Just wondering….. What you are thinking when you do the “remove connection” things, one of your friend from your friends list on your facebook.
a) you hate him/her
b) your other friend hate him/her
c) you just doing what your other friends told you to do without asking anything (worms backsound: stupid……)
Just wondering…..
PS: No, i wont hate you neither your friends.
Picture taken from http://www.corbisimages.com
Come and get branded!
One of my learning points from #trulondon 1 was the issue of employer branding. I made a statement in my 10 take- away’s from the unconference, “The employer brand is dead.” What prompted this was the question posed by Keith Robinson: A.K.A: @Siteadvisor as part of the “Recruiter Cast series”, “Is the employer brand relevant?” My response was based on a thought that it had been replaced by the employee brand.
I didn’t take part in the debate, which was run by Keith and broadcast on the web. The conclusion of the panel is that the employee brand is alive and well.
I hadn’t seen the debate when I made my statement, now I have I’m a little more convinced that the conclusion is right but I still had plenty of questions on the whole area of employer branding, if it’s not dead, it’s certainly different!
With this in mind I wrote a guest blog on Mike VanDerVort’s excellent blog”The HumanRacehorse’s.” In this blog I again posed the question “The Employer Brand Is Dead?”
I again outlined my view that employer brand was now employee brand and that the issue was that the employer brand was set by the employees and what they were saying on Facebook and other social media. Keith added his view that employee brand was much bigger than this and was the D.N.A. of the whole organisation from the board down.
Gareth Jones, A.K.A: @Garelaos went one step further and put together a very reasoned response by way of a blog post. Gareth’s blog, “Inside my head” has some good posts and contains some well thought out arguments. I don’t always agree with his views,but I think he is well worth a read and one to look out for. As ex-HR turned Recruiter (is that gamekeeper turned poacher?) he has some good insights. Keep an eye out for his new posts.
In Gareth’s blog he takes the discussion further, pointing out that social media will have a huge impact on employer brand but it will not turn the employer brand in to the employee brand. I happen to agree with this statement,but as Keith Robinson says, “Social Media is a mirror to the employer brand but is not it.”
With this in mind, I think looking in the mirror often is a good practice to know what is being said, so that you can look in to why and change it if you need to. This is equally important in order to identify the good things that are being said so that you can keep doing them. You can’t change the environment on the basis of every comment but listening on and off line and balanced review is needed over time to adjust when needed.
Just recently I’ve seen 2 examples of great employer branding run by the employees that demonstrate great examples of positive branding using social media channels :
A video from the employees of Connected Ventures. On the Vimeo page it was posted on was the statement with the link “We’re also hiring.” I would guess the response was huge from those seeking a funky and hip place to work.
I accept that this needs to reflect the reality of the environment because the brand delivery needs to match the brand reality. That’s where the brand definition from the business leaders come in, along with listening and engagement to ensure that reality matches the promise. On this week’s US radio show, Rayanne Thorn of Broadbean raised the point that employer brand begins when an employee joins the company not before. This echoes Keith’s point that it is the whole D.N.A. of what the company really is, rather than just what is being said.
The second example of great employer branding is from Deloite’s in New Zealand. Richard Long came on the Down Under Recruiting show on Facebook, to talk about how they have introduced a Facebook fan page where last year’s graduate intake speak to this year’s students about life and jobs at Deloite’s ,and the HR and Marketing Dept’s have little to do with it. This kind of existing employee engagement with the outside world shows what is possible, but again is dependent on the environment being good in the first place. (Thanks to Paul Jacobs of Engage, who worked on the project)
In summary, I’m bowing to Keith (and others) wisdom, the employer brand is alive and well but it needs to be aligned with employer reality. You can’t brand your employees or your environment but you can listen to them and react when you start to see trends that conflict with what you want your environment to be. Perhaps the employee reality is the employer brand, and brand definition, monitoring and delivery are the key. This is still employer branding alive and well.
I’m really looking forward to the Employer Brand V Employee Brand track at #trulondon 2 on Feb 18th/19th 2010. The discussions already started in earnest, the track will be standing room only!
Please leave your thoughts, perhaps a wave beckons. Leave your Gmail address, I’ll send an invite.
Be the ambassador of your personal brand!
Bill
I don’t know what it is but maybe it’s just those sane individuals that realize you don’t have to let everyone know what your doing in order to be doing something. Apparently Kid Cudi agrees, the newcomer to the celebrity world has terminated his Twitter, and Facebook accounts. His decision to drop the accounts were because of all the forged pages that claimed to be Cudi but actually aren’t.
On his blog “Datnewcudi.com”, he explains the overwhelming feeling social media gives him.
“I have an iPhone and I don’t even utilize all of the applications on it,” the rapper explained.. “Just alone on an iPhone, you can have multiple emails — I have two emails, text messaging — some people have AIM on there, MySpace, Facebook — and I don’t even have those things … With Twitter and my two emails, text messaging and my phone ringing, that’s just overwhelming. And you gotta think of it like this, what did they do before there were cell phones”
I try not to take myself too seriously. I see this blog as more therapeutic than a quick road to riches. And until a book publisher contacts me (anyone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller), that is what I will continue to do. But, sometimes I do find myself wondering why I am doing this and who is really reading it anyway.
Luckily, I can answer some of those probing questions myself. I get wonderful emails about my blog and lots of positive feedback from friends. And as the owner of this blog, I can see the key words that people use to find my blog on the great blogosphere. Some of those key word searches make me laugh and many of them make me wonder just what in the heck people are really looking for. Some bloggers will use these key words to their huge advantage. Throw in a couple of “trashy” words and your blog stats head up, up, up. That ticker ticks away higher and higher reader counts.
I try to be careful not to do that. So, my stats roll slowly along – but I am pretty confident that people find what they are looking for here.
Today, though, I am back to wondering. As I travel the world and capture our experiences and impressions, my two most popular posts are about feet and facebook. Not poverty, not the Taj Mahal, not parenting (although it might be good that people are not seeking parenting advice here), not even living abroad, but feet and facebook. Wow. I may need to start trash talking. Seriously………..
Armageddon, Signs of -- We’re looping these two together because somehow it just seems right. 65 year-old Gary Busey is going to be a father again, and the fourth season of Mr. Belvedere is about to be released on DVD. The correlation? Both are things which are great news to completely insane people.
Links: Mr. Belvedere (TV shows on DVD), Busey (People)
Dolby, Thomas – Did the “She Blinded Me With Science” singer accidentally reveal that a new Star Wars movie is in the works? Writing on his personal website, Dolby blogged that he’d been visiting a friend who works for LucasArts, and who is allegedly currently working on a “Star Wars-related TV show, movie and online game.” Of course, the collective heads of the Star Wars Community exploded upon hearing the word “movie,” proving that it’s true that Lucas can bring anything we can imagine to life, including a renewed interest in Thomas Dolby.
Link: Cruel Thomas Dolby Starts A New Hope With Star Wars Movie Rumors (IO9)
Duff, Hilary — The pop songstress and former Lizzie McGuire star allegedly told Nylon magazine that she had a tattoo of the word “SHINE” inked onto her hand to help her to always remember to “shine.” This is, at the very least, more poetic than Lindsay Lohan’s hand tattoos, which read “LEFT” and “RIGHT” to help her always remember which hand is her left and which is her right at the end of the evening.
Link: Duff’s New Tattoo Reminds Her to Shine (Contactmusic)
Heuer, Tag – Watchmakers Tag Heuer have pulled advertisements featuring golfer Tiger Woods in the wake of the golfer’s indiscretions. They, apparently, were also tired of Entertainment Tonight, Extra and Access Hollywood calling them nonstop to find out who “Heuer” is and how she knew Tiger Woods.
Link: That’s Time: Tiger’s Sexcapades Not So Advertiser-Friendly (E! Online)
Lipton, James — In bizarre new television ads from LG, the Inside the Actor’s Studio host does not want you to sext. I don’t know about you guys, but that’s good enough for me to stop sexting James Lipton.
Link: Funny Cell Phone Ads Tell Teens to Stop “Sexting” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Snafus, Facebook – The Huffington Post has collated a list of great Facebook errors in judgement. Let this be a lesson to you, folks. Watch those status updates. And definitely check this stuff out; it’s very funny.
Link: The Funniest Facebook Snafus of all Time (Huffington Post)
Tracy and Jon from London started a facebook group for a bit of a laugh a few days ago.
The intention of the group was to urge people to buy ‘Killing in the Name’ during the week prior to Christmas transforminig it into the Christmas Single No. 1
Epic
Little would they know that their group already has nearly 600.000 people (one of them me) and that recognisable voices and faces from UK broadcasting services are promoting it.
Radio DJs are talking about it, Stephen Fry is talking about it, Jonathan Ross, Bill Bailey…
This is meant to only be good fun, but to be honest, if we manage to make Killing in the Name the Christmas No. 1 destroying the planned-for-months PR and Marketing campaign the X-Factor dudes have been preparing it will set a really good reminder that if the music is what it is, it’s because of the people.
And now, ironically I will finish with the last sentence from Killing in the Name:
Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.
Motherfucker.
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