Discovering New Talent Through Social Media.
July 27, 2009 :: Kenneth YeungThe past few months have seen an increase in brands using social media to find new talent to help promote their product. Some of these include Rocketboom, Murphy-Goode and perhaps most notable Best Buy. Some have been a total success and some have…well…probably been less than that. However, these campaigns have gone to show that more companies are seeing the capability of finding new talent to help them promote their brand through the use of social media. But let me be clear: this is not about crowdsourcing your talent and having the general public vote on who would be the best candidate for the job – this isn’t American Idol for brands. These new campaigns have all been created to look for the best person who exemplifies the social media strategist that would be great for the company. Let’s look at some of these campaigns and see what’s so great about them:
Rocketboom Needs A New Anchor.
If you haven’t heard of Rocketboom, then you’ll be interested to know that they’re a video production group that puts together journalistic/newsworthy pieces of information in three-minute segments covering information & commentary relating to “top news stories and contemporary Internet culture”. Since their whole product is producing videos online, it made sense that when they were looking for a new anchor that they would choose someone with video experience. And that’s what they seem to have done, at least in the first round. People were invited to submit a short video showcasing their interest in why Rocketboom should choose them for this position. Keeping in mind the theme of what Rocketboom is and what they do, interested applicants submitted some videos with class, humor, and perhaps something off-the-wall to really capture the attention of the judgets – plus it also went to show that these applicants got what the brand is all about – it’s not your CNN or FOX News online…
A Really-Goode Job Takes A Really Bad Turn.
Several months ago, a local winery here in the San Francisco Bay Area announced that they were looking for a new digital marketing strategist – basically someone “who really knows how to use Web 2.0 and Facebook and blogs and social media and YouTube and all sorts of good stuff like that“. The winery, Murphy-Goode, decided that it would be great to have people submit their “applications” using YouTube to help make this interesting – what better way would it be for people to show that you’re social media savvy than by abusing yourself on an online video, right? It was a great idea. People submitted and once the submission process was over, the general public was encouraged to vote for their favorite. Everyone thought this would be a great idea.
Well it was a good idea up until you realized the implications. Rather than making it a truly crowdsourced event (which I’m not entirely sure would have been a good thing), Murphy-Goode decided NOT to follow through with the results of the fan voting – which would have put finalists through to the next round. In doing so, they’ve regressed back to the traditional form of recruiting with the online videos just being a more modern form of a resume. The voting was a big sham and people who had garnered the highest votes soon realized that some were picked by Murphy-Goode and then others were not – had nothing to do with the popular vote. In the end it had to deal with the voice of the people that worked at Murphy Goode.
Granted the winery never explicitly stated that it wasn’t a crowdsourcing effort, but this has raised some backlash against the winery with people unclear why they were asked to vote in the first place. The owners of the Murphy-Goode winery, Jackson Family Enterprises, has admitted in an San Francisco Chronicle piece that they “screwed up” but adds that it was “never intended to be a contest”. Then why is the voting part of the process? Why not have people submit their videos and you choose? There’s some deception taking place here and unfortunately has screwed over people who thought they might have a shot at this opportunity – especially in the shape the economy is in.
Looking back, one of the key things that this position at Murphy-Goode wineries wanted to accomplish “…experience wine and good living, and then tell people about it.” Why wouldn’t you want someone with a huge popularity to be a finalist in the showcase that would have ultimately helped create an Internet celebrity that would have definitely accomplished what you wanted? Apparently having a huge number of followers doesn’t necessitate having the talent or the personality needed to be a success at promoting wine – even when the job description says that they’ll teach the winner.
Best Buy Wants To Hire, But Wants You To Write The Job Description.
About a few weeks ago, I received an interesting tweet from Jeremiah Owyang which he informed me that Best Buy was looking for a Digital Marketing Strategist. Then about a week or so later, I saw this blog post by the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, Barry Judge, about how they wanted to reshape the job by having the public tell them what type of person would succeed in that position. No, it’s not an invitation to apply (although you certainly can). Instead, it’s more of an invitation to submit your ideas. For someone who will be actively engaged in outreach across different networks, it would be nice to know what skills and requirements are needed for someone to succeed. It should be noted that Best Buy isn’t giving the entire job description up to the crowd. Rather, they make it clear that there are specific minimum requirements that must be met, most of them from a legal perspective.
Before you think that you can chalk up any ole’ requirement and expect Best Buy to take it in stride, be sure to note that they’re not accepting any and all suggestions. Rather, they are merely suggestions that people offer up to let the company know who should they be looking out for. So what did they do? The electronics retail giant has created a wiki site that allows people to submit their ideas using a standard format and at the end of the submission period, the company will parse through the list and produce a set of requirements that their next Senior Manager, Emerging Media Marketing should fit in order to succeed.
Overall it seems that social media is playing a big part in how companies look for talent. Long gone are the days of verbal word of mouth. Instead the “word of mouth” happens virtually through sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs. But with each new talent search comes some issues, as you can see from the review of Rocketboom, Murphy-Goode and Best Buy. Is your company engaging in social media recruiting? How are you framing it so that you find the right person for your brand?
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