If you are a CEO, no one really trust you. Any day consumers prefer the opinion of their friends or peers.

In his groundbreaking study, Frederick Reichheld, argues that a company’s growth is strongly tied to the voluntary marketing efforts of loyal customers; fans recommending and selling on behalf of a company. In other words, positive word-of-mouth.  Read more...

It’s one thing to have a good story to tell. It is another to tell the story effectively.

Atlassian have a good story to tell. They also tell it rather honestly and convincingly.

Dig deeper and you will see Atlassian work really hard to spread their story – they blog incessantly (it looks like half their workforce have personal blogs), they tweet, they network on Facebook and upload their videos on YouTube. Isn’t it interesting, organisations that can afford to rest on their laurels are the ones that continue to work the hardest. Attracting talent is a never ending exercise.  Read more...

Monitoring social media
What are job seekers saying about your employment brand? What are your customers or suppliers talking about? Monitoring the social media landscape is becoming an essential activity. Here’s a useful primer on how to make sense of the ever growing social media landscape.  Read more...

There is a real disconnect between employers and employees on how they view social networks. A new study by Deloitte highlighted the following:  Read more...

• 53% of employees say their social networking pages are non of their employers’ business
• 40% of managers disagree, and 30% admit to informally monitor social networking sites
• 61% of employees say that even if employers are monitoring their social networking profiles or activities, they won’t change what they’re doing online

Research coming out of the US suggested Social Recruiting, the practice of using social media or networks to recruit staff, is gaining grounds. A study by Jobvite found that 68% of respondents use social networks or media to support their recruitment efforts. More telling is the finding that 66% successfully hired a candidate through an online social network.  Read more...

A good presentation on how to use social media effectively

Twitter has been in the news a lot, lately. Visit to the site by Australians grew by a whopping 517.9% from last year.  It is estimated that close to 300,000 Australians have Twitter accounts (Mine’s here)

I use Twitter to reach out to new clients, to connect with industry peers, find new information, data and people. However, the main buzz surrounding Twitter is its immense potential as a tool to find and recruit ‘talent’. In the coming days, I’ll explore more about Twitter’s place in talent acquisition strategy. Meanwhile, an excellent exploration of Twitter’s role and potential by John Sumser is here, here and here.  Read more...