Social Media Strategy in 30 Minutes

A challenge has been issued by my SOBCon friends (Terry Starbucker and Liz Strauss) – come up with a proposed social media strategy for a company that currently has no footprint in the social space (here are the details of the challenge/contest).

The firm is Colorado-based Carlsen Resources, a media/telecom executive recruiting outfit.

Typically I’d want to spend an in-depth day with the client going over brand and differentiation and message and all that good stuff, but here’s my set of suggestions based on a half-hour of musings:

1. Produce and launch the Carlsen 2-minute Drill, a weekly video series (YouTube) hosted by Ann Carlsen, and eventually others, giving helpful tips to both firms and individuals involved in the job search process. It’s so simple and inexpensive nowadays to produce reasonable-quality video for the web, and that high-impact medium will play an increasingly prominent role in all of our social communications. Eventually this “channel” can include client interviews, etc.

2. Establish a Twitter account, mainly to link up with key business people and social influencers. Provide insight through it about the search process. Give out helpful links about resume preparation, aptitude assessments, etc. Also use it to promote the videos. Make it a 2-year goal to become the go-to name for executive recruiting among the socially-connected set.

3. Take far better advantage of LinkedIn. Ann Carlsen has only one recommendation on her profile – but there are loads of recommendations for the company on the website. That imbalance needs to be rectified. LinkedIn status updates can be used quite effectively to distribute links to the videos, and can also be tied to Twitter updates. Since LinkedIn is the premier professional platform for job seekers, tying all social efforts closely to it is a no-brainer. Also, the other Carlsen employees should have much deeper sets of contacts, and recommendations, on LinkedIn – those profiles are very uneven in depth.

4. Create (and promote) a Netvibes portal for job seekers, and one for employers. Stuff them with top links/destinations for anyone seeking to gather resources for the search process. This is a build-once, benefit-forever endeavor requiring little time. Since this portal will be fed by RSS feeds (blogs and news sources), it also provides a rich resource for surfacing “stuff” to tweet on Twitter daily.

Of course, all of this has to tie into the overall company culture and method, which means that, at minimum, the company website will need some renewed attention. Right now, it’s too much text and recruiter-speak. Probably the best course is to play off of the line, “The Best People in the Business” by spotlighting (in a more personal way) more about each employee, and also how selective the company is to only recruit and work with the best. Right now, much of the text on the website could easily be one-for-one swapped into some other recruiter’s site, which means that the distinguishing message isn’t at the forefront and being driven through.

It would take a bit more analysis to fine-tune the recommendations and come up with some uniquely creative angles, but this is a start for the basic blocking-and-tackling level. The most important two bits of advice to add:

1. Be in it for the long-haul.

2. Be ready to evolve.

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