On the 23rd May 2018 we teamed up with social media marketing software provider and Chamber member Audiense to hold a seminar on how social media can contribute to business growth and development. This greatly popular seminar, which welcomed participants from both member and non-member companies and representing a variety of sectors, demonstrated the great value of social media to all businesses.
The talk was led by Carlos Serra, Chief Operating Officer of Audiense. He began by explaining very briefly what the presentation would cover, including the key difference between engagement vs. presence on social media, the various social selling pillars and invaluable advice on how to successfully manipulate data received from social channels.
An important tip that Carlos highlighted was that of the basic social stack, in which he included 4 stages which utilise different (and mostly free) platforms: monitoring (using HootSuite and Ritetag), publishing content (using Buffer and Bitly), market research (using Facebook and Audiense) and promoting content to the right audience by use of Twitter advertisements and LinkedIn; for example. He recommended the use of RiteTag for instant hashtag suggestions for images and texts, which are based on real time hashtag engagement.
He went on to describe a new approach to influencer marketing. This process has four key stages: to IDENTIFY the relevant domain and its audience, SEGMENT the audience in to smaller communities, ENGAGE at scale organically through advertising to create awareness and to go on to build an ‘influencer panel’ to UNDERSTAND the content and behaviours to tailor companies’ messages and develop campaigns.
The presentation was both highly engaging and insightful, and throughout Carlos used the example of the social media channels of Forma 5; another member of the Chamber. He used their feeds to exemplify the hidden data which should be used to underpin company’s social media strategies, and more importantly, where to find this (mentioning Facebook ads and Twitter lists).
The event was well received by all who attended, who enjoyed the opportunity to be actively engaged in the seminar. Following Carlos’ presentation, participants were able to ask any questions they had to clarify any doubts and to receive extra advice. After this, everyone had the chance to network and exchange opinions of the seminar over coffee and breakfast. It was clear that all had found it interesting and eye opening, and left inspired about how they could improve their social media marketing strategies.
We would like to thank Audiense very much for collaborating with us on this seminar.
To find out about further seminars and other networking events held by the Spanish Chamber, we encourage you to visit the Upcoming Events section of our website and also sign up to our fortnightly newsletter to keep informed about future Chamber activities.
On Tuesday 12th May representatives of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce attended an event about the Best Practices in Social Media Promotion. It was wisely organised by Pickevent at the offices of WeWork in Soho, a modern and open co-working space.
The event organiser, Mr. José Bort, welcomed all the attendees and introduced the speaker’s panel: Mr. Ricardo Molina, Co-Founder and Director of BrightBull Marketing; Ms. Randy Nyssen, Head of Digital Marketing at i2i Events Group; Mr. Will Watts, Events and Marketing Manager and Ms. Elvira Asare-Hunted, Conference Director at UBM Live, who acted as the moderator of the event.
Improve your performance in the Social Media.
The speakers provided attendees with a general overview of social media and how to promote the activity of companies via social networks such as, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn among others. All three speakers emphasised that when it comes to Social Networks, the trick lies on the name: It is supposed to be social. By social they meant that companies must develop conversations and engage with their audience, in order to create a fluent and effective relationship.
Furthermore, the speakers highlighted that it is necessary to bear in mind that not all the social networks are the same nor work equally. In fact, each one of them has its own rules and audience; for instance, even if hashtags work in Twitter and Instagram, they do not work in Facebook.
In the second part of the seminar, all three speakers went through different recommendations that Community Managers can implement in order to improve their performance in the Social Networks:
1. Be attractive. Create valuable and interesting content for your audience. It is important to remember that it is not all about one’s event. Talking about the same topic or event constantly may be tiring and demotivating for the audience.
2. Be social. As previously mentioned, it is essential to be social. This means, having real conversations with people, interacting and commenting, not just with selling purposes.
3. Be careful. Once you click the publish button there is no going back! Make sure that all the comments and contents are appropriate and harmless.
4. Be diligent. It is better to manage two channels or social networks and do it well, than having ten and not dedicate the necessary time to them.
5. Be smart. Take advantage of the online tools that can help optimising time and resources. For instance, message scheduling apps, statistics controllers or content managers.
Don’t forget to write it down!
At the end of the seminar there was a Q&A where attendees had any doubts solved and afterwards the participants had some time to mingle and share knowledge while enjoying an informal dinner.
Finally, we would like to thank PickEvent for inviting us to this lovely evening and encourage them to keep on organising enriching events.
Social Media is certainly becoming a trending topic amongst professionals since its business usage has significantly increased in recent years. However, it could also represent a risk if companies do not properly manage their own social media networks or their use among employees.
In order to find out more about how to tackle potential risks arising from this situation, we hosted a breakfast seminar in collaboration with Colman Coyle LLP, a member of the Spanish Chamber, on Tuesday 19th November. The seminar focused on approching key management issues resulting from the inappropriate use of social media by employees and managers.
From left to right: Mr. Ignacio Morillas-Paredes and Ms. Sandra Martins from Colman Coyle, and Mr. Igor Urra, Secretary General of the Spanish Chamber.
The seminar was delivered by Sandra Martins, Senior Associate in Colman Coyle’s Employment Department. She is also part of Colman Coyle’s International Legal Service and Anglo-Spanish Legal Service teams.
Her presentation focused on how manages can combat some of the troubles caused by social media as well as how they are able to reduce the risk through the use of the inner policies. She highlighted the importance for organizations to have a social media policy, which must be very clear for employees to ensure an efficient protection of the company’s reputation.
Ms. Martins delivering the session.
In order to emphasize the consequences of a misuse of social networks, Sandra shared some recent case studies on employees who have acted inappropriately on social media platforms and what impact and consequences that behaviour had for both the employee and the company.
One of the examples Sandra brought attention to was the case of an employee who had published a derogatory statement about his company in his private Facebook profile. Someone else from the company printed the comment and passed it on to the store manager where the employee worked, who sacked him on the spot. Despite the comment being made in a private page, the tribunal stated they did not find that the dismissal decision fell outside the range of reasonable responses as the company’s social media policy was very clear in that regard.
Attendees exchanged their opinions over coffee.
As this is still a somewhat unknonw and tricky area, attendees were listening attentively and interacting with the speaker for advice on how to make sure that they will avoid any problems involving social media issues at their companies. After the session, the participants could exchange their impressions on the talk and enjoy some breakfast.
If you would like to find out more about other activities organised by our Chamber, we encourage you to keep an eye on our UPCOMING EVENTS section on our website. We look forward to seeing you at our next event!
Last year’s Social Recruiting Survey by Jobvite revealed that over 50% of companies recruit through Twitter, 2/3 use Facebook and nearly all of them use LinkedIn. Furthermore, since starting recruitment through social networking sites (also known as Social Recruiting), 49% of employers have reported more candidates to choose from, 43% have seen an increase in the quality of applicant and 20% say that it has reduced the time that recruitment takes. Finally, 7 out of 10 employers have recruited from a social networking site.
Social Recruiting allows employers to use a personal touch and engage directly with potential employees, rather than just the black-and-white of their CVs. In today’s recruitment world of electronic application screening and psychometric testing, it can be rare for employers and candidates to connect directly prior to a final interview, but through Social Recruiting they can build up a rapport. Which begs the question, if Social Recruiting has such positive results, then why isn’t everyone using it?
Well, although it can be very effective and it may appear to be an easy, time-saving option there are still several factors to consider when choosing to use social networking sites to recruit. This blog will look at the three principal social networking sites used for recruitment (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn), offer some invaluable insight from our member company, social job board jobandtalent, about the impact Facebook has had, and continues to have, on recruitment, and finally we will give both candidates and employers some helpful tips on how to make the most of Social Recruiting.
LinkedIn is a social networking site aimed at professionals where they can upload their skills and experience in a CV-like format. Given this professional slant it is understandable why the majority of employers recruiting through social media use this site. Job opportunities can be posted by starting a discussion in a relevant group or you can pay to advertise on the LinkedIn jobs board. This is particularly appealing to candidates as their profile (with an optional cover letter) can be submitted in direct response to a job advert on LinkedIn, making the application process quick and pain-free.
Twitter is a micro-blogging website where users can tweet or re-tweet a message of 140 characters. The more followers you have and the better your grasp of hashtags, the more impact you are likely to make in the Twittosphere. The advantage here is that you can post the job opportunities you have available directly to your followers for free; just make sure you include a link to your recruitment page or the email address to send CVs to.
jobandtalent, a social job board that connects with Facebook to facilitate the job process and member of the Chamber, has been kind enough to share their thoughts on Social Recruiting. Co-founders Felipe Navio and Juan Urdiales came up with the idea to integrate social networking and job hunting when recommendations from Facebook friends helped them to find a job and to find employees respectively. jobandtalent remarks that, “Social media has created a massive directory of real people and real profiles that didn’t exist before. These networks have amplified the way people communicate – not just about their private lives but also about the company they work for or a place they have interviewed at.” The size of the network means that anything shared on these sites can be seen by thousands of people within minutes, it also means that what is said about a business on social media can have a powerful impact on the company, creating an either positive or negative image.
Indeed, Facebook has just over one billion users, clocking up an average of 40 hours a month usage each. jobandtalent itself has about 500,000 users and is used by more than 2,000 leading companies for recruitment. In addition to these numbers, jobandtalent’s connection with Facebook (and the growing trend to include professional information on profiles) means that employers can search their database of over 20 Million passive candidates made up of users’ network of friends without the risk of compromising the user’s privacy.
However, it is not only recruiters who are learning the value of Social Recruiting. Increasingly job hunters, particularly young professionals, are using social media to actively find jobs. jobandtalent points out that “whereas few people leave university with an extensive professional network, chances are most will have accumulated a sizable social network – which when used strategically can help job seekers kick-start their careers.” Through jobandtalent job seekers can connect their account to Facebook and can see if they have any inside connections at the companies they are applying to, which can facilitate recommendations, giving candidates a leg up in today’s competitive job market.
Below we have some hints on how to make the most of Social Recruiting for candidates and employers:
jobandtalent’s Handy Hints for Job Seekers
– Plug in relevant professional and educational history on your Facebook profile
-Companies are more likely to hire you if you come referred by an existing employee. Find out if you have friends (or friends of friends) working at the companies where you are looking to get hired
-Share, Tweet and post interesting articles and content related to your field of expertise
-Be careful not use social media as a way to vent too much frustration about past or current employers
-Do not be too quick to lock up all of your social media profiles while job searching, employers want to get an idea of who you are – use this opportunity to show how you are unique – it may just get your CV shortlisted
-Make sure you are telling the same professional story across all your social and professional networks – recruiters will want to see that your story is consistent
– Get creative: job seekers should take advantage of the versatility the internet has to offer. We recommend integrating your job search with multiple social media profiles including Twitter, Pinterest and of course Facebook
Our Top Tips for Recruiters
–Make sure what you are sending out is relevant to your goals. Whilst photos of the office bake-off may be the pride and joy of your instagram account, keep it there. Potential candidates might see your pictures of cupcakes as spam and stop following you, losing your audience for future job posts.
– Ensure that you represent your company and business culture accurately so that you attract the kind of people you want to attract. If you try to make your office appear relaxed, creative and easy-going when it is actually a highly-pressurised, number-crunching hothouse, you will attract candidates who are attracted to the idea of the former and unable to cope with the reality of the latter, which would be unsatisfactory for all involved.
– What makes Social Recruitment stand out against the generic online recruitment process is the element of interaction. Social Media is about being personal and responsive, candidates who initiate contact with you may become disheartened if you don’t reply to their questions or leave it too long before acknowledging a Twitter mention, and you may lose them through disinterest.
-It is best to view Social Recruitment as an enhancement of traditional recruitment techniques, rather than a replacement. Certain procedures, such as face-to-face interviews and background checks, are still very important and should be adhered to, no matter where you find the candidate.
–Interconnect everything. Your goals are more likely to be achieved if your message and Social Recruiting are consistent. Link your Twitter to your Facebook and your recruitment website to your Twitter. You could consider setting up a job feed, but if you are not sure how there are companies that can do this on your behalf.
–You only get out what you put in; commenting on a thread in a group once is not enough to establish yourself. Get involved in groups and debates on LinkedIn and regularly post engaging material on your Facebook and Twitter. The bigger your online footprint, the greater number of followers you will attract and the more potential candidates you will reach.
– Gathering and engaging with a large number of followers across different platforms is a key part of Social Recruiting as it widens the audience for your job opportunities and encourages interactivity. A well-placed hashtag can see your tweets appear in the Twitter search-engine and consider the timings of your output, if you post when your audience is most likely to be online you’ll reach more people.
P.S. Recruiting through social media is not only a great way to find potential candidates, but also to increase your online presence. Even if you don’t end up hiring someone using Social Recruiting, you can still increase your company’s online footprint and raise your profile through connecting and engaging with talent.
We would like to say a special thank you to jobandtalent for their contribution to this post. Make sure you keep an eye on our blog for upcoming entries relating to professional matters and the business world.
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