If you haven’t read my related post have a quick gander – it will tie some things together for this post. – Julian
The Evolving Engagement Model
The Broadcasting Model
It would be an understatement to say that communications models are changing. Old marketing and communications practices followed a we speak/you listen model. This worked out pretty well for marketers when people used to have more attention to spare or we could rely on the novelty of an advertising medium to break through the clutter. Unfortunately, the expiration date these days on novelty expires in months and not decades.
The issue now is that people don’t have the time or interest in listening. Before they expend their time and attention on your company or product an exchange of value has to take place. For today I’ll call that exchange of value, engagement.
The old model looked something like this.
Ye Old Marketing and Communications Model
The Interaction Model
Interactive online tools like blogs ushered in today’s interaction model and extends today in webinars, livestreams, chat rooms, virtual worlds and social networks. Clearly we have a lot of tools that make it possible to better listen. The influence of these tools has grown and today companies are starting to see the value in listening more. But listening skills aren’t enough and far too many organizations are still stuck in the broadcast model.
The interaction model looked something like this.
The transitional model - think web 2.0
The Evolving Engagement Model
With today’s tools we have what we need to move towards a new engagement model that focuses more heavily on listening, processing, interacting, and broadcasting. Ideally, the net result is tangible engagement and then a lift in your brand.
It probably resembles a formula like this.
Listening 30% / Processing 20% / Interacting 30% / Broadcasting 20% = Engagement
The evolving engagement model
In my next post I’m going to dive into the engagement model in more detail and perhaps in another post or two we’ll bring it all together with an actionable process.
Let me know if you’ve thrown up in your hat yet or if any of this is making sense.
- Julian
Julian co-authors EXCELER8ion with his better half Shannon Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.
Most of his time Julian works on behalf of his clients at exceler8 and LOCAL Na8ion. Julian is launching an evolving digital engagement practice called Brand Trampoline where his first client is John Sumser of HRExaminer.com.
Where you are is where it’s at, The new interaction engagement model
One of our sister practices at exceler8 is called LOCAL Na8ion where we help small businesses harness the web to get more customers from their local city. Our slogan at LOCAL Na8ion is where you are is where it’s at. The slogan hints at how our physical and virtual worlds have become intertwined. At times, where we are is a state of mind, such as when we’re contributing to an online community, while at others we are grounded in the context of our physical location and needs like when we go out to dinner or look for a plumber on Google.
Where your people are at has changed
The slogan is apt for our new service Brand Trampoline because where you are and where your people are (be they job seekers, consumers or buyers of your product or service) has radically changed…if you want your company to be where it’s at you have to participate.
Every aspect of life is converging and connecting
Connections are now happening in multiple contexts and dimensions including our physical proximity and shared interests to our social networks of friends and associates on Facebook, Twitter, email and blogs, and yes offline too. Perhaps the ultimate mashup of all these interactions is TCFKAP – The computer in your pocket formerly known as a phone. Wait, did I just make a Prince reference?
Facebook is becoming the web’s top source of traffic
The web today is pretty search centric (that’s spelled G-O-O-G-L-E) but times are changing quickly, Facebook is fast becoming the web’s top source of traffic. Real time search results and social search are replacing the way we interact almost overnight. We have new interaction touch points, tools, and communication vehicles and in almost all cases consumers, job seekers, and local buyers are way out head of the typical enterprise - be they the mom and pop variety or the Fortune 500.
Companies of all sizes are making one of three mistakes
- They’re failing to engage at all.
- They not keeping pace with where people are moving due to budgets, expertise or red tape.
- They’re failing to engage in a meaningful way, often in the form of broadcasting their information rather than following an interaction model (what we refer to as digital engagement)
We all need to let go of the paradigm where our company website is where it’s at. Not that we don’t need one, it’s just that your website has already become a spoke in the wheel as far as people are concerned while your business operations, marketing and PR are still treating it like sun that your customers all orbit around.
The new interaction engagement model
We’re going to take up the case of the new interaction engagement model in the coming week but you might not be surprised to learn that success in our new world is based not in technological expertise or marketing gimmicks but old fashioned common sense applied in a contextually thoughtful way. Not to sound smug but it’s called listening. Have you noticed how little room there is today for listening? It’s hard when everyone is an expert and all of us posses some fantasmic skill or solution for becoming wealthy, skinny or successful overnight. Listening and understanding are more important today than in any time in our history.
Rather than rushing to establish an online reputation it’s useful for us all to recognize that we already have one, just like we already have a company culture even if you HR team or CEO failed to launch a multi-million dollar culture initiative in the 90’s.
I look forward to picking up the conversation about the new engagement model (er, old) in the coming week. In the mean time we’ll be out there looking for threads of knowledge in this and other conversations and looking to engage in more understanding.
-Julian
Julian co-authors EXCELER8ion with his better half Shannon Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.
Most of his time Julian works on behalf of his clients at exceler8 and LOCAL Na8ion. Julian is launching an evolving digital engagement practice called Brand Trampoline where his first client is John Sumser of HRExaminer.com.
Companies that will have the greatest success leveraging social media for recruiting will be ones that start inside, where the leadership actively encourages/guides their current employees to connect internally and externally using social media (… or at the very least avert their eyes and don’t block social networks). Employees should be the most qualified, the most credible, and the best source of information about your company culture, the employment experience and why someone would want to work for you. By enabling and distributing their stories across the web – companies create a powerhouse of information for job seekers considering working for your company.
You pride yourself on making good hiring decisions, so since you hired them, you should be able to trust them as professionals (I know this still makes many companies uncomfortable, but let’s start with this premise, and maybe that you even already have a social media policy). So how do you get Employees to talk about their experience online? Educate them.
Are Internal Communications and Recruiting a secret OR not so secret alliance in your company?
In many companies Internal Communications often falls under Marketing or Corporate Comm (and sometimes HR), while Recruitment or Talent Acquisition falls squarely under HR. In my experience, Internal Communications is rarely present at Employer Brand/Recruitment Marketing related meetings (unless their presence is specifically requested). I’ve also observed amazing Internal/Employee Communication Chats that happen all the time on Twitter – but I rarely see any peeps from the recruitment side participating.
Maybe my observations are wrong — but this apparent separation seems to block what could be a friendship made in heaven. Why? From a recent post on The BrandBuilder Blog, Becoming P2P: Principal characteristics of the new Social Business:
Employees of P2P (People to People) businesses don’t hate their jobs. Why? Because they are empowered by their management team to collaborate with employees and the communities they touch. As a result of being clearly aware of their operational boundaries and because they receive ongoing, multilateral support from their organization, they know how to act professionally when dealing with the public.
Proactively educating employees through internal communications is a critical component to successfully using social media for recruiting. Employees need to know where/how to help if you want their help listening and responding online. Continually monitor your online reputation and then let employees know where conversations are happening about you as an employer (hint: Indeed Forums; GlassDoor Reviews; Vault; JobVent). Solicit their support in leaving their own honest reviews, responding and commenting on other reviews, answering job seeker questions etc.
Use your Intranet, email, SMS etc to regularly communicate to your employees things they can do online such as:
- Where they can help answer your candidates questions (maybe even create a forum specifically for this purpose on your career web site)
- Discuss why their work for your company, or their latest project
- Post pictures and videos from Company Events
- Post reviews and information about you
- Tweet or contribute to the company facebook fan page (become a “fan” even
)
Align with Internal Comms to create an Army of Davids out of your employees, guide them to tell their/your story via social media, and watch your social recruiting machine flourish.
So who’s doing this well?
- Shannon
Shannon co-authors EXCELER8ion with her other half Julian Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.
Shannon is a regular speaker in the HR & Talent Acquisition space where she’s known for her work in social media and integrated digital engagement. By day Shannon works at a Recruitment Marketing Agency.
