When does the rebirth of the HR/Marketing collective occur? It's right there in our family tree.

I keep seeing much discussion about how human resources needs to be more business savvy and strategic and how they should work more closely with recruiting, internal and external branding, marketing and public relations. Outsource the backend administrative work and and work on identifying, hiring and developing long-term employees and growing the business.

I'm reading The Trouble with HR - same theme. Last night Amybeth Hale (The Research Goddess) initiated an important conversation about how recruiters should care about marketing and PR - similar theme. Brand for Talent recently posted a New Role in HR: A Hybrid, in that marketing should be a part of HR - same theme.

Wait a minute. Roll back tape. Almost, almost -- there it is!

C'mon. Really.

Aren't entrepreneurs and small businesses with initially limited to no staff this exact idealistic strategic hybrid? Like most of business in the HR marketplace and beyond?

Don't we:

• Identify and market need and then plan and execute product/service development?
• Identify, hire and development staff to build, market, sell and support said product/service development - i.e., talent management and business development alignment?
• Conduct performance management reviews, offer training and development opportunities, employee recognition programs, etc.?
• Create company and product/service brand messaging and marketing/PR strategy to generate publicity, traffic and leads and identify future talent?
• Launch a blog and participate in social media to do the same?
• Currently have no HR representation so we outsource payroll and backend administrative work?

The entrepreneurial bosom has been incubating this HR/Marketing collective for decades and yet as companies grow, these roles specialize and fragment and disconnect. I understand that we as small business leaders cannot be all things to all people and do them all well, but still, the framework is right there.

How is it we can bring them all back together again? When does the rebirth of the HR/Marketing collective occur?

It's right there in our family tree.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

Your Website, Social Media and Content Marketing - So happy together...

If I should call you up, invest a dime
And you say you belong to me and ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be, so very fine
So happy together*

Someone twittered this little eMarketer gem the other day titled How Do You Measure Success - a survey of over 200 marketing managers that included these top three methods of how they measure success:

• Number of new customers acquired
• Number of leads generated
• Over net increase in sales

I was surprised that customer retention was so far down on the list, but how do these gel with your companies?

More interesting for me were the top three "most effective ways to communicate with prospects and leads." Check it:

• Corporate website
• Social media
• Custom content and media

Our latest marketing eBook is all over this and content marketing has been at the heart of our marketing methodology for years. You want your website found and you want to create fresh content to keep it being found (blogs are a search engine's best friend).

I'm just sayin'. The preliminary results of our latest HR buyer survey show that:

• Over 50% of HR decision makers go online first to search for HR products and services, including HR informational websites (search-engine friendly content, content, content).
• 26% search daily - 28% search weekly
• Over 25% read blogs and participate in social media weekly

The survey is still open by the way, so if you're an HR pro reading this, please complete one! HR suppliers, send your customers the survey link.

Ah, yes...so happy together...

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now joinHRmarketer on Twitter!)

*"So Happy Together" - The Turtles

When Free Releases and Social Media Press Releases Fall in a Forest of Silence

There's a reason why we've been telling HRmarketer members and clients for years to send text versions of their press releases direct to journalists and editors. I'm not talking about an Internet wire service distributions because I'll get to that shortly.

I'm talking about creating media distribution lists from our media outlets database and send releases directly to journalists and editors via their contact email. HTML releases will still get trapped most of the time as opposed to text releases, and most email clients - in particular Outlook 2007 - won't even download images unless you have your settings automated or download manually each time.

And it's really all about the content - the story - you're pitching, not whether or not it's visually appealing with images and formatting. Who cares? Journalists don't. Just look at AP stories online. Ensure your direct releases get read - send them as text releases. All URL's will still be read as live links, no worries there.

Next up is distributing via Internet wire services. Here's a question: if your release falls in a free-online-distribution-service forest, and no one can find it online, does it make a sound?

Not really. At least not compared to using paid services Business Wire, PRNewswire, Marketwire and our long-time favorite PRWeb (our Internet wire service partner of choice via our Direct2Net service).

In fact, check out these online statistics from a recent HRmarketer member distributed PRWeb release. It is definitely THE most cost-effective online distribution service that allows you to search-optimize your releases with keyword embedded links, attached files, images and more -- ensuring they'll be found in Google News and Yahoo News. And they be found not only by media but also prospects and other buying influencers.

A great post titled 5 Ways Free Press Release Sites Can Cost You from 30-Minute PR outlines the pros and mostly cons quite well. Here's a quick summary:

1. Extra time investment

Time is money. When you pay to distribute online press releases you can often rely on just one service, especially if you use big, established newswires like PR Newswire, BusinessWire and Marketwire. Even PRWeb can provide enough coverage to justify just using a single provider.

2. Online exposure and visibility

One reason to use multiple free press release sites is that you can’t rely on a single free press release site to deliver the typical coverage and exposure you receive from a paid site. Granted, you can increase visibility by paying to upgrade (see #3) but then that’s not a free press release site and it is costing you, right?

3. Upgrades = extra cost

Now this is an area that gets right to the bottom line. How do free press release sites stay in business? Well, advertising revenue is one way. Another is an upgrade fee. And then they're no longer free.

4. Performance metrics/course correcting

At a high level, you can view online press release metrics in two camps: external and internal. External includes search engine performance, keyword ranking, press release views/downloads and backlinks. Internal refers to how that traffic shows up to your website: visitors, conversions, etc.

5. Staying power

One of my most effective online PR strategies is creating evergreen content somewhere in the press release. That way, when the release is found via a keyword search, there is content still deemed relevant to the user.

And that's the long-lasting beauty of search-optimized releases being distributed online via our Direct2Net service - it's aggregated content found again and again as long as you're distributing regular press releases online. Those links keep on truckin' back to your site.

Lastly, what about all the hubbub over the past few years on social media press releases. Similar to free online distribution services, they just aren't indexed and found in search engines like paid distributed services are (again, Direct2Net/PRWeb).

Read this informative post titled Social Media Press Release Blown Away in Hail of Bullets.

As you can see in the graph, SMPR's just don't fair as well as traditional press releases do online.

The concept of social media press releases is cool - embedding rich visual content with RSS feeds to video, podcasts, etc. But they just aren't search-engine friendly. At least not yet.

Many of the new distribution options and PR measurement tools worked. But adding social media elements to press releases didn't. Blogs and other social media enable two-way conversation, but most press releases - even many of ones that use the social media format - are essays, not interviews; broadcasts, not conversations; lectures, not discussions.

Rebecca Corliss on HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog stated back in May, "Use social media and multimedia elements in your PR strategy, not your press releases."

Post your "social media press releases" with multimedia elements in your social media newsroom and make it a Destination Site - use other marketing and PR activities and traditional and online search-optimized release distribution methods to drive traffic to your content-rich site. The EmployeeScreenIQ University site is a great example of this.

For those of you who skipped to the end, look out for my falling trees:

• Send traditional press releases direct to journalists in text format, not HTML or social media press releases.
• Don't use free press release distribution services exclusively. Experiment if you want, but makes sure you use established paid services like PRWeb (Direct2Net) that will get your releases found in Google and Yahoo News.
• Don't send social media press releases. Instead, create a social media newsroom destination site with all sorts of multimedia goodies to share via RSS with folk and use traditional and search-optimized press releases and social media marketing to drive people to it.

There you have it. Time for lunch.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

The end of magic lacking in the HR marketplace

I first wrote about the cult of personality in the HR marketplace almost two years ago, and although the closest I've ever personally come to stardom is playing the role of Epstein in a sixth-grade Mad magazine spoof of Welcome Back, Kotter, the magic lacking since in our space has been palatable.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of quality HR supplier leaders in the HR marketplace, but after reading John Sumser's post earlier this week on where Recruiting.com is now, you wonder where the Jason Goldberg's are today. You've got Larry Ellison from Oracle, but that's an anomaly of sorts, out of our mainstream.

Just as we're looking for HR to shake things up and be a dynamic business leader in today's organizations, I'd like to make the same call to CEOs and Executive Management in our space to shake things up and be dynamic leaders in the greater global business pool. Find an edge and jump and instill that in your culture from the inside out (great call with Vocii about this yesterday).

The space is too buttoned down still and supplier differentiation is tough for HR buyers. And all the marketing and PR in the world isn't clearing the clutter. Eat some Apples.

Ah, but there's a new consolidation taking place between supplier and cult of personality.

Prolific and trusted HR bloggers, especially those who are refreshingly direct, sometimes brash, occasionally irreverent, let your hair down and die it purple in your face let's do this thing called HR supernova who owns your ass and don't you forget about it --

Or, just simply refreshingly direct, are now merging with HR suppliers.

YourHRGuy (Lance Haun) went to MeritBuilder. Jobing.com acquired Cheezhead (Joel Cheesman). And this week RecruitingBlogs.com acquired Punk Rock HR (Laurie Ruettimann).

It's the end of magic lacking in the HR marketplace and the beginning of the new rock star content marketing differentiator. Who's next?

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn - and now join HRmarketer on Twitter!)

You're sitting in a chair in the sky, so while you're up there appreciating it all, start a helpful conversation.

There's a very funny video making the rounds on Facebook with comedian Louis C.K. doing his schtick on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. If you're interested, watch it here.

The whole point of the bit is the fact that we've become impatiently complacent take-for-granted magic-bullet-biting babies. One of my favorite lines is when he's taking about flying and how so many people don't appreciate how far we've come with global transportation.

Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? You're sitting in a chair in the sky. It's amazing.

Amazing indeed. Unfortunately we want our oompa loompas right now and it's multi-generational. I don't know how many HR Suppliers I've spoken with who send out one direct marketing campaign or one search-optimized press release with the expectation they will have throngs of buyers and media flocking like bugs to a porch light.

The bigger the number the better. Qualifying fit comes later. Five hundred unqualified Webinar registrants versus five highly qualified and motivated buyers. Which would you choose?

Now jump to the fact that with all the "now" technology we have today to help keep us organized and focused, the true average length of time we can focus on a project is 11 minutes before being interrupted. (Based on research referenced in The Myth of Multitasking, which I highly recommend.)

11 minutes.

I can't even get dressed by myself in 11 minutes much less spend any quality reviewing HR supplier pitches for a new [insert product and/or service here]. No wonder disruptive marketing doesn't work.

In marketing and sales, we're focused so much on the brand slamming and the product/service pitch, thinking that our messaging alone will convince our buyers to knock on the door and come on in for coffee and a contract.

But there are so many other factors involved on the buyer side - so many political, financial, switch and background tasking craziness, and other circumstantial factors - most of which we know nothing about and/or we never try to address.

Recently we were on a call with a supplier interested in our agency services, and I assumed based on how well it went, that the deal was in the bag.

The same bag that keeps getting kicked down the road, for no other reason other than they're still getting their ducks in row.

How many times have you heard that? What the heck is going on?

I just ordered Dirty Little Secrets where the author deals with the fact that:

One of the problems we're having selling now is not about a buyer's need, or our solution: it's the internal, behind-the-scenes issues buyers are having difficulty managing internally. And these issues are now very politically motivated and economy-driven.

I look forward to reading it, but in the meantime what can we do?

• Continue best practices content marketing to help educate your buyers and build thought leadership, credibility and trust (white papers, webcasts, podcasts, etc.).
• Develop buyer and influencer relationships via social media by investing the time and staff needed to do so (read our eBook).
• Speaking of influencer relationships - start a business blog, identify those blogs you should be reading, and participate in your industry conversations. This is the new media you can no longer afford to ignore.
• Revisit HR trade shows to develop buyer and influencer relationships - the face-to-face interaction is critical and social media fuels this. The investments are big with sometimes little immediate return, but if you want to get what's going on, include these activities.
• I can't emphasize enough - focus on developing relationships with your buyers and influencers. Period. Get to know them.
• Send your prospects helpful resources like The Myth of Multitasking or other HR-business-related resources completely unrelated to your product pitch - help them help themselves.
• And lastly, ask your current customers why they bought and what were the "behind-the-scenes" issues they had to manage. They are your immediate champions - ask them.
• And just as important, courtesy of an invaluable comment from @loismelbourne co-founder of Aquire, It is also very valuable to ask questions of the people that didn't buy from you. If you treated them right during the buying process, they will often share their reasoning for choosing against you, or for making no decision at all.

You're sitting in a chair in the sky, so while you're up there appreciating it all, start a helpful conversation.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

HR Southwest Rocks! Maybe there's an HRmarketer Rock Opera in our future?

If ever there was an HR conference & expo made for me, it's HR Southwest and this year's theme HR Rocks!

Oh yeah. They aren't kidding around. When when of the first things I see on the expo floor are three faux members of Kiss, you know it's going to rock. Also, multiple Guitar Hero and Rock Band games were jamming along with Karaoke, of whom our very own Rita Jackson partook (she has a golden voice for those who don't know).

According to their own plug:

HR SOUTHWEST, the largest regional human resources conference in the United States, offers world-renowned keynote speakers, one of the most extensive schedules of educational sessions, fantastic networking opportunities, fabulous prizes and a first-class venue for exposure to the newest HR products, techniques and services.

Second only to the big annual SHRM show, the HRVendors.com and HRmarketer.com team can attest to that. Everything's just bigger in Texas.

Day one of the expo was crazy busy, with the exception of late afternoon when there were multiple sessions going on.

HR suppliers I spoke with - Halogen, MeritBuilder, CSIdentity, HRsmart, Jobing.com and many more - all concurred that traffic was excellent (@MeritBuilderCEO was in many sessions sending out content tweets like "The it's: #leaders are the question not the answer...Powerful leadership through the Q not the A").

Of course until all the prospects are reviewed, qualified and closed, the final verdict is always out.

Interesting dichotomy with the HR pros expo traffic: many companies are now looking to automate HR systems (acquisition, onboarding, screening, performance management, employee engagement/retention) and execute wellness and other benefits initiatives. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there were just as many HR pros "in transition" - i.e., laid off and out of a job. I recommended Job Angels (@jobangels) to many of them.

I also had the opportunity to meet with Mid-Coast Family Services and we discussed domestic violence awareness. Something that takes a greater toll in a downturn and something I'm very passionate about. For vital workplace violence resources, check out the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence.

Kudos to Jobing.com for co-sponsoring the Hire-A-Veteran Operation JobMatch event last night featuring country singer Mason Douglas. We also went to a great @WaveSpeak After Party sponsored by Jobs2Web and LinkedIn. You just can't beat cool swing jazz drumming before bedtime (for me anyway).

And for those of you keeping score at home, I'm officially a social media junkie; I'm a Twitter Hamster on a frantic tweet wheel.

Rock on. Good luck to all the HR suppliers on day two (come by booth #1308). Maybe there's an HRmarketer Rock Opera in our future? Don't laugh. I just may do it. What a fun marketing campaign that would be...

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

Venture Capital: Funds Raised Down, Investments Up.

According to data released by the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters, venture funds raised just $1.6 billion in the third quarter. That’s down 82 percent from a year ago and 21 percent from last quarter. Worse, that sum was raised by just 17 funds, the fewest since the third quarter of 1994. The number of venture capital professionals went from 5,600 in 1998 to 8,900 in 2007 and slid back to 7,500 in 2008.

Nat Goldhaber, managing director at Claremont Creek Ventures in Oakland, CA says "a lot of limited partners are re-examining whether or not venture is a place they want to be because returns have been surprisingly poor for many of the funds, and liquidity is close to nonexistent."

TechCrunch has a great blog about this topic and another on the topic of how venture exits and fund raising are related (lots of great charts).

On the flip side, Dave Rosenberg's Software Interrupted column on CNET today titled VC investment momentum continues in third quarter says things are getting better for entrepreneurs. A few highlights reported by Dave Rosenberg:

- Invested dollars went up by 14 percent, with an 11 percent increase in number of deals
- September seemed to be right time to raise money with 40 percent of third-quarter deals occurring in the month
- California, and specifically the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley is the most likely location to raise money.
- Health care investing saw the most activity while green investors sat on their recycling cans

Bottom line - not a great environment if you are an entrepreneur looking to raise capital or seeking a liquidity event, especially in the human resources marketplace.

Join us at Fail Spectacularly and keep reaching for the stars!

Fred sits alone at his desk in the dark
There's an awkward young shadow that waits in the hall
He's cleared all his things and he's put them in boxes
Things that remind him: 'Life has been good'

Twenty-five years
He's worked at the paper
A man's here to take him downstairs
And I'm sorry, Mr. Jones
It's time

--Ben Folds "Fred Jones, Part 2"

There's failure all around us. Traditional media empires are crumbling. The housing market is still a stinking landfill. VC and private equity investments are still pretty constipated. Unemployment is at its highest it's been for decades; there are over 6 unemployed people per current job opening.

And then there's the fact that:

Seven out of ten new employer firms last at least two years, and about half survive five years. More specifically, according to new Census data, 69 percent of new employer establishments born to new firms in 2000 survived at least two years, and 51 percent survived five or more years. Firms born in 1990 had very similar survival rates. With most firms starting small, 99.8 percent of the new employer establishments were started by small firms. Survival rates were similar across states and major industries.

Business experts will tell you it takes a lot of failure to be successful, more in busts than booms (and the stats don't lie). We've worked with hundreds of HR suppliers over the years, and we've seen our share of them come and go. My first foray into the HR marketplace was with a new recruitment sourcing software/services firm that didn't make it a full month past 9/11 during the dot.com bust.

It's really tough out there still. All the industry trade shows we've been to this year - WorldatWork, SHRM, ERE Expo, HR Tech - have definitely taken a hit in attendance and exhibiting/sponsorship - again indicative of the ailing, failing and reforming free market economy.

But fear not, we've got two more shows we're exhibiting at this year under our "HR Vendor Directories for HR pros" business (the supplier print directory at HRVendors.com and the online content-laden counterpart at HR Directory). If you're a company looking for HR products and services, definitely check these directories out. That would be a good sign.

The shows are HR Southwest this week and Onrec/Kennedy Recruiting Expo November 2-4, so if any of the bright spots we've seen appearing recently continue to grow, then these should be better shows on the road to recovery.

We're especially looking forward to the Onrec/Kennedy show November 2-4 in Chicago. The reason being is HRVendors.com is sponsoring Fail Spectacularly, Laurie Reuttimann's and Jason Seiden's fabulous party celebrating corporate failure. It'll be a free party on November 4th, 2009 at 7PM CT at Joe’s Bar in Chicago. RSVP here (quite an A list so far).

Sharing our collective failures will be a cathartic springboard for future successes, right? HR and recruitment professionals are on the front lines and in the MASH tents working hard to transform talent today.

Human Resources may be the underdog, but they just might save us all.

So remember kids, join us at Fail Spectacularly and keep reaching for the stars!

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

C'mon my HR brothas and sistas! Make them fear the underdog.

You got no time for the messenger,
got no regard for the thing that you don't understand,
you got no fear of the underdog,
that's why you will not survive!

--Spoon, The Underdog

That was one of the songs playing on my Shuffle as I ran early this morning, and it got me to thinking about HR Tech last week and all the smart people I met who are in this industry.

Strategic, savvy, sometimes sassy, smart people who really understand the business role that HR should have in organizations today. (Technology is cool, but people are cooler.) These are people who also understand the power of social media and its impact on businesses.

Sadly, there are still too many HR suppliers keeping social media and social networking at arm's length. In fact, I thought I saw a stat recently that over 60% of companies in the U.S. still don't allow social networking at work. (Business leaders, read this - Why CEOs are blind to trouble.)

Social media - hrumph - it's for kids, it's a time waster, it's a productivity killer, it's silly and we ain't afraid of no silliness.

Yeah, but your competitors' no longer think it's silly. And they're hiring folks who get it.

You got no fear of the underdog, that's why you will not survive!

(The Qualigence Recruitment Learning Conference last week featured a panel of recruiting experts including Gerry Crispin who told a quick story about 5 MBA graduates being interviewed together, and when they were asked would they work for a company who doesn't allow social networking, they all said unequivocally no.)

My recently released eBook Conversation Starters just scratched the surface of how social media can help companies engage more effectively and personably with customers, prospects, media and other influencers and marketers like - your employees.

But when I read the thoughtful posts and comments on HR Bartender's post Is Human Resources Capable?, Chris Kieff's discussion that The HR Department Should Own Social Media, and Jon Ingham's post HR's responsible for social capital / media, a painful theme arose:

HR is the bullied underdog, incapable of managing more than new employee processing, pushing benefits paperwork and conducting exit interviews. Forget understanding the business, marketing and managing social media initiatives. Let other departments that "get it" take care of that.

You got no fear of the underdog, that's why you will not survive!

Not surprising, the consensus of all the thoughtful commentary was that the marketing/communications folk should be the stewards (not owners) of social media initiatives and HR can help with monitoring and risk management. (Eastman Kodak's social media guidelines state - Our people from Marketing, Information Systems, Legal, and Corporate Communications worked together to create these 10 “rules.” It also had this lovely pitch - What is your ROI (Return On Ignoring?) - Love it!)

But out of all the recent insightful posts and thoughtful commentary, I didn't really hear:

• How executive management needs to embrace, advocate and work with marketing and HR on social media initiatives and strategy (just like it's been done on employment branding initiatives - read how Shell UK has made marketing part of the HR department in the Brand for Talent post titled A New Role in HR: A Hybrid).
• How smaller firms with no HR representation can still embrace, advocate and develop social media initiatives and strategy across business development and marketing roles.
• How HR and recruitment staff (most savvy recruiters embrace and understand social media) can help onboarding new employees by including an introduction to social media and the companies' guidelines and how they are all ambassadors of the business. Social media delivery is certainly contextual in nature, but it's still all about the business - the business of people.
• And probably one of the biggest things I didn't hear, a personal campaign of mine, is the need for all of us to learn personal responsibility at a much earlier age instead of letting our employers pile on rules of what not to do, not laying out guidelines of what TO do and why. Even if parents and teachers miss out on this, we as employers can champion it through social media.

Just read the social media policies at Kodak, IBM and Intel. Huge theme - personal responsibility.

Own it. For those entering the HR profession and those further their HR education should make it a point to broaden their curriculum with business management, marketing, communications, technology and social media courses.

C'mon my HR brothas and sistas! Help grow the business and make them fear the underdog.

This sh$t's 4 real.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

Being a proud marketing account rep mama

It is interesting as I speak to clients and prospects and hear about their marketing strategy as very forward and organized thinking or “oh my gosh it is time to do some marketing,” I wonder if which is less time consuming and more successful.

AHHH - I know, the answer is very obvious, but the strategy to build a strong marketing strategy, and planning for a FULL YEAR of opportunities is not so obvious. I posted a blog this past July that discussed one company’s very successful SHRM annual conference strategy - kudos again to Mangrove Employer Services and I look forward to understanding in time how successful it was from SHRM lead to sale.

Recently a client of HRMarketer, KellyOCG, spoke to me about the time that they need to use in order to get their budget approved for 2010, and all of the research, consideration, information, and the many details they need – but as Zachary Misko says – it is only to be successful in the next year. Zachary actually kindly called me out of the blue to thank me for selling him HRmarketer.com, a PR/marketing database resource tool, that gave him all of this information in one complex and comprehensive online tool. YES – HE CALLED ME TO THANK ME, (thanks Zachary, you are the best). He said that it saved him an unbelievable amount of time going and clicking all over the internet to find it, and BOOM there it was for him to use. He also kindly helped us create a case study on Kelly OCG and this process for our content.

So not only did Zachary contact me to understand HRmarketer’s products and services to consider, he has also contacted a number of other vendors, built portfolio’s of information, built his “want to have” list from each vendor, and is presenting this to him manager for his budget for next year.

So when he gets his budget approved, he can go back to each vendor, advises of the programs, products and services he will be doing with them and moves forward into November knowing that he is all prepared to LAUNCH into 2010 with a plan that is strong, though through and in most cases, complimentary to any of the other programs that he has. WELL DONE SIR!

Now Zachary and Kelly OCG are not the only clients that I have spoken to me recently about building a program to work on together that will include a number of complimentary products and services that will give the best results. I know that Salary.com, Pangea, Plateau Systems and Remedy Interactive are all in this process right now – so well done to all of you too.

I am sure that next year will be a successful year for many companies, but with a strong, thought through, organized, strategized and well managed program – it is almost guaranteed.

Marketing is hard work!

Post by Rita Jackson

Social media and recruiting - you should and you shouldn't

In the midst of the hip-hop-happennin' HR Technology Conference & Expo last week, Qualigence (an HRmarketer member) was hosting their first Recruitment Learning Conference in Chicago. So, Jocelyn Cook and I rushed across town to hear their closing session during the lunch break of HR Tech on Wednesday.

Qualigence’s goal with this event was to provide practical advice for recruiters, a “How To” conference that equipped them to make their own recruiting functions more effective. They accomplished this by bringing in some incredibly experienced recruitment and talent acquisition professionals from companies like Cisco, Nike, CDW, Towers Perrin, Fifth-Third Bank, and many more, including Gerry Crispin of CareerXRoads.

The closing session was a Panel Q&A moderated by Qualigence CEO, Steven A. Lowisz (you can listen to my recent interview with him here). The attendees, 100 in total, asked numerous questions about best practices in recruitment and how to implement the things they learned when they return to their organizations.

The most interesting discussion centered around whether these professionals use social networks to discover details about potential candidates – i.e. do they look at a candidate’s Facebook page to determine what kind of employee they might be. The panel was divided, with some stating it’s an invasion of privacy and should not be used at all, while others stated it can be a helpful tool that provides insights about the person.

Gerry Crispin summed it all up by stating something to the effect:

You shouldn't use social media for recruiting and you should use social media for recruiting.

There you have it. I'm going to be exploring more and more how companies are managing social media policies not only for marketing, but also for the entire organization. Check out Sharlyn Lauby's HR Bartender post/discussion from last week titled Is Human Resources Capable? (she references Chris Kieff's discussion at The HR Department Should Own Social Media).

Anyway, from the brief two hours we were at the Qualigence conference, it appeared that the sessions provided some very practical advice for recruiter attendees. I’m sure that next year’s event will grow as Qualigence continues to promote their recruiting industry expertise.

Congrats to Steven and Kim on a job well done! Thank you for having us.

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)

Cool technologies, marketing challenges and seeing new friends at HR Tech 2009

While introducing the "Cool Technologies for HR" session at HR Tech yesterday, Bill Kutik said something to the effect of, "Even though I picked these companies to showcase based on their cool-factor for me and HR, I'm sure I'll hear from five other companies who will tell me they should've been included as well."

And he's right - there was a bevy of cool technologies at this year's show too numerous to cover, including those in the session:

• Glenn Gutmacher from Arbita on LinkedIn sourcing on a budget (learned about Google's "related" search - never knew)
• David Ossip from Dayforce on automating workforce performance
• Dan Hilbert from OrcaEyes on workforce planning
• David Stein from Rypple on immediate feedback in a new social platform (very cool)
• Bruce Murray from Wanted Technologies on hiring demand analysis (@JohnSumser in a box)

These shows are always such a blur from beginning to end - non-stop sessions, schmoozing and selling - but this has got to be one of the best HR Tech's to date, even with decreased attendance and moving the show to the smaller subterranean vault of McCormick Place.

Backtrack to the fact that on Tuesday we had five boxes of HR Vendor Phonebooks shipped separately to our hotel, each one weighing 50 pounds. We got them to McCormick in a cab and then inside the lobby, completely on the other side of where the expo took place. Imagining the back-breaking work of carrying these broke our backs. So instead, we discovered hand-carts for sale at FedEx Kinko's (now FedEx Office - didn't know).

Best $100 we ever spent at a show.

Booth traffic was light most of Wednesday (the first day of the expo) with the exception of the post-lunch spike that surged with HR decision makers. There did seem to be an inordinate amount of "Expo Only" folk cruising the lanes indiscriminately.

Thursday's traffic improved dramatically and most HR suppliers we spoke with told us that there were more "shopping" conversations happening.

Good news for the HR marketplace.

At our HRVendors.com booth, we had the opportunity to talk to many HR buyers, and although many were there to find solutions to automate and increase efficiencies in recruitment, hiring, performance management, workforce planning, etc., many for the first time, the prevalence of white noise interfering with strategic need is worse than I would've imagined. I'm hearing from too many unhappy customers of systems just aren't making the grade - crippling UI, costly and cumbersome integrations, etc.

In fact, if you didn't catch Steve Boese's HR Happy Hour last night, I highly recommend you do. Mark Stelzner (@Stelzner), founder of Job Angels, made the point that Talent Management has become this catch-all of cookie cutter solutions; it was difficult to discriminate between the companies featured in the Talent Management Shootout. Many buyers are wary of smaller more nimble software firms and if they'll be around in five years or will get gobbled up or just go bye-bye.

One of our clients told me recently "you don't get fired for hiring IBM" - but in the long run you may be in for one hell of a bumpy ride.

Read The HR Capitalist's analysis of the shootout (@kris_dunn). Salary.com won by the way. Congratulations to them!

This a big marketing problem HR software firms today - product differentiation, configurability and looking bigger than they are if they aren't, because bigger means stable brand to executive management (when confronted by a cougar, make yourself look big). As I mentioned in a previous post, there's a big bunch of business to be had in HR technology; there are millions of companies that still have yet to move from paper-based workforce management to automated systems.

Marcom differentiation must include increased thought leadership through best practices content and of course you gotta have highly configurable solutions for companies big, and those particularly much smaller.

That's where social media has fast become the catalyst to share content and build powerful relationships that can make (and break) your brand. Check out our new eBook Conversation Starters if you haven't already. Looking forward to working more with Sage on their social media marketing strategy.

But you know what the greatest highlight of all for me was? No amount of cool or cookie-cutter HR tech means a thing without the people behind it, around it and buying it.

A special thank you to my incredible HRmarketer business development team at the show - Jonathan, Jocelyn, Rita and Andy. I'm pretty much a smiley goof without them. Andy's Vibram 5 Finger shoes were quite the hit.

A special thank you to all our clients at the show! If you ever get a chance to hang with Mr. Joseph Impastato and the crew from nowHIRE along with the HRchitect gang as we did, then do it. Good times. Great seeing my other favorite client EmployeeScreenIQ at the show as well. (Hey, you're all my favorite clients, don't you forget that.)

Thank you to TalentDrive for having us all at their party Wednesday night!

Of course, great seeing the always irreverent and consummate networker William J. Tincup and his band of merry marketing men, joining us in the fight to save suppliers from really bad marketing, one rockin' content campaign at a time.

Lastly meeting all the HR blogger thought leader rock stars I've met in social media circles was the biggest highlight for me - @SteveBoese, @marenhogan, @Devoted2HR, @TrishMcFarlane, @TriumphCIO, @CallmeSlouch, @Kris_Dunn, @thelance, @ChareeKlimek, @JCorsello, @sarahw79, @samhiggins - the list of good folk goes on and on.

You made our HRmarketer Tweetup the bestest networking time of all!

Alas, I didn't get meet Laurie. Next time Punk Rock HR girl. Next time.

See you at HR Southwest in a couple of weeks!

Post by Kevin W. Grossman (join me on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn)