Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:48:20 +0700WeeblyFri, 30 Oct 2009 05:36:48 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/10/what-will-you-do-to-be-interesting-today.html I really have had the chance to sit back and have a good hard look at what I do with my time, my job and where my true interests lie.

Obviously many people know me from recruitment media but that's not the whole story.

Why did I get involved in recruitment media? Well, I steadfastly believe it was because I actually had a passion for online media and the power of having something accessible to all that anyone and everyone with access to a PC could engage with. My early involvement was selling and now it's becoming more about engaging and involving and that's what I really enjoy doing, helping someone understand why social media is important and why there is a benefit to them as a business or individual is a really great thing to do.

Purpose of the blog post? I guess that David McCandless got it right when he said that coming into a social space “what you can do is bring a gift – interestingness. If you're interesting, you'll get followed and you'll get retweeted. And the most interesting gift is the revealing gift”.

What will you do to to be interesting today?

]]>Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:44:18 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/07/reputation-management-online.html  1.  Monitoring.

Maybe this is not the best place to start out but it could save you a lot.

There are a huge number of reputation management companies out there and there are a huge number that do little more than monitor your brand for you without offering any real solutions. They will use some of the great tools out there like Trackur, Radian, Buzzlogic, BrandsEye, Buzzmetrics etc. but they may only tell you that there is an issue.

If you want to know what is going on then there are much simpler and easier ways of building tools that will do pretty much the same thing, yes they take time to build and are an evolving project for most companies but they can save you a lot of money, if you don't want to build it yourself, have someone build the tool for you and then hand over ownership straight to you without having to incur a monthly fee (unless you want them to monitor and update it for you).

And yes, I can build you a monitoring tool, email me!

2.  Squash the Problem Before it damages you!
The PR time bomb is out there and it's so easy to manage it's unreal, your average 8 year old can set up a blog so why do so many corporate entities not do it? If you know there is potentially a problem on the horizon then tackle it straight on. That way your monitoring shouldn't go haywire!

3.  Authoritative Blogger Reviews.

Every market has it's bloggers, no matter how niche your industry there are authorities out there that could make or break your online rep. Reach out to the authors and get them to write about you (do make sure they include a link!) You can go down the route of paid blogging, personally I find it a little shady as it diminishes the value of that person's opinion. Hopefully if you get a leading blogger to write about you then they will generate comments on their site and hopefully stimulate other bloggers to also look at and potentially write about your brand.

4.  Domain Names.
OK, I'm teaching you to suck eggs but why are there still people not getting this?? If you are a prominent person or brand, chances are many people will skip search engines altogether and type in a domain name.  Make sure you own yourname.com or yourbrand.com. Google loves exact name domain names, so it’s not really hard to rank a .net, .org, or even a .info these days.

In the field of reputation management it's also looking at potentially damaging web names, www.yourbrandsucks.com maybe worth having if you thing people may want to attack you. Bear it in mind.

4.  Make Sure Your House Is In Order.

Making 100% sure your site is as finely tuned as you can get it and it's ranking as best as possible for it's own identity is important for so many reasons aside form reputation management, don't neglect the basics.
Basic On-Page SEO is pretty easy.  Most content management systems will create crawlable site architecture for search engines to follow and interpret.  If you are using outdated CMS that creates a lot of duplicate content or uncrawlable URL’s, the content relevance and authority is being severely diluted.  Canonical URLs are still an issue (the www. and non www. URLs), search engines still look at them as separate sites. 

I could go on and on but I don't really need to, if you are reading this and don't know where your on page issues are already then go back and have another look, or I'll let you know some great agencies who could sort that for you.

5.  PPC and your brand.
Some marketers will tell you not to bother spending on your brand name, well, I have to disagree. Firstly it's cheap, quality scoring will ensure you're going to get the best deal on your company or product names. It's a great insurance piece, if you slip in the rankings for whatever reason you can at least be assured that the paid search option will keep you in your customer's eye line. If you don't bid, someone else will, got a US competitor, well, it's legal for them to bid on your name!

6.  Subdomains/Subfolders

You really want to ensure your blog is taking advantage of the authority that your core site offers. There is a bit of argument over which is best, personally I have seen both work , search engines do look at subdomains as unique domains and can diminish the authority of the originating site but it's a bit of a judgement call.

As a general rule, don't duplicate the content you are putting on there and make sure you have somewhere for your blog, forum etc. to go that can actually be viewed and there is a valid separation of content.

7.  Copyright, TM and Legal issues online
Wow, it's a bit of a minefield, there are companies out there that specialise on online media so do speak with them but as a general rule if you are not defending yourself then the relatively low barriers to entry mean in creating negative brand equity can and will make you a target. Just as an initial guide you can always look at going to google with a DMCA request if it's clear infringement for domain name issues then look up the ICANN Domain Dispute Resolution Policy

]]>Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:37:27 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/07/smir-2009-social-media-in-recruiting.htmlI just wanted a say a couple of words on Mike Taylor at Web Based Recruitment's Social Media in Recruitment conference yesterday. It was really great to see a new event put together in a pretty tough market that turned out to be such a success, I believe Mike had 149 in attendance and a great turnout from the corporate recruiter and recruitment agency side of the industry. They are the guys that NEED to be at events like this because a vast number of them simply don't get what is going on in the recruitment space and are not prepared for the changes that are happening in the industry. Right now they are inundated with candidates and are, in many cases, not prepared for the changing recruitment market once the economy is back on an even keel.

The worry is always that people go to these events and then make a half hearted stab at social media and decide they can't be bothered to keep it up or they don't see immediate results so they abandon it. The trick really is not to do everything at once or if you really MUST do that then get someone in who knows how to build and implement it.

I'm going to try and get copies of the presentations and, if Mike and the presenters are OK with it I'll host those I can on here and make some specific comments.

]]>Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:09:15 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/07/nice-cv-build-tool.htmlJust saw this from the guys at Antix; http://cv.antix.co.uk/Build/ a really nice tool that breaks the CV down into chuncks of info online and lets you build a CV online, the next step from them is apparently to use this as an app for facebook and to connect to linkedin as an auto uploader, it's a nice simple tool with some potential to help the newbie integrate with tools they have never used before but should.

]]>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:05:46 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/06/the-ted-commandments-or-how-to-think-and-work-better.htmlFor those not aware TED is an awesome project originally set up to bring the worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design together, TED run conferences internationally with some of the most amazing speakers, their latest conference is coming up on  <a href="http://www.ted.com/pages/view/id/5">21st - 24th July in Oxford</a>, I'm hoping to go this year as it's a great opportunity to hear some very forward thinking. For more info have a look at www.ted.com.

Anyway, I was looking through the TED site this AM and did a cursory search on TED keywords and noticed the ever brilliant <a href="http://www.antonymayfield.com/">Anthony Mayfiled</a>  had posted up the TED commandments, since he nicked them from someone else I don't mind re stealing them for my own blog. Not only are these great cnference speaking maxims but they are also great ideals to strive for daily. Anyone working on projects for their clients should really bear them in mind!

1. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share  Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before
2. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of  Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow

]]>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:47:42 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/06/job-hunting-in-a-tight-market.htmlInteresting, if a little testing, times are all around us right now. As anyone in the digital recruiting space knows there are a vast number of candidates going for every job out there and competition is fierce. For the most part, I have avoided this so far though.

I guess I have been in something of a privilaged position in that I know a huge number of people in the industry and there has been a lot of interest in working with me since things with Onrec came to an end. To date I must have met with 13 different individuals and businesses to discuss the potential of working with them and what I can bring to the table, O.K, as of now I'm not working but I don't see that as a massive issue, I've got to spend some time evaluating the offers and opportunities out there and work out what it is exactly that I want to be doing right now.

Having said this there is another side to the whole thing. I have a very good friend who worked on product side advertising who is having an utter nightmare, though he was good at his job, so were the other 6 people at his company who also got given the "heave ho" earlier this year. His job hunt has been an horrendous experience, since losing his job back in Jan he has been to more interviews than you can shake a stick at and has had countless companies ask him for a sales strategy presentation which they have just kept and offered little feedback from. This does appear to be a little bit of a trend right now. i have heard from several people that this seems to be the tactic used by a number of companies to get some new ideas and benefit from candidate experience and their desparation to get a job.

Now I'm not pointing fingers and this is nothing I have seen personally but I have spoken with a number of people who have been made redundant recently who have said the same thing. clients ask for a sales strategy, marketing plans, management structure planning etc at interview stage, the candidate sees little if anything back from the client and the company implements the idea and promotes internally. I seem to remember Jo Courtney saying that she had a similar experience when asked to put together a social media strat for an employer.

Now is this a true reflection or does it say more about the frustrations of candidates not being able to walk into jobs like they used to? Personally I'm not sure but I really do feel the frustration of those who are jobseeking right now.

Personally I believe the world is offering some great opportunities to those who are willing to take a bit of a risk and either work for themselves or get in on the ground floor with some of the more exciting and innovative startups out there.

Bottom line, for employers: don't waste people's time, for candidates: don't lose hope and try and see where companies are looking for something new from candidates and for those with  new ventures, take advantage of the vast amount of experience that is available now that you may not have been able to even speak with in the past!

]]>Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:12:37 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/06/10-tips-for-building-social-networks-and-relationships.htmlWe all know nothing. We don’t really know what is going to happen with a social space, it’s worth just watching what your users are doing and allowing them to help you develop.

Making an ass out of you and me…an old, horrible phrase but can we not just ask rather than make assumptions? How can you know what your community wants without asking it? Your community are waiting for your to get involved and ask them what they think should happen, after all it is for them and not you. Look at the Facebook and Twitter fails of late all driven by doing something that consumers never asked for. Be transparent about what your ideas are and where you think there are issues or opportunities, let the community be your guide.

It’s easier to redecorate and empty room than to move the heavy furniture about! Be agile and evolve your platform in the early stages, making changes once people are on board is a sure fire way to alienate your users.

Start from the top. Get the boss / Senior Management Team involved in blogging and networking

Be consistent. Stay true to your principles.

Throw a damn good party. Make it fun and sociable as well as making it relevant, if a social network is not fun and engaging then people will NOT join the party.

Support the early adopters rather than chasing the sceptics, and they will become your evangelists.

Keep it random. Do not over organise, if something looks too tidy and rigid people tend not to pick it up, design to support conversation, innovation and relationship building.

Content is king. Providing great content, whether it’s resources, information, connections or conversations, means new users will find you and others will stick with you. Keep all of this free and open, if people can use it and redistribute it then the likelihood of people adopting and engaging is much higher.

Don’t confuse money with value. Look at the other assets you have in your community, like skills, volunteers and goodwill, and put them to use in sustaining it.

]]>Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:25:05 +0700http://www.sussexmatt.com/1/post/2009/06/first-post.html