Over the past few years online networks have flourished. They
offer such tantalising opportunity for recruiters yet have remained
almost unused by the UK market. Crunch has spent a vast amount of
time researching and analysing how these sites (some of which enjoy
almost a quarter of the world’s internet traffic!) can be
mobilised and utilised for recruitment purposes. What we have found
is that there are many blind alleys to follow and even more wrong
turns to take if you are planning to use people networks like
these. However lets us help you get it right and you’ve
opened the door to an enormous pool of fresh talent.
There are two distinct types of online networks
each offer a different type of candidate, and strategically must be
approached in different ways.
Social Networks
Often hailed as the stomping grounds of the Y-generation
these networks are built by their users for their users. The
content is, in the majority, controlled and published by the users
(known as User Defined Content, UDC). As you might imagine this
creates a unique problem for the advertiser/recruiter in the fact
there is virtually NO editorial control therefore placing ads next
to “safe” content is perceived to be a big problem. The
story of one major company seen advertising next to a particularly
unsavoury entry from a user is endlessly banded about as the reason
to NOT use these sites.
It is of course wise to heed this warning, but to totally
disregarded, potentially, the most powerful marketing tool in
history is a little short sighted, and here’s why. Although
content is not controlled, unlike a newspaper, the information
available about each user (given voluntarily) is almost
unbelievable. Never before has the marketer had such opportunity to
micro-target their audience. Crunch runs a team of experts in
online marketing who in turn employee highly sophisticated software
that can analyse and deliver you advert to precisely the right
demographic even choose the time of day they see your message!
SMO – Social media optimisation is the phrase used to
describe getting your message across via these sites. It has been
said that corporate SMO done well is impressive but corporate SMO
done badly is embarrassing. Unfortunately is easy to get this
wrong, why not let Crunch make it easy to get this right.
Business Networks
These users are different breed entirely. Even the same
person will behave and respond in an entirely different way when
using a business network compared to a social one. Therefore a
marketing message strategy designed to work on a social network
does not necessarily translate to a business environment and visa
versa. Although for product marketing purposes these sites
don’t offer anything online marketing doesn’t already
give the marketer, for the recruiter they do offer an amazing pool
of talent. They are in fact enormous free* databases of candidates,
but ,and there’s always a but, unlocking and communicating
with this database is the challenge. *These business site know
their worth and although in many circumstances searching is free
communicating comes at a price, of either time or money. Crunch
practices what it preaches and has one of the most comprehensive
databases of the UK online recruitment industry and uses this,
respectfully to build business and recruit. We can show you how to
build your own industry database quickly and use it in the most
efficiently and ethically manor to solve your recruitment
needs.
In summary these networks could hold the key too many
recruitment issues but you will need Crunch’s help and
guidance to unlock them. We have many more ideas and tactics up our
sleeve but like to keep our best ideas for our clients.