can take the CVs of recently redundant and place them through online services within your network of prefered clients?

As always, I am always happy to discuss in more detail and very interested to hear your feedback.

joining up job boards and face to face events – extend the brand

Posted April 3rd 2009

The constant theme in these posts is that recruitment advertising is not going to come back as it was before, what is needed now is to look at alternative ways to increase revenues from a decreasing space.

I hope I have added food for thought with previous posts about lateral revenues, outsource and out-placement opportunities, and headhunt services.

In my first post I touched on online recruitment fairs. I want to return to this in more detail as an excellent opportunity to extend the job board brand and add more recruitment services.

In the past 7 years there has been exponential growth in two areas of the media space, recruitment advertising and events. Yet for the most part these two areas have been largely distinct. Mostly because, as a job board owner, you would not want to alienate your major client base, the recruitment consutancies and agencies. However, now that they have left you, why not look at ways to capitalise on this opportunity for targeted direct employers.

Virtual Recruitment Fair software, which simply plugs into your current software and CMS is already out there and keeps on improving. Some publishers have trialled their own version, Trinity Mirror is running something at the moment (the service, I think, misses several tricks and has terrible user experiences, but at least they are trying to increase yield and their service). Adicio were at the Onrec Conference and they demonstrated that they are pretty much leading the way with their plug in virtual fair platforms.

But why stop at virtual? What more can be offered? Job boards are increasingly the brand that job seekers and direct clients are turning to in this climate rather than the recruitment consultancies. Am I missing something, but why isn’t there a job board that is currently delivering compelling recruitment fairs that engages the job seekers and employers online but also delivers a powerful face to face experience, with all the additional opportunities that can bring? An event that adds value to your audience and extends the brand. Particularily when most job board owners are media companies that also own event businesses!

Jobserve is trying something similar with jobservelive.com.

Personally, I would have had more niche events, that were sector and geographically specific, with a less confusing mix of attendees and exhibitors. And would also have joined up the virtual with the face to face more effectively, through micro site creation and relevant job listings and application processes on and offline to track the success. But it is still an attempt to look at online recruitment creatively.

And there are many other ways in which job boards could create effective on and offline events which add value and increase revenues. There are various options, but it’s mostly common sense, boiling down to the relevance, resonance and return on investment for all involved.

And why does it just need to be a recruitment fair, what other face to face experiences could be considered? What other ways can you extend your brand and services?

As always these are just some thoughts and ideas, if you would like me to expand on these points, feel free to get in touch. I am always interested and appreciative of feedback and comments.

I have had a couple of requests to build a forum for this discussion, so have put something together called very grandly Recruitment Futurology on LinkedIn. Feel free to join up, it is a place for Job Board stakeholders, online recruitment specialists and HR professionals to share ideas on new ways job boards and online recruitment can be effective in the new economy.

social media and recruitment

Posted April 29th 2009

This is just a small post this one, but one I thought would be timely considering that the focus for the onrec conference is social media and that there is a new social media in recruitment conference soon to be held.

I think it is interesting that for each of these conferences there will be no external industry guides to provide some factual ideology and thoughts. I would have thought that a sensible debate on the legal raimifactions needs to be addressed – by experts, not salesman. There has already been a case of Bank refusing  to allow HR to use social media for recruitment due to legal implications. The obvious problems of perceived discrimination and privacy violation are likely to rear their ugly heads.

Also was interested to read in the FT yesterday that 60% of Twitter users fail to tweet again in the following month. If that’s the case, where does that leave the next big thing?

Lots of “experts” seem to be coming out of the wood work for these conferences. Not sure how we have all become experts by being merely early adopters, identifiers and users. I can’t talk, I have just finished a detailled social media strategy for a large college. But there are many issues around social media and it is easy to represent yourself online when YOU are the brand not a transient employee.

Would be interested to know people’s thoughts in this one. As always comments are warmly welcomed.

Will it ever be the same again?….No

Posted May 22nd 2009

An interesting proposition from Bill Gates,

“The only companies that will succeed will be those that obsolete their own products before somebody else does.”

I really don’t think that the recruitment industry as a whole has grasped how much change is going to come in the next few years. But it is certainly the employers who are antiquating their products right now.

Through financial necessity and improved online services, employers are no longer reliant on recruitment companies to recruit their hires and are going directly to the source themselves – online. Invariably employers are finding the majority of the right talent through job boards and online tools and have begun to question what value recruitment companies are adding in a world where they have access some of the best talent themselves.

Compound this with more people have been looking for work than ever before and not many have had a pleasant experience from the recruitment companies themselves. The knock on effect will continue to be tremendous, with those new employers becoming the hiring managers of the future.

It’s obvious and a little trite to say it but the only recruitment companies that will survive will be the ones that really add value. That value has to be providing candidates that employers would not be able to find themselves. The directly sourced, true passive candidate will nearly always need to be approached discreetly by someone with market knowledge and experience. Whoever provides this type of talent will always be in demand and rightly so.

There is still a need to manage, filter and match the massive response levels for online applications which is time consuming for the client. Some recruitment companies are creatively offering this service in “unbundled packages” = cheap recruitment. But, if I were the client I would question the mercenary nature and the companies’ long term plan for these services? “So you mean we could have done this before but you didn’t tell me?” Nice.

There will be (and already are) some successful online recruitment companies but their model is based on competitive service and price from the start. Already adding value and providing effective response management and not tainted by being seen as a traditional recruitment company.

Will all traditional recruitment companies then become hybrids of response management and head-hunters? I doubt it, which profitable recruitment business would wish to cannibalise their fees?  Which reasonably sized succesful recruitment business could effect such a seismic change? My thoughts are that there is certainly going to be a lot more treading on toes between the services offered by the consultancies, agencies and online recruitment companies. An increase in the success of the niche recruiter and growth of the dedicated online recruitment business.

And job boards? I am going to come on to them later, I think. I have spoken about it in the past, but I think that there are some new developments that will be potential game changers and would like to throw them out there to see what people think.

As always, interested to hear the feedback and thoughts. There are some interesting debates going on within the Recruitment Futurology Group, feel free to get involved.

the new home for our online recruitment blog

We have bitten the bullet and finally migrated across from typepad onto here – seduced by the smoother app intergrations and increased functionality.

The only annoying aspects were that we have lost all of our lovely comments (my fault) and that all of the posts seem to have been posted on the same day (again, I hold my hands up to this one)…Still this feels better and we have a lot more to say and do here.

I have also moved away from it all being mostly about job boards (although I will always have  more to say on that subject matter) and to cover online recruitment as a whole. And I have linked it more directly to the http://www.NetNatives.co.uk business – because, well because Net Natives is an online recruitment business and that’s what we know and do…

So, whether you have come over from the old typepad site, or you are checking us out for the first time - welcome, make yourself feel at home.

Flat Fee Recruitment. What exactly is it?

Hello hello, Don here – I’m an online marketing and social media consultant at Net Natives and will be discussing all things social, engaging and recruitmenty and hopefully can give some good advice on using social media and online marketing techniques to improve recruitment processes and attract more visitors to your site.

Today I want to talk a little bit about Flat Fee Recruitment, one of our key areas of speciality for www.NetNatives.co.uk but something that too many businesses have no idea what it is or that something this good can be really true.

It’s a not too long an article (I promise!), but in it I am going to explain not only what Flat Fee Recruitment is but that it …

1. is the future of recruitment in the UK
2. will force every business to rethink how they recruit and what they want from their services
3. is suitable for nearly EVERY vacancy in the UK
4. is a flat rate per role, no matter the salary
5. puts the candidates and clients closer
6. ensures that the client has ownership of all candidate relationship
7. combines innovative use of technology with manual filtering
8. provides a transparent high value service should be at the heart of all good flat fee recruitment services.

Flat Fee Recruitment is becoming the industry standard name, but you’ll also hear it referred to as fixed fee recruitment, flat rate recruitment or unbundled recruitment (this phrase is mainly used by the traditional recruitment agencies, who we know, don’t have a clue what it is).

Basically if everyone is using the internet to find jobs, the service of recruitment companies has changed from being direct sources of talent to being response managers of applications. The best candidates are all available online and respond to the adverts, but the recruitment companies haven’t changed their pricing models.

Traditional recruiters have been providing job board posting, response management and candidate selection services for years. Where have the cost savings been for the clients? Why do the candidates that applied for the job belong to the recruitment company’s database not the end hiring client? Why did the recruiters earn more for higher salary jobs when the job board charges were the same no matter what the salary was?  All has to change and the downturn has helped expose these failings.

Quick bit of background that we all know – for the last year or so the recruitment industry has been f0rced to adapt due to a surge in unemployment turning the market from candidate driven to employer driven. This had been coupled with businesses heavily reducing their recruitment spend and using their internal HR teams to recruit new staff. The tide has been turning even before recession hit with job boards like TotalJobs and Monster becoming the primary job search method for millions of job hunters.

This changing environment has spawned a demand for a cost effective, transparent recruitment service – one that uses the enhancements in online recruitment. Flat Fee Recruitment! No longer can recruitment firms expect the bloated, percentage determined fees they have relied on for years for services that were convoluted, at best, disingenuous, at worst. We saw the bubble finally burst in the property market and the same will be true of the UK recruitment industry.

Hiring companies are still turning to traditional recruiters because of the cost for job posting and the massive amount of time spent filtering all of the applications. But this is why there is now a 3^rd way to recruit – Flat Fee Recruitment.

A good flat fee recruitment service should include multiple job board posting, manual response management and candidate filtering as standard. It should embrace technological developments like CV parsing. Traditional recruitment companies have not seen the value of advanced applicant tracking systems or technologies like CV parsing and their customers have suffered. By working closely with customers to determine their exact requirement clever use of kill questions and online application forms can be utilised so the maximum value is added. Also handing the client control of their candidate shortlists with their own dedicated applicant tracking system account ensures absolute transparency.

If you feel differently, or can expand on my definition please comment. We’d love to know your thoughts.

Recruitment tips and advice – learn to do more yourself…

I am going to expand on some of these points later (especially the effective referral schemes and social media strategy), but wanted to get out there some simple recruitment tips and advice that we know help in the hiring process and will keep costs down.

There is a lot to take in here, so feel free to give us a call and we can talk through things in more detail.

And, of course, if you want to talk to us about flat fee recruitment and how we can manage your campaigns, then yes, lovely, we’d be delighted.

These are some key points to a successful recruitment strategy;

1. Question yourself  – work out why you need to fill the role, what is the key purpose and what is the key outcome? Do you need to create a new hire or can you promote or manage internally?
2. Analysis of your recruitment spend– work out how much you have spent on recruitment, where you have spent it and which spend has been successful. Track your recruitment marketing spend.
3. Write an effective job description – this is different to the job advert, it is the list of key objectives and points of measurable success that will determine if that new hire has been successful. There are no such things as bad employees, only bad hires!
4. Get input – should you be the only person to write the job description or would it be more relevant to get input from other people – current team members, perhaps?
5. Centralise your recruitment – if you have a number of hiring managers all recruiting separately, you will be putting forward mixed messages and you certainly will have increased your recruitment costs.
6. Utilise your own talent pool – have you established an effective referral scheme? Look at ways in which your own talent will put forward your company as the best place to work. Work out how to get that message across effectively to your employees.
7. Use your network – ask your peers and clients if they know of anyone suitable. Promote the fact that you are hiring, people want to hear good news and will want to help.
8. Ask for referrals in final interviews – if someone is good and you are hiring for more than one role, ask them if they know of anyone. They will probably know people in their network.
9. Free advertising – There are a number of free job board advertising routes you can place your ads. If the role is relevant you could even advertise on the Jobcentre plus site.
10. Create a talent pool – track all people who you have hired or interviewed in the past and ask them if  they can be registered. Adhere to data protection with opting in tools, but keep in touch with relevant people with emails and contacts. Remember these aren’t just candidates these could be clients.
11. Create a social media strategy – – create LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts and market your roles to your network. You’ll be amazed by the results. Done effectively, it will also improve your business leads as well.
12. Use Online Recruitment Advertising tools – this is where www.NetNatives.co.uk can come in, or you can do it yourself. Establish which job boards’ best suit you requirements and advertise and search their databases (this is all that most recruitment companies are doing for you anyway!).
13. Create a PPC (Pay Per Click) Google Adwords campaign to drive traffic to your site. Highlight the words you think people would search on and then buy those phrases for the Google campaign.
14. Respond quickly – if you are running an online advertised campaign, make sure you identify the good people quickly and respond quickly before they are hired by someone else.
15. Track all of your candidates – always keep them informed of the process. Remember, your candidates are your clients. You may want to consider inputting a candidate management system. If you hire more than 10 staff a year, this can be very useful and not as expensive as you may think.
16. Plan – establish a recruitment strategy, so you can work out when you could potentially be looking at your next hire.
17. Motivate – keep your staff motivated and informed of your business plans, keep your star players on the field.

There is a lot to take in here and I would welcome any comments as to what works, what doesn’t and if anyone else has any other ideas to contribute…

social media and recruitment – who are the experts?

I wrote a post back in April about this subject and my concerns over certain “experts” involvement in social media and recruitment and how the subject has not, and possibly, cannot define itself due to the ;

• changing nature of the medium
• concerns over some legal issues
• the brand is represented by personalities who can be transient

I am a massive advocate of social media; you’re reading this, so it works, and as a progressive online recruitment business we are getting more and more involved in the subject matter, helping clients better engage directly with potential candidates, their employees and clients.

But, and here is the massive BUT, the Barkers and Penna fall out has proven that NOONE can be certain of getting it right. The interesting point with Barkers is that here is a company that is professing to be all things social media and has yet scored a spectacular own goal by not adhering to some simple truths about the medium.

This is not to say that Penna were wrong to buy the business, they have done exactly the right thing; they have bought a great brand and fit for their business for a song because it wasn’t able to adjust to the new economy. But their staff and suppliers are hurting and are social media savvy. So far the social media experts of the Barkers business have been silent on the matter of redundancies and client/supplier obligations and this could have a potential detrimental effect on their brand.

I know that Penna/Barkers are dealing under the obligations of being a public listed company, but why are they not using the medium themselves to make micro announcements, to continue brand building and positioning themselves as the partner of choice for their clients, suppliers and employees? Where are the responses to the blogs, forums and tweets that are asking for this engagement? Where are the creative solutions?

What we have is the old problem of individuals being tied to the demands of the brand, but as all “social media experts” know, this does not cut it with the new world of work.

And no, I don’t have the answers, we are all entering into territory we have never been before – social media is not definitive, it changes and the rules and game is changing with it. That’s fine, but you have to be honest in what you know, what you can do and what this means to your brand. Always be open, always engage, always empower.

If the experts can’t get it right, what help is there for the rest of us…?

As always, welcome your comments and thoughts…

Further Education College – Social Media Strategy

Hey, Don here again. We’ve just done some pretty nifty social media strategy for one of the Further Education Colleges and I wanted to talk about our experiences and pass on some stuff we picked up along the way. Interested to know if you have any thoughts or ideas to what we came across.

Just quickly, it’s probably best to explain how and why a flat fee online recruitment business gets involved in social media strategy. Simple really, it’s all about engagement. We use all manner of the most relevant and innovative online tools to help our clients better engage with their potential and current employees.

In the case of the FE college we used our tricky little social media skills to help with their enrolment and employer engagement programmes.

This is, of course, not a definitive list, but if you are considering a social media strategy (and you most certainly should), this will give you some ideas to get you going…

1. Most Futher Education and Higher Education Colleges have banned use of social media in the colleges – don’t, you need to embrace them, they aren’t going away!

2. EVERY College is already represented somewhere on some of the social media sites – you are already “out there.”

3. There are fragmented strategies across the different departments and curriculum areas – they need to be co-ordinated and structured

4. You will already have some wonderful blogging activity with your lecturers and students – capitalise on it

5. All of the FEs have wonderful content and events that can be promoted through social media sites

6. You have a number of different stakeholders involved (different types of students, lecturers, staff, employer partners, etc) and you need effective campaigns for each.

7. These campaigns need to be “joined up”

8. There are many ways to get around the issue of “opt in” for people representation on video sites

9. Most of the FE Colleges’ organic Swearch Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not enhanced to its best capabilities, which can be rectified and managed through an effective social media campaign

10. Every single FE College’s Employer Engagement campaigns would be enormously improved by effective use of business social media tools such as LinkedIn

OK, so some quick things you need to do immediately

1. Work out where you are already represented through social media

2. Create a social media policy – work out what you need it for, who it will effect AND who will take responsibility

3. Get the most use out of Google as you possibly can (maps, images, tools etc.)

4. Engage all stakeholders, the students, the faculty members, alumni, businesses, everyone…

5. Represent yourself on the most popular mediums (and use them!)
a. Twitter
b. Facebook
c. Myspace
d. Bebo
e. LinkedIn
f. Flicr
g. YouTube

6. Link your social media sites with relevant content from your blogs and college content

7. Interchange the content on with each social media

8. Get yourself registered on the relevant social bookmarking sites

9. Create targeted advertising campaigns on Facebook for niche courses

10. Promote your social media activity across your off line marketing materials as well on email signatures, etc.

11. Measure and track activity using online social media tools such as howsociable

And a final couple of points here

1. Be comfortable with what you are doing and who you are online (some sites will “feel” better than others to use)

2. Don’t be intrusive but get involved

3. Be consistent and responsive (get involved, again)

4. Don’t forget it is for the long term, so make it part of your strategy

There was so much more to what we did and found out and I am going to expand on a few things that I think will be interesting (particularly about Facebook advertising and Twitter), but feel free to let me know what you think. Or get in touch if you want to find out more.

NORAS – National Online Recruitment Awards

I have a passion for, and a personal investment in, online recruitment, so I was very proud to have been asked to sit on the panel of consulting judges to help shortlist the NORAS (National Online Recruitment Awards).

Now in their ninth year, the NORAs are seen as the standard by which recruitment websites are measured.  The awards are initially nominated by job seekers themselves.  This year they received almost 25,000 nominations for 654 separate websites.

The finalists were assessed by a selection panel of industry experts (well, and me), from a candidate’s point of view, to arrive at the shortlist of sites across 12 categories.

As an industry insider it was an interesting exercise to see what boundaries are being pushed to help companies recruit better for themselves. Some interesting propositions from small businesses, but the traditional recruitment agency space felt very dated.

Will be interesting to see who actual winners are later this year. I’ll keep you posted…

8 Hints and Tips For Writing a Successful Job Ad for Job Boards

With nearly half a million job vacancies posted online at any one time it is important to make sure that your role is the one that’s not only found, but is going to motivate an application.   Here are some points to consider when writing your job posting……

1.           SELL, SELL, SELL…This is an ADVERT not a job description. This is the first most people will have heard of you and it’s your chance to sell your company and your wonderful position. It is important for people to know  who they work for AND what they are going to be doing, so this is your opportunity to tell candidates about YOUR unique selling points and make you stand out.  Are you a successful, growing business, have you won awards, what’s the company “vibe” like? Everything is relevant. company vibes, size etc.

2.         Make sure that the first 2 lines are short, snappy mentioning the title and the company, to encourage the reader to carry on.  Sorry to say, but your advert won’t be the only one your candidate will read. If your advert is too long the candidates will lose interest before they reach the apply button. Make sure you get the right information in front of them from the start. As for the rest of the advert, keep that short and to the point, as well, where relevant, use bullet points.

3.          Be as precise as you can be with the location, add the postcode. If you advertise a job as with a location of “Sussex” a candidates will have to search on “Sussex” to find the job, searching on a specific location within Sussex i.e. Brighton, will not show your job. Some companies ask us to put “nationwide” in their job ads because they have lots of jobs across lots of locations.  However, very few job seekers will be willing to look for your perfect job anywhere in the UK, this needs to be kept in mind and thought about.

4.          It is important that you add the salary details to the advert with benefits. Salary is one of the absolute key aspects of searching, if you don’t have your salary up there, chances are you won’t be found. But highlight EVERY benefit of working with you, from bonus, through to parking space. Everything is relevant.

5.          But, regardless of what YOU may call the job, make sure the title and the job advert content relates to what your perfect candidate will be searching for. For example, just because you are going to call your next hire, “the VP of Client Relations”, hardly any excellent candidates will search for that term. Tailor the title to what will get the best response.

6.           KEY WORDS are called key for a reason… this is what will render your advert higher up the search listing against the search criteria of your candidate. Make sure that the body of the advert is key word optimized against the search criteria of the advert as well as the title. But, BE WARNED, too much key word optimization will mean that it will be considered SPAM…

7.          Sector and skills are equally important. Many people choose to work in a particular industry sector and set their search criteria against that sector. Always consider this when creating the job advert. Likewise, In many professions qualifications are very important and would be what your perfect applicant would search on. In accounting, for example, it’s ACA, ACCA, CIMA. In IT, the specific tools and languages are of paramount importance. If your job requires specific qualifications, add them.

8.           Personalise the advert, Make sure that the language used in directed to the type of candidate you wish to attract. Make it salesy for a sales person, but a technical person will want a clinical description with facts whilst it would be more suitable when addressing a creative person an advert full of adjectives and enticements will appeal.

If you have any questions about what makes a successful recruitment advert, just ask for Michaela at Net Natives, I’d be happy to help.

10:10 We’re committed. Shouldn’t you be?

A slight tangent to the usual online recruitment stories and thoughts is the fact that we have signed up to the 10:10 Project to commit to cutting our carbon emissions. We are now a…

You can follow any twitter activity with the #1010 tag.

We are a small online recruitment business, so our impact is already pretty negligable, but we’ll do our best to try to do more…By putting this post out to our friends and subscribers, we hope to encourage others to get involved.

Can Twitter end the recession?

Twitter’s is never out of the news, whether with rallying cries against those damn Yankees criticising the NHS or the power of citizen journalism helping mobilise radical thought in Iran.

But I can’t help feeling its mighty PR machine has missed a trick by not ascribing Twitter’s influence over the gradual global recovery from recession.

Twitter has been perfectly placed during this period of slow trade and rising unemployment to be used as the effective business tool for the quick witted. Twitter’s reach and ability to bring together like minded people has provided a platform for business growth for those businesses willing to embrace it.

Though we are not in the same league as Dell, Net Natives can directly attribute £1000s of revenues generated by twitter to our business model. Real revenues for our online recruitment services, not “how to use twitter” or other idiots’ guide and abstract revenues.

And I still haven’t cracked it or think I am using it to its maximum potential. I still think before I tweet (cardinal sin, I know), don’t put out enough personal information; engage enough with my audience, or whatever else I am constantly instructed to do by another twitterers. But, so what…I (and my company) are having a go – getting involved and using the medium.

But, whilst I am an evangelist, I am an old fashioned sort of fella at heart. When I started work, the only means for communication was the phone and fax (why do people still insist on faxes!), so I still use the telephone call as my primary communication tool, where I can. But, we are now in the business of mixed mediums.

I use Twitter, but don’t rely on it. I don’t agree with comments that mandate sole faith in social media and proclaim the end of other mediums. This short term view will not help develop business, but will restrict growth and scope. In my business, online recruitment, the key is to maximise all avenues (be it recruitment advertising, SEO, SEM, social media, referrals – whatever, do it all but do them well).

I started with the question, “Can Twitter end the recession?” I suppose the answer is yes, but not on its own…

Are 700+ job boards too many?

We’ve recently expanded our job board reach at Net Natives and we now post our clients roles across our network of over 700 job boards. Quite frankly this figure is so large that it sounds a bit ridiculous…

But look closer…

• Jobsite’s network = 474 boards, including their partnerships with regional press through Northcliffe  and Jonston Press,
• Fish4’s network = 180 boards with their Newsquest affiliation
• Hotonline network = 41 boards
• SimplyGroup = 17 boards

and of course, Monster, TotalJobs, Reed and a few others increasing this tally and you soon get beyond the 700 mark…

But this begs the question, “How many job boards are out there (we are the experts and, believe me, no one knows) and how much more consolidation will the market take during the economic downturn”?

I have recently been asked to write a piece on the future of the online recruitment market for Online Recruitment Magazine, so I won’t pre-empt what I am going to say in this article, but, needless to say, one thing is pretty obvious…

During this continued downturn, there is going to be more consolidation in the market and the clever job boards are building their reach through effective affiliations. The fight for recognition is by getting onto that first page on Google and the boards with the widest reach are the ones winning this battle.

We’ll keep reviewing our suppliers and only recommend the sites we feel will work. But, until the dust settles, we’ll continue to patiently explain that 700 isn’t that fanciful after all. In fact, it is only going to go up…

10 reasons to use Flat Fee Recruitment

So I have already written about “what is flat fee recruitment”, but I thought should explain 10 simple reasons why flat fee recruitment should be considered for ALL vacancies.

1. The best candidates are all online. The flat fee service is suitable for pretty much EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF VACANCY. But, if you don’t want to contact people who know how to use a computer, flat fee recruitment is not for you.

2. It is a fraction of the cost (up to 90%) of traditional recruitment methods

3. You can hire as many candidates who are relevant as you wish as no extra cost

4. We use a wider network of relevant job boards and online databases than most recruitment companies

5. It is low cost recruitment, MUCH cheaper than buying the ads from job boards on an individual basis, as we have pre bought the services in bulk.

6. We know which sites are relevant and will bring the best candidates, you don’t have to rely on the sales pitches of individual job boards

7. You will not be inundated with CVs as we manage all responses and only send you the relevant candidates

8. All filtering and sourcing is done MANUALLY by real humans, based on the criteria we work with you to create

9. It is not just job board advertising reselling, we add REAL value through our expertise in the recruitment process. The process is EXACTLY as detailed as any traditional recruitment

10. Our unique guarantee means that we will not rest until you have successfully hired that perfect person.

Oh and you will never have to speak to a recruitment consultant again!

(OK that’s 11)

Social Bookmarking. What is it? and Why should you use it?

Real quick one this, but thought I would share a little about social bookmarking which I personally use and always recommend to clients as part of their social media strategy. All it does, is simply allow you to save your bookmarks online, tag them with relevant keywords and share them with others (hence the “social” part).

My favourites are hardly unique:

• Delicious – for all websites Net Natives’ Delicious Page.

and

• Digg – a social bookmarking site designed specifically for news items. Users can vote on different links (“digging”) and the most “dugg” stories will appear on the site’s home page. e.g. Take a look at Net Natives’ Digg Page.

Delicious and Digg are just 2 of hundreds of social bookmarking sites including Technorati, Reddit, Stumbleupon and Ma.gnolia to name but a few. We’d recommend playing around with different sites as each has a different slant.

Why should you use social bookmarking?

1. It allows you to view your favourite sites from anywhere in the world, as your bookmarks are on a website and not stored on your computer’s hardware

2. They are fantastic for search engine optimisation. Google’s search algorythm takes into account what websites your site is listed on and how popular those sites are. As websites like Digg and Delicious are very popular, having your business site bookmarked on these sites should improve your Google ranking

3. They are excellent for promotion. Add your facebook page, twitter page, Blog, MySpace page and any other online presence you have to these site as they have millions of users and are an easy and free method to increase your online exposure

4. To improve internal business communication. As bookmarks are saved online it allows potentially hundreds of employees within a business to view them simultaneously saving time, money and encouraging interaction

You’ll see at the bottom of this blog post there is a social bookmarking tool bar allowing you to add this very blog to a variety of different sites. It’s easy to add this to your own blog and is available from GetSocial.

Told you this was a quick one. But hopefully useful. I am always up for hearing about any good social bookmarking suggestions or possible uses, so please get in touch.