Independent industry news for marketing, advertising & media execs
by TTBT-CEO. Dear Digital Grandad, I’m the CEO of a major company listed on the JSE. Looking at the changes I’ve spearheaded in our marketing, I think I can safely say that we’ve embraced the digital revolution. We have a great website, mobisite and our social media’s being expertly managed by an external agency.
So how does that equate back to you, as a CEO, using social media?
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.
Over four years ago, in a post entitled Looking For Volunteers, I wrote the following…
“TAC predicts that when the frenzy over Facebook, Twitter, and other social media calms down and the dust clears, email and search will continue to be the dreariest and most productive forms of online advertising.”
In an article on Monday entitled “Email Is Crushing Twitter, Facebook for Selling Stuff Online” Wired had this to say:
“An endless stream…of advice from marketing consultants warns businesses that they need to “get” social… Despite the hype… it’s relatively antique tech that appears to be far more important for selling stuff online.
Wired’s source for this article was a company called Custora that studied “72 million customers shopping on 86 different retailer sites.” Their conclusion: search and email are far more effective at generating sales results than Facebook, Twitter and banner ads.
by Emma King (@EmmainSA) In the compulsion to be cool, to be the popular ones, perhaps the cool kids forgot how to develop a personality. They tried to be everything to anyone, to conform to the appeal of the masses and not to stand out. They became vanilla. I wonder sometimes whether this is true, too, for brands.
by Emma King (@EmmainSA) We’ve all been cornered at some point in our lives. Cornered by an acquaintance or co-worker into listening to lengthy and detailed descriptions of holidays (we did not get to have), all while living through a computer avalanche of accompanying slides.
Surely, they know we don’t care.
We see brands spending more money and time trying to tell stories about themselves to their consumers, and it’s becoming ever more prevalent as we see digital and social media channels as a way to pump out our stories – our ‘content’ – to the reluctant consumer. Brands have become the yapping co-worker who cornered us to listen to a detailed account of their holiday itinerary.
Do we care that your brand product, for example, was first formulated by a nomadic people, eking out an existence in a remote jungle by making vodka from a rare root, distilled over the pure leaves of a rare orchid?
I’m not sure we do. In fact I’d go as far to say that all most of us care about is that the products tastes good (or feels good, or looks nice), is as cheap or as expensive as our wallet demands, and essentially makes us look cooler/hotter/thinner/more trendy when we are seen consuming it.
Great #GuptaGate Tweets
“South Africans should be thankful for the investment the Gupta family is bringing to the country, businessman Atul Gupta says.”
by Herman Manson (@marklives) In the world of print publishing the three sister magazines of Huisgenoot, YOU and Drum make for a formidable powerhouse – they are the three biggest circulating consumer magazines in the country.
Until recently that offline brand and circulation power hasn’t been effectively utilised online, but it’s changing, and quickly, according to Wilmer Müller, Head of Digital at Huisgenoot, YOU and Drum.
The three brands started rolling out digital strategies at the beginning of 2010 and soon found success on Facebook, especially in the case of Huisgenoot, whose community of Afrikaans speaking readers were looking for a safe online space in which to engage with one another in their home language. . Growth has been organic says Müller and on Facebook the number of Huisgenoot fans currently stands at over 205 000.
The Facebook presence of Drum is growing at the same breakneck pace as that of Huisgenoot in 2010, but Twitter has really been its success story, as the channel is well suited for breaking news on black celebrity culture – a key point of interest to Drum readers.
Talking of Twitter, Huisgenoot hasn’t seen as much success here as on Facebook. Müller suggests that this is due to slower take-up amongst Afrikaans speakers – English seems to be the default language South Africans use on Twitter. The Oscar Pistorius story, first broken on Twitter by Beeld, has changed this, and Huisgenoot has seen a substantial take-up of its various social media platforms, including Twitter, over the past two months. This was mostly tied to the Pistorius story, says Müller.
YOU has been tougher to grow digitally since it competes with a wider range of English language sites, many of them international, but its numbers are far from insubstantial.
by Emma King (@EmmainSA) This week I was bemused to read the British papers up in arms over the revelation that BBC bosses accepted free tickets and hospitality to various Olympics event. The chattering classes and BBC critics were alarmed that their supposedly objective media may have been swayed by something akin to bribes.
It seems almost laughable here in South Africa. We’ve become almost immune to stories of corruption and bribery, and our state owned media outlets have given up most pretence at objectivity.
However, it raised a question for me, and got me thinking about the power of the freebie – and how it’s taken for granted in the world of PR.
We know that if we want a journalist to review a product, we need to send them that product to try out. Or if we’re running an event that we want them to cover, or have them interview a client, we cover the costs. Make sense. Fair play.
But when does this cross the line? When does a free sample become a gift? When do travelling costs become all expenses paid holiday? And what is demanded in return? At what point does it become akin to Faustus making a deal with the devil?
by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) The innocuous looking case of H v W which was handed down in the South Gauteng High Court on 30 January 2013 is anything but. Judge Willis’ 30 page judgment recognises the harm a Facebook post can do to a person’s reputation and throws the weight of the Court behind the person defamed (and who can afford the legal fees).
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian), San Francisco Bay The half-life of online marketing miracles is notoriously short.
Is it possible that “the like” is about to join the podcast, the widget, and the QR code in the Museum Of Make-Believe Marketing Miracles?
It sure seems that way. There has been a whole lot of chatter lately about the dubious value of likes. While this chatter is about 2 years overdue, I guess it’s better than never.
First, Business Insider had a piece recently about Facebook’s new Giraffe Search. It was called, “Graph Search Is Really A Plan To Rescue The Like.”
They said that Facebook introduced Giraffe Searchbecause “recently it (the like) has fallen out of favor with advertisers.”
Next a blogger, engineer, and entrepreneur named Steve Cheney called the like a “con.” He went on to say that in the case of almost half the Facebook likes “there is no true affinity between the like and the object” and, in fact, most likes were bought by bribes.
