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Social media puts HR ethics under the spotlight

by Karen Sutherland, Monash University Social media has definitely changed the game for job-seekers and recruiters. Traditionally, HR recruiters placed an advertisement, sifted through the responses, and interviewed the shortlisted candidates before appointing the best interviewee with the best references. Those days are over.

The increase in social media adoption has provided recruiters with access to volumes of information about candidates that they were never before privy to. With this vast amount of candidate data at their fingertips, recruiters may struggle with the ethical implications regarding how much they let this information influence their decisions when appointing staff.

Limited research has been undertaken in Australia in relation to this issue. However, research from the Unites States suggests that HR recruiters are using social media in two ways: to find candidates and to screen them after receiving their applications.

The jury is still out on the effectiveness of social networking sites such as LinkedIn as recruitment tools, although, they have been described as a “shop window” for recruiters searching for suitable employees. A US study of 1000 recruiters found that 92% used or planned to use social media as part of their recruitment strategy and 93% chose LinkedIn as their most favoured tool for this process.

While the potential savings to time and costs may be enticing for recruiters using social media instead of traditional methods, this practice limits the field exclusively to social media users. If social media skills are not a key selection criterion, limiting the candidate pool to only those with a social media presence could be deemed as unethical and discriminatory. It is unfair for candidates to be excluded purely because they have not jumped on the social media bandwagon. Additionally, recruiters could be overlooking quality candidates by limiting the field.

The Ad Contrarian: The five dumbest ideas about online advertising

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) The phenomenal rise of the internet as a medium of communication, information, and entertainment has given rise to some equally phenomenal conceptual flops about advertising. Today, we take inventory of these dumb ideas. We have selected our five favorites and we present them to you in one neat little bundle, in no particular order, but numbered to keep you on track.

Dear Digital Grandad: Should my agency have a blog?

Dear @DigitalGrandDad, One of the kids in the office asked me why our agency don’t have a blog. I need an answer that doesn’t make me seem old or lazy.

Dear Old and Lazy

As the saying goes, It’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks, as I am sure you are not Lazy!

I think it is great that you have people in your company that are asking questions about how to further market your company and/or share what you are doing as a cutting edge agency with your intended target market. So without sounding lazy or old, you can share your wisdom, teach and mentor the young enthusiastic kid that ‘LIKE’ anything in Marketing, you can’t just say yes without having a strategic plan? Your answers ‘Old Dog’ should be around planning for example:

Great Little One! I am so glad you asked that question. It is something I have been meaning to look into for ages. However, we don’t have a plan yet.

The Ad Contrarian: eBay — paid search is worthless

by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) A study done by eBay on the effectiveness of paid search for established brands has found it to be worthless. Presumably, eBay commissioned the study to figure out how much of their search money was being wasting. Their conclusion seems to be: all of it.

Media Future: Life left in Microsoft – and Nokia

Microsoft finds itself in the uncustomary role of underdog, but that only tells part of the story, says SA managing director Mteto Nyati in discussion with Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

The one-time all-conquering giant of software, Microsoft, is suddenly finding itself performing an uncustomary role: that of underdog. Aside from a share price that had reached a record low earlier this year, it has also been taking a public relations beating.

The launch of the new Windows 8 operating system (OS) late last year did not set the market alight with new respect, and its recent unveiling of the specifications for the Xbox One entertainment device was vilified for the restrictions it placed on users.

For many companies, that would spell doom. In the past, that kind of response to previous products did indeed cast gloom into the hearts of all at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond near Seattle.

Tech Law: Is your marketing strategy diabetic?

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) It occurred to me that what most marketers are doing is analogous to what I did for years. I see the big contributor to my diabetes onset as being unrestrained consumption. In a sense, this is what marketers active on the social Web are doing too. They work in a fascinating and engaging space and often do so with little regard to the legal consequences of their campaigns.

Media Future: The fastest growing categories of online sales in South Africa

New research reveals that one of the fastest growing categories of online sales in South Africa is practically invisible, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

Online shopping is usually associated with electronics, books, clothes and groceries, to take some examples of physical goods being bought on the Web and delivered in the real world. But the biggest growth trends are in an invisible market that comprises both purchase and delivery in the virtual world.

When MasterCard released the findings of its annual Online Shopping Survey this week, it focused on the highlight of the research: that 91% of South Africans who shop online are highly satisfied with their overall experience. This means that, once people are persuaded to shop online – and that takes some doing – they are generally happy with the experience. There are many exceptions, as suggested by the 9% or 1 out of 10 who are dissatisfied with their experience.

The real test of satisfaction is, of course, the returning customer. And here the picture is enoraging but not as massively positive: 76% of respondents return to an online shopping site that they have used before.

The highest spend by online shoppers is, not surprisingly, on travel products: air tickets, travel and accommodation. Behind these come concert and event tickets, and coupons from group buying sites. Arguably, all of these are virtual products that do not, up front, involve a physical purchase. But all do result in a physical outcome: a plane trip, a hotel stay, or a group purchase of a physical product.

We’re living in the digital golden age. So, what are you doing about it?

We’re living in the digital golden age. So, what are you doing about it? by Fred Roed (@fred_roed) I have an unshakable belief that we’re living, right now, in one of the most crazy awesome times in human history. I believe that in 100 years from now, people will look back at the turn of the 21st century and say “Dayam, I wish I lived then!” – sorta like we do now thinking back to the 60’s, or the Enlightenment, or the industrial revolution, or the 80’s. Na, just kidding – the 80’s sucked.

Think about it. We’re living in a time where digital communication is changing everything. You know that right? Of course you do. The question really is, what are you doing about it?

So, running an agency, as I do, the question becomes even more critical. I’m at the forefront of all this stuff. We get updates daily, hourly, every minute, on new shit that’s getting done. Innovations, inventions, disruptions: these are the things that mark this amazing pocket of time called the digital age.

And what am I doing about it?

Tech Law: NSA spying negates attorney-client privilege

by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) To say recent revelations about the US National Security Agency’s global surveillance campaign are unsettling is an understatement. While we are still getting to terms with the extent of the surveillance we have all been subject to, a few things are pretty clear:

The NSA has been collecting both the metadata relating to our digital communications as well as their content (the US government has maintained that it does not collect the content of US citizens’ communications but that has been challenged).
Internet services we rely on are not immune to the NSA’s campaign. On the contrary, their data is being accessed, either directly or indirectly, and stored for future reference in case they do something illegal or problematic in the future.

You may think that if you don’t rely on the larger Web service providers (apparently with the exception of Twitter which, as I understand it, refuses to co-operate with the NSA) you are immune from scrutiny but that is a fallacy. The NSA has basically tied itself into the Internet’s backbone and monitors all traffic passing through the routers and infrastucture it can see. What this means is that if the data you send or receive passes through any of the Web services that have been co-opted by the NSA under the USA’s secrecy laws or the very Internet infrastructure the NSA is monitoring, your data is exposed to the NSA’s scrutiny.

Media Future: Switchboard in your pocket

New services from Neotel and Vodacom bring closer the ideal of bringing together a landline and mobile number, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).

It is one of the great tragedies if telecommunications in South Africa that the number of landline phone users in the country has declined every single year since the beginning of this century. From a peak of 5.5-million users in 2000, it declined to below 3,9-million at the end of 2012. Telkom has always refused to acknowledge that there is a direct relationship between this slide and the fact that line rentals have been increased every single year since 2000.

There are other factors at play as well, of course. During this period, the cellphone user base has exploded from around 5-million to 40-million South Africans. Conventional wisdom, for those of traditional bent, has been that the landline is the first choice for making calls, because the cost of a landline call has always been below half that of a mobile call.

That has changed, though, as mobile call rates have plunged and per-second billing has become common. Now, it is a fairly easy decision to dump the landline and only have a mobile phone as a home number. After all, it can be carried everywhere the user goes.