ResearchGoddess

Last Tuesday, Chris Dannen wrote an article on Fast Company giving a brief analysis of Weber Shandwick’s study which found that big companies just don’t get Twitter. At least, that’s what they say. Dannen followed up with an assessment that perhaps companies need a dedicated tweeter who won’t stick just to tweeting about ‘brand awareness’ but also bring more personal flavor to it:

“To succeed on Twitter, I’d bet that companies need do no more than ask those questions–and then hire that person to tweet about anything but brand awareness and product news. Twitter is so popular because it’s so personal and so direct; give one person the keys to your brand’s castle, and they’ll go out and connect. But don’t try to drag the whole board-room table.”

I disagree with this, and I wanted to respond to this post here on my blog in hopes of bringing more attention to the post and soliciting more feedback on this issue.

I have to wonder if individual user accounts who tweet on behalf of these companies were taken into consideration in Weber Shandwick’s study, or if the only Twitter accounts that were considered were officially endorsed accounts, created by the companies themselves. I for one know that many companies have employees who represent them, on a rather official basis, but they aren’t ‘branded’ as a company account because the companies realize the need for personalization of their Twitter presence.

Furthermore, each company is going to have a different purpose for using Twitter. Some perhaps don’t need/want to engage there. Anyone who understands marketing and social media strategy knows that the shoe doesn’t fit everyone in the same way. I saw that the Weber Shandwick study discusses that briefly.

As to the original question of this post, I don’t think a dedicated “tweeter” could/should be a full-time job at this point. It should be part of many people’s jobs, not just one person. The idea of having one dedicate person reeks of the antiquated “spokesperson” concept, and if you take a look at the way business is done today, there is never just “one voice” of a company any more, especially not within the walls of social media.

I think it’s better to ask several people, who understand your company (i.e. NOT a brand-new intern), to participate in some degree. This doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t, in my opinion) rest solely with one internal team or individual. It should be a collaborative effort – after all, if the purpose of a company being on Twitter is to engage, shouldn’t the entire company be represented, not just one person or group of individuals which has decided that they ‘own’ the company’s social media presence? (a whole other issue itself…)

How about you – what do you think about this? Should companies hire a dedicated tweeter or team of people whose sole function is to tweet (and I’m sure engage on other social media)? Leave your thoughts in a comment below.

I was pointed to this post on The Customer Collective blog on Monday about how HR is the New Marketing – hooray!! I’m so glad to see that others are recognizing the importance of marketing in HR – and I would say, equally as important, in Recruiting. I think recruiting and HR work hand in hand in marketing employment with a company because in recruiting, we attract talent, and HR is responsible for retaining that talent.

I wrote a post last year discussing the different hats that we recruiting professionals wear in our daily duties, not the least of which is Marketing. We are front-line representatives of our respective companies. Don’t you feel it’s important to know a thing or two about generating interest in a product (employment with our company)?

In the article, author Augie Ray outlines some things that can help with this new “marriage” of HR and marketing. The ideas he throws out will help not only with HR professionals embracing their inner marketer, but also with internal education and preparation of employees who are also becoming new channels for marketing (not to mention recruiting!):

• Personality testing for all new employees
• Selection criteria for all social communication roles
• Brand training (this one is so important and so often is either just assumed, or simply overlooked)
• Setting expectations internally
• Monitoring & feedback

The sooner that we as recruiting professionals can accept the fact that we play a marketing role within our organizations, the sooner we can recognize our need for training in this area to do it properly. Let’s make sure we are being good stewards of our brands and embrace our inner marketer.

Read Augie Ray’s whole article here: HR is the New Marketing and Employees are the New Media

Everyone who knows me knows I love analogies. I also love comparing job functions across different industries. While I worked in the PR world, I saw so many similarities between PR and recruiting that it really made me think about how we, as research, sourcing, and recruiting professionals, need to understand public relations better than many of us do. I recently read an article by Todd Defren on his blog, PR Squared, entitled “What PR Cannot Do For Clients“. After reading through his article, I thought “This is exactly the relationship between researchers/sourcers and recruiters, and even on to hiring managers!” An excerpt from Todd’s article:

“Public Relations is not Sales.  PR can absolutely help guide the prospect toward a purchase decision, in a measurable way.  PR can surround the prospect with thoughtful, candid, compelling conversations and content and references until they think, “Wow, okay, I’ve got to check these guys out.”…But when the prospect gets to the website or picks up the phone or shoots over an email: PR’s work is done.”

Let’s change just a couple of words, and apply this statement to the role of research and/or sourcing:

“Internet Research / Sourcing is not Recruiting. Sourcers can absolutely help guide the prospect toward a job opportunity, in a measurable way.  Sourcers can initiate the relationship and provide the prospect with interesting and compelling high-level information about a job until they think, “Wow, okay, I’ve got to check these guys out.” But when the prospect gets to the website or picks up the phone [to interview with a recruiter] or shoots over an email: the sourcer’s work is done.”

The last sentence of the article strikes me: “PR can set you up for success.  It cannot make you a success.” This is no different from sourcing – a good sourcer will set you up with people to speak with and to present your opportunities to, but it’s up to you as the recruiter to intrigue them to the point where they would be willing to interview for and eventually accept your position. Once your sourcer has brought you what you’ve asked for in basic qualifications, their work is complete. Placing blame back on research for failure in a part of the recruiting process that is beyond the scope of research is simply unfair. That’s like blaming the butcher when the chef at the restaurant undercooks your steak. Sure, the butcher was involved by providing the meat to the restaurant, but it’s the chef’s ultimate responsibility to ensure that your order is correct, not the butcher.

I’ve never understood metrics that hold sourcing responsible throughout the entire hiring process, because of these facts. You cannot measure someone’s success in a process in which they are not involved. I appreciate Todd writing this brief, yet thought-provoking article and jogging my brain as to how this also holds true to my own job function. Please read his article in its entirety here: What PR Cannot Do For Clients.

I think Jason Falls is a rockstar. He lives about 2 hours down the road from me in Louisville, KY, but we’ve only “met” once (I use the term loosely because we were both in attendance at a Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast meeting last year, but we didn’t get to have a conversation). His blog is always chock-full of great content, thoughtful ideas, and blunt honesty. About a week ago, Jason discussed a topic that I too have been thinking a lot  about lately – the idea that so many things today are “free”, or so we think, and how long that can possibly last. After all, businesses are in existence to make money for themselves, not to provide us with cool free stuff.

Jason’s inspiration for the post was a conversation with a friend who said, “I love my DVR. I haven’t watched a commercial in months.” When asked how long he expects to still be watching his favorite shows, the friend looked puzzled. Jason’s reply:

“The avoidance of those commercials means those shows will eventually be cancelled. You’re killing your own chances of being able to watch them by watching just them.”

Nothing is ever truly free. Henry A. Wallace, the US Vice President from 1941 – 1945, wrote an article originally published by The Atlantic Monthly in which he suggested a post-WWII worldwide economic regime offering ‘minimum standards of food, clothing and shelter’. While this sounds well and good, an observant journalist named Paul Mallon wrote a response to the article which was published in several US papers:

“Mr. Wallace neglects the fact that such a thing as a ‘free’ lunch never existed. Until man acquires the power of creation, someone will always have to pay for a free lunch.”

Think about the unconferences, podcamps, social media breakfasts, and other various gatherings we attend today where we’re not charged. Someone has to provide the meeting facilities, the equipment, and the ‘free lunch’. In exchange, we owe it to these people and companies to hear what they have to offer. But oftentimes, we brush it off as just another sales pitch. Continuing with this entitlement attitude will cause these fantastic free events to no longer be available to us, and then we’re going to have to *gasp* start paying for stuff.

Jason continues on to say in his post:

“What we’ve created is a marketplace that isn’t sustainable…While I’m not one to predict all the good ideas have been had, the disproportionate amount of money that is being poured into technology startups these days makes me shudder to think what the entrepreneurs will do when the investors come calling wanting their money back.”

Hey, I’m with you. I do love Hulu, and I’ll be the first to admit that I love getting a good deal and I’m all about the free stuff. But we need to pay our respects to the companies that provide us with the freebies.

I think back to one of my favorite books as a little girl, Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. In the book, the little boy always takes from the tree, never giving anything in return, until finally the boy cuts down the tree in order to make a sailboat, and the tree has nothing left to give. Some say that this book is a story about selfless love, but in this sense we are the little boy who continually takes [freebies] and never gives anything in return [purchases]. Eventually, our giving trees [the companies and individuals which provide us with the 'free' stuff] will be merely treestumps, and we’ll be sitting beside those stumps wondering what happened.

Let’s not take too much advantage – support those businesses and people who support you with the freebies, or else they won’t be around for long. Please check out Jason’s entire post here, The Economy of Free Is Stupid.

Wolfram|Alpha, a new search engine that just launched in Mid-May 2009 to the general public, is the talk of our industry right now. Some say that it’s going to be a Wikipedia- or a Google-killer. Others (including me) think it’s neat, but that it’s really just a big calculator at this point. Still others are enjoying playing with it and discovering ‘Easter eggs’ hidden within.

Wolfram|Alpha is “a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.” It’s a fact-machine – you ask it a question, and it will do its best to spit back an answer for you.

When it comes to academia, there are plenty who sing its praises. This will be quite a handy tool when it comes to researching academic matters. For example: if you wanted some quick facts about Winston Churchill:

However, if you wanted to know who just won the most recent Dancing With The Stars, Wolfram|Alpha is going to tell you:

As with any tool of our trade, what you get out of it depends largely on what you put into it. In addition, with Wolfram|Alpha, what you’re looking for is a big factor too. If you’re looking for hard scientific, mathematical, or historical facts, chances are Wolfram|Alpha’s going to help you out. But if you’re looking for current events or assistance with your sourcing efforts, you’re going to be disappointed.

Now, researching companies within an industry – that’s a different story. The database does side-by-side in depth comparison of companies and provides details on # of employees, revenue, etc., and on an individual search basis will also provide you with some basic company information (website, location, industry):

This could prove to be helpful when conducting competitive research within an industry or beginning to build a list of companies to target.

From a sourcing perspective however, the information we seek isn’t contained in its extensive knowledge base – that is, where precisely to find certain types of people for potential candidacy for our open positions. I tested this out, just to make sure:

Nope – not what I was looking for, though this is interesting information, and I believe Wolfram|Alpha will give financial search engines such as Google Finance and Yahoo Finance a run for their money. Wolfram|Alpha will do detailed, side-by-side comparisons of stock symbols where the other two currently do not, at least in great detail.

My assessment is that Wolfram|Alpha isn’t going to make any waves when it comes to useful recruiting tools, at least from a candidate search standpoint. Furthermore, I do not think it will be replacing any major search engines or information sources in the near future. In fact, if you click on the Source Information link at the bottom of the Winston Churchill search, you’ll see that Wikipedia is listed amongst the information sources from which it frequently pulls:

Regardless, Steven Wolfram has come up with a great start to tackling the issue of pure semantic search. (interestingly, plugging ‘semantic search’ into Wolfram|Alpha produces no results) I think this will serve as a good jumping-off point for others to build upon. Check it out and give it a whirl yourself.