Recruiting, Acquiring and KEEPING upper echelon employees begins with…

Most companies are striving to get the best employees and keep them as they know this is integral to their success and growth. Competition is steep as the number of “A Players” seems to be dwindling by the day. The consolation? Not many have mastered this art, so making an effort goes a long way!

As usual, let’s start at the beginning…

How do you attract “A players” in the first place?

One of the most innovative and effective ways is by creating interesting and fun videos to tempt great employees and leaders to your company. I have seen this succefully done by companies like Zappos and MindVakkey, it has the top employees coming to them to apply and vy for positions!

But how do we accomplish this for our company when it isn’t young and hip or when we don’t have a fun business because  we sell widgets!

IF your perspective is open and willing, then you can accomplish the goal of painting a picture that is appealing for prospective employees. NOW, let me preface this with this admonition, IF your company only paints the picture as being a good, fair and fun company to work for but it is riddled with a different culture totally, then even if you are successful in recruiting top employees, they will shortly find out the reality and move on to a company that better suits them. SOOOO, this is only the first step to having an employee team of  upper echelon employees.

Alright, so now back tot he video idea…

ANY subject can be fun and interesting if you have the right perspective. You may not have this perspective, so you might want to hire someone to make this or even better, delegate it to some of your employees. Ah! Here’s an idea: Have a contest for different departments to make each a video for recruiting. They can talk about how it is to work there or about events that you hold, whatever. But, then you can have a viewing party and vote for the best video. Make a day out of it!

Don’t believe ANY subject can be funny? Would you think it is possible to be funny when delivering the “speech” all airlines must give before takeoff, “There are four exits…” etc.?

Thin again. Check out this video by Virgin Airlines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyygn8HFTCo&NR=1

Have a recruiting video already? Post a link here, we would love to see it and learn from your example.

To your continued success,

C

 

 

How to have employees in social media for the company – How Whirlpool does it!

This is an article I thought I would pass along, great info on how to have employee tweet or use other social media for your company:

How Whirlpool creates a consistent brand voice in social media

By Andy Sernovitz

One of the greatest things about social media is that it makes it possible for lots of people behind the brand to have a voice. But that also makes for some of the biggest challenges — how do you keep all of these voices consistent? How do you make sure customers can depend on them?

In their BlogWell Chicago case study presentation, Brian Snyder and Scott Spiegel talked about how they do this at Whirlpool — a brand that also includes Maytag, Amana, KitchenAid and more. A few of their key takeaways:

• Remember that consumers want to talk to their brand. They don’t care if they’re talking to the corporate PR, marketing or consumer care department. They just want to talk to the people who made the appliance they have or that make the appliance that they want.
• Make your brand experts available. Whirlpool has a team of laundry scientists — people who are experts when it comes to stains, fabric and detergent. Through Twitter and Facebook, Whirlpool has made their “Whirlpool Institute of Fabric Science” available day and night to answer questions from fans.
• Different brands have different priorities. Brian says that social media should always start with brand priorities. At Whirlpool, knowing each brand’s core objectives and target customers help them determine everything from their overall level of engagement to which social-media platform to use.

Hope this helps you move forward in your “social” venture!

My best,

C

60 Ways to Improve your Influence Online or with your Market/Prospects/Consumers

This list was called 60 Ways to Improve your Online Marketing Influence but I think some of these are great for us all to utilize as a basis ANYwhere we market ourselves. For instance, #1 is true on or offline. #13 is definitely good on or off line. #29, 31, 32 are all stellar recommendations for the REAL world! #44, 45, 46 are great if you want to write a book! And #60? Well, that is some grand ol’ advice from before the time of internet or social marketing.

I was on a call with Michael Port a few weeks ago and we discussed social media marketing and how people tend to forget that marketing online is STILL marketing to REAL people. They want a relationship, they need to trust you, they need to believe you have a great product/service that they can’t live without.

Don’t demean everyone’s intelligence by spamming or constantly SELLing to people in these open forums and social site, it only turns us all off!

Side note: Some seem to be a blatant sales pitch for Facebook, but please just keep reading, if that doesn’t work for you. People who wrote this must have a connection to FB somehow.

So, choose one that resonates with you and put into practice. Write it on your bathroom mirror, paste it behind you computer monitor, paste it on your computer desktop, SOMEWHERE you will see it repeatedly and implement it!

It will pay off handsomely in time AND feel more rewarding until then.

1. Stop talking about your products and services and create valuable content.

2. Increase conversion rates on your landing pages by improving your buttons.

3. Build your thought leadership and digital influence through transparency.

4. Demonstrate commitment and increase your digital influence through consistency.

5. Know where you’re going, then make what you say about the people around you.

6. Follow better people.

7. Align yourself with outstanding strategic partners.

8. Make connections online, then meet the person in the real world, offline.

9. Create content that stands for something: ‘Higher purpose content marketing.’

10. Look under the hood of the shiny new technologies coming out.

11. Believe in ‘social objects’ as the way we socialize and share with others.

12. Avoid ‘incestuous blogging’ and look outside your circle.

13. Start talking to people.

14. Think about your narrative strategy because people connect with stories worth telling.

15. Find people who have your audience but not your products and co-create with them.

16. Establish influence either through complete honesty or absolute fakery – not in between.

17. Give your content roots and give it wings.

18. Try Facebook advertising.

19. Develop your online influence by getting offline and meeting people in real life.

20. Get very, very good at filtering and aggregating content.

21. Be early in the news cycles of any conversation of interest, then make context explicit.

22. Increase visibility through web video; the fastest way to get your message out there.

23. Feel passionate about your content and overcome your fears of reaching out.

24. Defy convention where it’s appropriate.

25. Share good content consistently.

26. Let your passion shine to create meaningful relationships and build deep connections.

27. Learn how to talk more about other people.

28. Get on Facebook, get on Facebook now, and use it for your business.

29. Make people around you more successful than you are, and share stories from the heart.

30. Talk about what you know because content is always king.

31. Make something worth talking about.

32. Get your self properly interviewed.

33. Repeat your tweets.

34. Get more influence online by moving offline.

35. Really understand your audience, then build things that really help them.

36. Master one niche, own that niche, then use webinar marketing to promote your brand.

37. Think about what gifts and expertise you have that you can leverage to help others.

38. Map a strategy for integrating social media with other tactics.

39. Change from thinking about my influence to our influence.

40. Get active in other people’s communities.

41. Build ‘digital dimensionality’ by showing your many different sides.

42. Listen to the conversations taking place around you, then start to engage.

43. Network with other influencers and make them aware of your consistent value.

44. Think about the authenticity, consistency, and depth of your voice and story

45. Be willing to shake up your world.

46. Learn to be a storyteller, understand the psychology of people, create quality content.

47. Share ideas liberally and get increased accountability from the digital community.

48. Establish your business model before you attempt to become influential online.

49. Be consistent, connect the practical with the profound, and listen for the silence.

50. Find a unique niche you can own, focus on it and become known for that.

51. Find out what social network your customers are using and be there for them.

52. Build a community of readers by figuring out ways to get people talking.

53. Make friends along the way by helping others achieve their goals.

54. Think about social media as strategy to enhance your existing marketing goals.

55. Be systematic in establishing relationships with those on the same business path.

56. Become an advocate for gifted up and comers as they enter social media.

57. Start the media arm of your company that educates, inspires and entertains.

58. Give more than you get and build trust and relationships over time.

59. Take a look at what you have that others can’t do and use it to get where you need to go.

60. Figure out your value, identify influential individuals and connect to them directly.

The first WRONG question to ask about your social media marketing plans: (And the better one to start asking)

“What’s the hot new trend in social media that we can bring to our clients?

Better question: How can we optimize and improve our existing social media programs?”

Thank you Jay Baer.

So, instead of being so tactical, instead of looking at what OTHERS are doing, think more about YOUR desired results. You want to make the overall impact stronger right? You want more sales… right?

Tell me how you will improve your overall plan with THIS in mind!

C

How IKEA, Verizon, Skype, Reebok, Asus, Lego, Canon, Reebok, Cisco, Yahoo and Hotmail got their names!

Hotmail Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had the idea of checking their email via a web interface, and tried to find a name that ended in “mail.” They finally settled on hotmail because it had the letters “html,” referencing the HTML programming language used to help create the product.

Yahoo The word “yahoo” was coined by Jonathan Swift in the the book Gulliver’s Travels. The term represented a repulsive, filthy creatures that resembled humans (think: Neanderthal). Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo considered themselves yahoos, and thought the term would be appropriate for their joint venture.

Asus The consumer electronic company is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The founders dropped the first three letters for the high position in alphabetical listings. In 1998 Asus created a spinoff company named Pegatron, using the other unused letters of Pegasus.

Cisco Contrary to popular belief and theories, Cisco is simply short for San Francisco. Their logo resembles the suspension cables found on the Golden Gate bridge.

Canon When Canon was founded in 1933 under the name Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. Two years later they adopted “Canon” after the company’s first camera, the Kwanon. Kwanon is the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola’s name comes from the the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring in the soft drink. Eventually Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the ‘K’ of kola to ‘C’ to create a more fluid name.

IKEA IKEA is simply a random collection of letters, based from the first letters of founder Ingvar Kamprad’s name in addition to the first letters of the names of the Swedish property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

Lego Lego is a combination of the Danish phrase “leg godt,” which translates to “play well.” Initially the company built wooden toys, and later switched to making plastic bricks. Lego also means “I put together” in Latin, but the Lego Group claims this merely coincidence and the origin of the word is strictly Danish.

Reebok Reebok is simply an alternate spelling of “rhebok,” an African antelope. The company founders found the word in a South African edition of a dictionary won by the Joe Foster, son of the Reebok founder J.W. Foster.

Skype The original prototype of the company’s flagship product had the name “Sky-Peer-to-Peer,” which was shrunk down to Skyper, then finally Skype.

Verizon Verizon is a combination of the words veritas, which is Latin for “truth,” and horizon.

Source: How 16 Great Companies Picked Their Unique Names, OPENForum

So, what ideas does this give you for naming your company, website, book or product? Would love to hear about them!

C

How Google got it’s name… and how that can help you name your business/product/service

The name started as a joke about the amount of information the search engine could search, or a “Googol” of information. (A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gave a presentation to an angel investor, they received a check made out to “Google.”

Source: How 16 Great Companies Picked Their Unique Names, OPENForum

So, if you are naming your company, a new product or program, look to seldom used words that REALLY personify what you offer. Now, does it matter that the word googol has significance, probably not in the long run as most users have NO idea where the word Google came from. It MAY have been instrumental in the startup phase in emphasizing the massive amount of information.

And so what does this teach us, friends? That quite possibly it doesn’t matter what you name a company. Who’s to say however, Google is the most successful search engine so following the example is a smart gamble.

Product names are quite a bit more important, as you only have so much time to impress upon the consumer the need to purchase, so making it something that communicates the message is ideal. Cute or catchy isn’t as important as being benefit laden. People need to know very quickly the benefit they will experience when they make their purchase.

So, how does your product measure up? When a prospect sees your product name on facebook or a website, does it make an instant impact? Does your book title intrigue them and keep them hooked?

C