r21media.co.uk

Facebook: What was announced at F8 and what does it mean?

Richard @ R21 — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:48:54 +0000

Last week saw the arrival of the F8 conference. Cue many disgruntled Facebook users complaining over Facebook layout changes and setting up pages to restore the platform back to its familiar old look. How will they react when they find out these changes are just the beginning? After a long list of imminent changes being announced it is not only the personal user that may struggle to keep up with the changes, but also business that have become comfortable with using pages and done so successfully. It is essential that the changes are understood so here’s our overview of them and what they mean for marketing on Facebook.

Gestures: Facebook seem to have discovered the Thesaurus and as such are now enabling all posts, pages and links to not just be liked but ‘loved’, ‘watched’, ‘rented’ or ‘listened’; giving developers the ability to use any verb they likes as a call to action button. This not only applies to Pages but also to apps, it will certainly be interesting to see what developers cook up to take advantage of this new feature.

Postings: It will no longer be necessary for a user to ‘Like’ your page before being able to add content to your wall. Any business with an actively used Twitter account shouldn’t find this a problem though, as surely it’s no different to a mention? There are two sides to this coin though; not having a ‘like’ button will open pages up to an increased amount of spam, so beady eyes will have to be kept on all content posted (although this should be done anyway), but on the other hand it does make pages much more accessible.

Tick, Tock: A big welcome to the News Feed Ticker and a rapturous farewell to yet another Mall World Photo showing someone’s desperate effort to become the next Stella McCartney through Facebook. The Ticker hides all the less active posts and instead shows in our News Feed the most interacted with posts, links, videos and photos. This will hopefully encourage businesses to concentrate more on creating valuable content for their audiences to interact with and thus keep their pages’ content in the prominent position of the News Feed.

Partnerships: By collaborating with the likes of Spotify it will now be possible for users to better see what their friends are watching, listening to and reading. It will now be possible to watch your Mum’s favourite soap or listen that song your friend keeps humming without ever having to leave the comfort of Facebook.

Advertising: With deeper integration of the aforementioned Gestures advertisers will now have the capability to further target users listening to certain bands, shopping at particular shops or reading certain articles and books. Well designed campaigns will be vital to those wishing to use this new information to their advantage, but it will be possible.

Without doubt these changes will have a large impact on both personal and business users and with the personal profile changes coming (it would be very surprising if these were not also applied to pages as well) there will be more to come from the social media superpower. Companies wishing to get ahead in the world of Facebook are going to have to re-direct their focus from collecting fans and, instead, get creative and understand the intricacies of the changes to ensure they are building thriving online communities that continue to attract and engage with users. Those that don’t will certainly feel the impact.

R21Media’s Top 14 Legal Job Boards by Social Media Ranking Part III: Overall

Richard @ R21 — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:04:50 +0000

Combining together the results of the Top 20 Accountancy recruitment agencies by Twitter and Facebook rankings, we are now able to see who the best performers in the sector are.*

1. SimplyLawJobs
2. Law Gazette
3. LegalWeekJobs
4. LawJobsUK
5. TotallyLegal
6. =The Lawyer
6. =LegalProspects
7. LawAndMore
8. LegalSupportNetwork
9. 4LegalJobs, ChanceryLane, LawJobs.co.uk, LegalJobsBoard, LegalJobs.co.uk

There is little to comment on in terms of social media presence and performance because, as we have seen, the majority of legal job boards do not seem to be adopting social media as a marketing and recruiting platform.

The two clear leaders in this list are The Lawyer for their Twitter feed and the Law Gazette for their Facebook page. Job boards within this sector should look to these two as an example of best practice for building a solid online community.

* We are aware that the very popular professional networking platform of LinkedIn is missing, but unfortunately we are not able to measure a company’s performance via that channel in a straight forward and fair way.

R21Media’s Top 14 Legal Job Boards by Social Media Ranking Part II: Facebook

Richard @ R21 — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 14:00:47 +0000

After seeing a less than average performance on Twitter we’ll now see how well the Legal job boards fare with their Facebook activity.

Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of fans; the content of their pages; and an independent Facebook analyser’s findings.

1. Law Gazette (Score 1100)
It is easy to see why Law Gazette are placed at number one for their Facebook activity; with a welcoming landing page, photos uploaded and a poll currently running to encourage community participation they are doing a lot more than their competitors. With a bit more original content for Facebook their page could be improved.
2. SimplyLawJobs (Score 800)
Despite having the second highest amount of fans in this study SimplyLawJobs seem to be lacking a bit in their updates and branding.
3. LawJobsUK (Score 330)
With all their Facebook page content coming from Twitter it is easy to see why this page only has 35 fans
4. LegalProspects (Score 75)
Following an emerging trend for legal job boards; this page is generally a reproduction of their Twitter feed.
5. LegalWeekJobs (Score 45)
This page is used solely as a job board.
6. LegalSupportNetwork (Score 12)
Legal support network have not updated their page since 2009.
7. 4LegalJobs, ChanceryLane.co.uk, LawAndMore, LawJobs.co.uk, LegalJobsBoard.co.uk, LegalJobs.co.uk, The Lawyer, TotallyLegal

With only 42% of those considered having a page, the Legal job boards as a whole have the lowest Facebook presence we have seen. It is therefore no surprise that they also have the lowest average following of just 127. Their average overall score of 394 beats only the Engineering job boards and recruiters.

The Law Gazette’s page is the only one that stood out as being appealing to fans and having an understanding of the capabilities of Facebook.

R21Media’s Top 14 Legal Job Boards by Social Media Ranking Part I: Twitter

Richard @ R21 — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:53:18 +0000

R21Media’s Top 14 Legal Job Boards by Social Media Ranking
Part I: Twitter

The next sector considered for their use of social media is Legal.

Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of followers; the content of their feeds; and an independent Twitter analyser’s findings.

1. Legal Week Jobs (Score 3000)
With top news stories, participation in discussions with other users and an attractive background it is easy to see why @legalweek not only have the most amount of followers out of those considered but also why they take our number one spot.
2. SimplyLawJobs (Score 2390)
Used solely as a job board this feed is updated throughout the day with the latest vacancies.
3. TotallyLegal (Score 1513)
Used primarily to share the latest legal headlines, this feed is updated a few times a month
4. =Law Gazette Jobs (Score 1500)
This Twitter feed is used mainly as a news feed with regular industry updates.
4. =The Lawyer (Score 1500)
Whoever is behind the @thelawyermag feed certainly understands community engagement, with industry headlines, frequent conversations with other users and links to articles on all manner of subjects it is easy to see why they have such a healthy following.
5. LawJobsUK (Score 1215)
Incorporating LegalSecretary.co.uk this feed is regularly updated with live vacancies.
6. LawAndMore (Score 1092)
@Lawandmore tweet about a wide range of topics including fashion, restaurant reviews and travel with a lot of links to related articles.
7. LegalProspects (Score 400)
There has been very little activity on this feed since it was created in May.
8. 4LegalJobs, ChanceryLane.co.uk, LegalJobsBoard.co.uk, LegalSupportNetwork.co.uk, LegalJobs.co.uk, LawJobs.co.uk

With only 50% of those considered having a Twitter feed it is surprising to see that they have one of the highest average followings we have seen so far with 3824. However, even with this large following the legal job boards still score badly overall with the third lowest average score we have seen so far of 1576, beating only the Accountancy Job Boards and Recruiters.

Two feeds stood out for their building of and engaging with their online community; Legal Week and The Lawyer. Both clearly understand their audiences and provide them with relevant content and discussion.

R21Media’s Top 20 Engineering Job Boards and Recruiters by Social Media Ranking Part III: Overall

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:58:47 +0000

Combining together the results of the Top 20Engineering job boards and agencies by Twitter and Facebook rankings, we are now able to see who the best performers in the sector are.*

1. IceRecruit
2. JustEngineers.net
3. TheEngineeringJob.com
4. NCEJobs
5. Engineer-job.eu
6. REngineeringJobs.com
7. The Engineer
8. Beechwood Engineering
9. Orion Electrotech
10. TopEngineeringJobs.com
11. Anglo Technical Recruitment
12. EngineeringJobs.co.uk
13. EngineerJobBoard.co.uk, TotallyEngineering.com, 4Engineers.co.uk, EngineeringJobsNow.co.uk, UKCivilEngineering.com, Go4EngineeringJobs.com

The Engineering sector’s social media presence leaves a lot to be desired. The majority of those using social media either use it in spits and spurts or let an automated job feed do all the work.
Following in the footsteps of the Recruitment to Recruitment sector, very little community building and audience engagement was seen and there were very few additional features to the feeds and pages such as branding, newsletters, job search apps etc. The only exception to this was engineer-job.eu whose facebook page was abuzz with activity from their fans, however there was still little input and response from the creators themselves.

R21Media’s Top 20 Engineering Job Boards and Recruitment Agencies by Social Media Ranking Part II: Facebook

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:49:31 +0000

After seeing a less than average across Twitter we’ll now see how well the Engineering sector fare with their Facebook activity.

Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of fans; the content of their pages; and an independent Facebook analyser’s findings.

1. Engineer-job.eu (Score 1260)
With a huge 24,217 fans this page is used solely as a global job board for the engineering sector by the creators; however their fans also regularly post interesting links.
2. IceRecruit.com (Score 690)
This page is regularly updated with select vacancies and industry news.
3. TheEngineeringJob.com (Score 612)
As part of TipTopJob this page contains jobs from varying sectors.
4. JustEngineers.net (Score 200)
Most of the content on this page comes from JustEngineers.net’s Twitter feed, although there are some photos on here from exhibitions their team have attended.
5. REngineeringjobs.com (Score 125)
6. NCEJobs (Score 105)
NCE created their page in March, updated it three times and then left it.
7. Beechwood Engineering (Score 100)
This page was set up in May and there was a flurry of activity from the creators, however it has since been abandoned, with only the automated job search app updating regularly.
8. Orion Electrotech (Score 60)
This page has not been used since October 2010. They have also created a personal profile for their company, whom you can add as a ‘friend’.
9. Anglo Technical Recruitment (Score 50)
10. Engineeringjobs.co.uk (Score 45)
Having only ever been updated twice since it was created in March, and with no responses made to potential candidates who have posted on the wall it seems that EngineeringJobs gave up quite swiftly on Facebook.
11. TheEngineer.co.uk (Score 7)
This page has never been used since it was set up.
12. Engineerboard.co.uk, TotallyEngineering.com, PeopleTek, TheCareerEngineer, 4Engineers.co.uk, Engineeringjobsnow.co.uk, UKCivilEngineering.com, Go4EngineeringJobs.com, TopEngineeringJobs.com

In a first in the studies we have so far conducted; the engineering sector have made more of an effort with Facebook than they have with Twitter, with 55% of those considered having at least created a page, compared with only 45% creating a Twitter feed.

However, this seems to have been mostly in vain as the Engineering sector received the lowest average overall score of just 296, being beaten by Accountancy, Marketing, Recruitment to Recruitment and generalist job boards and recruiters.

R21Media’s Top 20 Engineering Job Boards and Recruiters by Social Media Ranking Part I:Twitter

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:44:59 +0000

The next sector considered for their use of social media is engineering. As a very global sector it will be interesting to see how they are using the power of social media (if at all) to attract international talent.
Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of followers; the content of their feeds; and an independent Twitter analyser’s findings.

1. JustEngineers.net (Score 2275)
Despite taking a break from their Twitter feed between December 2010 and June this year, JustEngineers.net regularly updated feed provides their followers with the latest industry news.
2. IceRecruit.com (Score 2002)
Advertising the latest vacancies and giving industry insights it is easy to see why Icerecruit take the number two spot.
3. TheEngineer.co.uk (Score 2000)
With the highest amount of followers in this sector TheEnginnerUK come in third.
4. NCEJobs (Score 1960)
As part of NCE Magazine there is no separate feed for those looking for jobs, but @NCEMag provides followers with the latest industry headlines
5. TheEngineeringJob.com (Score 1920)
As part of TipTopJobs the Twitter feed is used as a job board for many different sectors.
6. TopEngineeringJobs.com (Score 1750)
With a personalised feed, @TopEngJobs use their feed predominately as an extension to their job board.
7. Rengineeringjobs.com (Score 1562)
Sending more than 50 job vacancy tweets in the space of an hour it is unsurprising that REngineeringJob only has 68 followers
8. Beechwood Engineering (Score 1258)
Bringing vacancies from around the world @BeechwoodJobs is used solely as a job board.
9. Orion Electrotech (Score 1210)
Updated very infrequently, it is no surprise to see that @OrionElectotec only have 48 followers.
10. Engineerboard.co.uk, TotallyEngineering.com, PeopleTek, Anglo Technical Recruitment, EngineeringJobs.co.uk, TheCareerEngineer.com, 4Engineers.co.uk, Engineer-job.eu, Engineeringjobsnow.co.uk, UKCivilEngineering.com and Go4EngineeringJobs.com

With only 45% of those considered having a Twitter feed; the engineering sector have the lowest overall Twitter presence compared with the other sectors we have so far studied.

However, they are clearly doing something right as those with a feed attained an average score of 1771, which puts them above Accountancy job boards and recruiters and the generalist job boards.

R21Media’s Top 18 Recruitment to Recruitment Job Boards and Agencies by Social Media Ranking Part III: Overall

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:24:26 +0000

Combining together the results of the Top 18 Recruitment to Recruitment job boards and agencies by Twitter and Facebook rankings, we are now able to see who the best performers in the sector are.*

1. Ashley Associates
2. UK Recruiter
3. CareersInRecruitment
4. Aston Taylor
5. UK Jobs In Recruitment
6. =The Recruitment Job
6. =McCall
7. Carlin Hall
8. Cody Rec2Rec
9. Apply4U
10. =Life In Recruitment
10. =Red Pepper
11. Recruitment Careers, 4Recruitmentjobs, McMillan Bates, Fresh Partnership and Waters Barnes

The Recruitment to Recruitment sector seem to be lacking in the social recruiting department. With over a quarter of those considered for this study having no social media activity at all.

There is very little in the way of a strong social media presence by the majority of those that have tried Twitter and Facebook, with some of the lowest scores we have seen throughout the different studies, Recruitment to Recruitment come in below the Accountancy job boards.

The lack of audience engagement is also extremely obvious, with only three companies bucking this trend; UK Recruiter, Ashley Associates and Aston Taylor. UK Recruiter give much more appealing content than the majority of others with links to Louise Triance’s blogs, articles on a range of industry topics and information on events they are organising. Ashley Associates’ Facebook page is also very good, with their blog, personnel information and news integrated into the page. Aston Taylor have a much more personable approach to their use of social media by displaying photos of company outings and links to their blog.

Simple things such as posting news stories, adding videos and pictures to pages and communicating with their audience (rather than just talking AT them) could really help the recruitment to recruitment sector improve their social media standing.

* We are aware that the very popular professional networking platform of LinkedIn is missing, but unfortunately we are not able to measure a company’s performance via that channel in a straight forward and fair way.

R21Medias Top 18 Recruitment to Recruitment Job Boards and Agencies by Social Media Ranking Part II: Facebook

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:02:17 +0000

Given that the Recruitment to Recruitment sector have fallen below average for the amount of Twitter feeds owned, it will be interesting to see how they perform on Facebook.

Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of fans; the content of their pages; and an independent Facebook analyser’s findings.

1. Ashley Associates (Score 1260)
Without doubt the best example of a Facebook page by any of the recruitment to recruitment job boards and agencies; Ashley Associates’ page is very welcoming with vacancies, news and information on key personnel displayed.
2. Careers In Recruitment (Score 780)
This pacore 780)ge is updated very infrequently, with the last post being made back in April.
3. UK Recruiter (Score 625)
With a welcoming landing page, informative articles and an easy to use contact page, UK Recruiter are doing well to engage their audience.
4. The Recruitment Job (Score 612)
Being part of the TipTop website group gives www.therecruitmentjob.com an unfair advantage in terms of fans.
5. McCall (Score 280)
McCall use their wall solely as a job board. There are also some photos of events that their staff attended, but none of these albums are very recent.
6. Aston Taylor (Score 175)
With a fairly active page showing company focused updates and photos from various events it’s a wonder why they don’t have more than 19 fans.
7. Carlin Hall (Score 126)
After only ever posting one update back in October 2009, it’s surprising to see that Carlin Halls page has 69 fans.
8. UK Jobs In Recruitment (Score 105)
After setting up their page Jobs In Recruitment updated it only a handful of times before dismissing it.
9. Cody Rec2Rec (Score 48)
Despite starting off with quite a bit of activity; this page has not been used since December last year.
10. Life In Recruitment (Score 7)
This page has not been used since it was set up in 2008.
11. 4RecruitmentJobs,Apply4U, Recruitment Careers, Red Pepper, McMillan Bates, Fresh Partnership, Waters Barnes

With 55% of those considered having a Facebook page, the recruitment to recruitment sector do have a slightly higher than average Facebook presence.

However, we once again see a lack of community building through the use of the social media platform. The recruitment to recruitment sector score only an average of 401 for their Facebook activity, the Accountancy sector managed an average Facebook score of 683. Only Ashley Associates, Aston Taylor and UK Recruiter seem to see that Facebook can be used for more than simply advertising job vacancies.

Top 18 Recruitment to Recruitment Job Boards and Agencies by Social Media Ranking Part I: Twitter

Richard @ R21 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:18:16 +0000

As social media becomes more integral to the recruitment process it will be interesting to see how well the recruiter to recruiter job boards and agencies are using the medium as part of their recruiting strategy.

Our results are based on a number of measurements including; the amount of followers; the content of their feeds; and an independent Twitter analyser’s findings.

1. Ashley Associates (Score 2871)
With a personalised background, news tips and vacancies advertised it is easy to see why Ashley Associates top our ranking.
2. Aston Taylor (Score 2610)
Aston Taylor use their Twitter feed solely as a job board for both internal and external vacancies.
3. UK Recruiter (Score 2500)
UK Recruiter use their branded feed to share industry news, promote events and link to internal blog posts.
4. UK Jobs In Recruitment (Score 2220)
With very infrequent tweets it is no surprise that this account only has 160 followers.
5. Careers In Recruitment (Score 2175)
Regularly updated to include the latest vacancies this feed can easily be found from their website.
6. Cody Rec2Rec (Score 2100)
With a well branded background, Codys feed is used only as a job board.
7. Carlin Hall (Score 1960)
Having only sent out 3 tweets this year it is surprising that Carlin Hall are not better harnessing their audience of 2,633 followers
8. McCall (Score 1870)
Updated regularly this feed is once again used only to advertise vacancies.
9. The Recruitment Job (Score 1639)
As part of TipTopJob the recruitment to recruitment vacancies are lost in and amongst the various other vacancies advertised on the @tiptopjob feed.
10. Apply4U (Score 1185)
Apply4U continue the trend of using Twitter to only advertise vacancies.
11. Red Pepper (Score 765)
With the occasional Tweet giving in house news Red Pepper have at least attempted some kind of audience engagement
12. Life In Recruitment (Score 84)
Having only ever sent one Tweet since its creation, it is no wonder they have 0 followers.
13. 4RecruitmentJobs, Recruitment Careers, McMillan Bates, Fresh Partnership & Waters Barnes

With only 66% of those included having a Twitter feed; the recruitment to recruitment sector score as one of the lowest.

It seems that many of the agencies and job boards are struggling with the community building aspect of social media, with 50% of those with a Twitter feed using it only to advertise jobs.