February 10th, 2010
We’ve been talking at seminars throughout the county and in London for some time about Social Media and have seen first-hand how it has benefitted our business.
By Social Media, I refer to the likes of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging to name a few.
But here’s a slightly different use for it.
Over the past 12 months we’ve ran three recruitment campaigns each for different roles.
We’ve traditionally used Recruitment Agencies, but as a small business, the cost of using a good agency has often been crippling when added to the time taken to induct and train along with lack of productivity whilst your new staff member learns the ropes.
We took the decision to practice what we preach and give Social Media a try.
So, here’s what happened…
We wrote up a job specification as usual, and wrote a blog post advertising the position.
We then used twitter, facebook and Linked In, to announce the position.
Finally we used facebook to advertise. Using facebook we were able to target based on interest and location, so for example (anyone interested in web development, mysql and php within 40 miles of St Albans).
We ran each campaign for approximately 4 weeks.
On average we received 20-30 CVs, half of which were suitable. On average we interviewed between 8 and 10 candidates, and on two occasions hired one person and on one occasion hired two candidates.
To summarise:
We spent the same amount of time filtering CVs, interviewing and inducting. Two hours in total was spent setting up the social media and advertising, and the total cost of advertising was on average £17.00.
A good recruitment agency is worth every penny, however, if you fancy rolling your sleeves up and doing it yourself Social Media is certainly worth considering.
Posted in Careers, FL1, General | No Comments »
October 1st, 2009
Garth McCaughan officially took the hot seat this month and started his new reign by buying a new kettle and a microwave for the office. Proof that an increase in productivity is directly linked to increased tea and pot-noodle consumption is as yet unconfirmed.
The hunt for a new Web Designer started this month, and so far we’ve had a fantastic response with some excellent candidates. We decided to practice what we preach and use the Social Media tools that we know best. It’s easily been the most successful recruitment campaign we’ve run yet, so drop us a line if you’d like to know more about how we did it.
We’ve launched our new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software in beta this month and have had some great feedback. The CRM is aimed at small businesses who want to get in control of their customer and contact records without the cost of the big players in this market. It’s simple, easy to use and affordable. Fancy a free trial?
We’re also weeks away from launching our first app for the iPhone and working on a new app for the Blackberry. Its a million miles away from building websites, but exciting to see our work on Apple’s iStore for the first time. We’ll be announcing the official launch over the coming months.
By the way, we’ve recently built a few websites too!
Why not check out Dyrham Park, i-spin360 and Qdosology.
Last but not least, after guest speaking at the St Albans Chamber Breakfast meeting this month, a new revised series of seminars are planned for October and November. We’re always looking for feedback, so if there’s something you’d like to know more about, drop us a line, we’d love to hear from you.
See you next month!
Posted in FL1, General, Seminars | No Comments »
May 21st, 2009
Twitter is everywhere.
Today, Twitter has roughly 6 million users. eMarketer projects that the number of Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010, representing 10.8% of Internet users. Twitter appeared in the list of the UK’s top 100 sites, according to Hitwise.
So, what exactly is Twitter? Twitter is most simply described as a micro-blogging platform. Users post mini messages, which are then uploaded onto the web in a similar way to a blog post.
The limit for each message is just 140 characters. This may not give much room for writing but it is perfect for people who do not have the time to maintain a blog. Get started today with our Ten Top Tips.
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Posted in Marketing, Technology | 2 Comments »