This is my first video blog covering some neat features in browser-based Google search as well as 2 new mobile search features. The quality is ‘losier’ than I would like…next time I will ‘zoom-in’ closer to show the screen in more detail and fix any resolution issues!

Google Real Time Search, Twitter Search and Mobile Search Innovations is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is an important and valuable part of any recruitment strategy. It has a quick turnaround for implementation, and can  help you quickly leap-frog to the top of a Google search results page for terms which may be too competitive for free ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ search exposure. Among other advantages, PPC can help you: 

• Build brand awareness
• Control costs. You only pay for the traffic you get!
• Attract specific talent pools
• Geo-target key hiring regions

Unfortunately, far too many recruitment PPC campaigns stumble right after they obtain that valuable user click. Why? They fall prey to the seven deadly recruitment PPC campaign sins. Read on and discover if you indulge in any of these temptingly attractive bad habits.

 Sin #1: Putting Yourself First

This first sin requires something that sounds deceptively simple: a change in perspective. It’s easy to get stuck looking at things from your own point of view. You know every wonderful detail about your organization, every Employment Branding and Value Proposition nook and cranny. And, frankly, you have seats to fill! But the first thing you have to do is set all that aside. None of that matters. All that matters is what your target audience wants.

Look at it this way: everyone on the web – everyone reading an article, watching a video or clicking on a PPC link has a goal. They went on line specifically to DO SOMETHING and as they go from site to site or search to search, they are quickly scanning what they see on every web page and thinking:

• Is this ONE THING that I am looking for?
• How do I get to ONE THING what I want?
• How can I do the ONE THING I want to do?

 A well-formed recruiting PPC campaign aligns your recruiting goals with the career needs of your audience. If you don’t respect these core user behaviors don’t expect much from your PPC campaigns.

Sin #2: Not Matching User Expectations

 With PPC you have the advantage of knowing exactly what the person is looking for. They have a goal and the search terms they provide allow you to almost read their mind and give them precisely what they want. With a recruiting PPC campaign you do this initially with your ad content – preferably ad content that says the same thing someone typed in when they performed a search.

 Let’s take the search below for example. If I search for’ Nursing Careers’, which of these ads below is most likely to catch my attention? (Note: I’ve consolidated the search results to save on space and make them easier to review.)  

Only three of the eight PPC ads actually say anything about finding a Nursing Job. Two are about Nursing Schools and one requires the searcher to already know that AMEDD is the Army Medical Department if they are going to relate the ad to a Nursing Career. Finally the two ads about “Obama’s Jobs Training” and “Obama Wants You Educated” are wildly unrelated to the search term – from a recruitment perspective, the advertiser is clearly not trying to catch the attention of someone currently looking for nursing career opportunities.

The ads speaking clearly about Nursing Jobs are more likely to catch the attention of the nursing career job seeker. The headlines for these ads closely match the clearly stated needs of the searcher and more likely to get a click.

 Sin #3: Your Home Page Is Your Only Destination

It’s easy to focus on the home page of your career web site as the first place you want to bring a visitor. It’s kind of like the ‘front door’ for your web site and we are conditioned by our physical experience to ‘come in through the front door.’ This obsession to drive traffic to a home page could be considered a manifestation of this real life ingrained habit. So it comes as no surprise that when people are asked: Where do you want your visitors to go? The common answer is ‘my site’s home page.’ But your home page isn’t always the best place to take every visitor.

Why shouldn’t you take someone to your career site home page? Because it’s your welcome mat, your entry point and it doesn’t actually help someone coming from a PPC search. Not in the way they need to be helped. Remember the three questions/needs that are top of mind for your audience.

When they arrive at your page you want the answer to these questions to be very clear. And frankly, since your home page is a ‘welcoming zone’ it is ill-prepared to give such a focused experience to every PPC target audience.

So if you don’t send someone to your home page, where should you send them? I’ll be back next week with the answer to that question and a look at the remaining four Recruitment PPC Campaign Sins.

This post can also be seen at NAS Recruitment, a Recruitment Advertising, Strategy and Branding Agency.

The Seven Deadly Recruitment PPC Campaign Sins – Part One is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

 Display ad conversions – a 90 lb weakling?

Display ads have been having a hard time lately. It just doesn’t seem as sexy or effective when compared to the promise of search advertising, social networking, web 2.0 strategies and mobile applications. And if all the recent talk about emerging message environments and technologies wasn’t enough, like the hapless 90 lb weakling in a Charles Atlas ad, along comes a report from comScore to kick sand in the display ads’ face. How much sand? Try new statistics that reveal only 16% of internet users click on display ads in a month. This is a 50% drop from the last time comScore reported on the same behavior in July 07 when 32% of internet users would engage in a click behavior on an online display ad. comScore’s research goes further to indicate that a core 8% of the internet population produces 85% of all display ad clicks in a given month.

 So what does this mean? Is it time for display ad campaigns to throw in the towel and make the internet a banner-free wonderland? Not at all. Instead, this is an opportunity to rethink where display ads fit into your overall strategy. So less people click on display ads than have in the past – this shows that the internet and user behaviors on the internet are changing over time. That makes sense, the display ad was the first form of internet advertising available and as advertising formats and options have emerged it would be silly to think that the one-time, standalone online ad wouldn’t see its’ place in the online advertising world shift. These numbers don’t mean that display ads are only good for engaging 16% of the online population – instead they raise two questions: 1)Is the click the right measurement for display ads?, and 2) how do you speak the remaining 84% who seemingly ignore display ads?

 The tendency to measure display ads by click is, I believe, a well intentioned mistake and leftover from early banner advertising. Let’s put this in perspective. Until online advertising came along there was no reliable, detailed way to measure the impact of an ad campaign in print, TV, billboard, radio, etc. The internet changed all that. Suddenly we have the ability to measure the performance of an ad campaign by so many different metrics and dimensions that it’s often a challenge to sort out, identify and track the truly meaningful information. After the impression, the click was the first metric that was easy to identify and track as an actual engagement measure, and lately even the click has given way to a desire to track conversion (i.e.: sale, lead gen, etc.) as the primary metric of value. In short we have seen a tendency in metric reporting to ‘race for the bottom’ of the engagement funnel.

 Funnels aren’t just for frat parties

 Let’s look at the typical user engagement funnel: Attention – Interest – Desire – Action. These are the core stages of engaging a person with your message and getting them to take the action you want whether it’s buying a time-share,  a toaster or having them complete a job application online. As we race for the bottom of engagement tracking, all the focus is on stage four – having the audience take an action. But this action doesn’t happen in a vacuum, there are three crucial stages a person must go through on their way to being ready to take an action.

 New research is indicating that display ad performance measurement and value is closer to the top of the engagement funnel instead of the bottom. According to comScore, display ads should be evaluated by their view-through impact. Additional research has shown that display advertising creates a noticeable long-term lift in areas like trademark search, sales (both online and offline) and brand site visitation by internet users who were exposed to online ad campaigns. This is whether they clicked on the original display ad or not. These results, which were tracked across seven distinct verticals, show an average 46% lift in site reach from 1-4 weeks after a user was first exposed to the display ad creative.

 The take-away: brand matters, message matters, impressions matter. Impressions and visibility make, well, an impression. Are clicks important? Absolutely — and so are conversions. But before people will take one of these deeper engagement actions you have to build awareness. This is why it’s crucial to build employer brand identity with your audience. So display ads have poor click through rates… that’s fine. Stop measuring them by the wrong metric. What’s important is to have a strategy that properly engages 84% of the display ad audience: the people who don’t click.

 Next week: Part II – How to prime the top of the funnel to build a traffic stream.

Why poor display ad click-thru is a good thing. is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

I dropped in at my favorite go-to ‘what the heck am I making for dinner’ web site today: Saveur. (This week I can thank the site for two amazing dinners:  Achiote-Rubbed Butternut Squash Tacos and a Mexican Seafood Cocktail which requires only a Corona and some classical latin guitar music to set the perfect mood.)

So the Saveur Foodie Profile quiz caught my eye (use the link provided, it can be hard to find sometimes on the site) and here are the results. While it’s not dead on in the details, I’d say the spirit is pretty accurate: I’d sooner save up for some amazing food experiences than a new car, I like authentic cuisine that is unique to the locale I happen to be visiting, etc.

Your Profile: Deluxe & Delicious

  You regularly book dinner reservations 6 months in advance. You have never eaten a combo meal. Your kitchen contains more gear than the average high school chem lab. Your eGullet alias is TheRealTopChef. You are fond of quoting Escoffier and Brillat Savarin. You mail order crawfish in January and Copper River salmon in May. You spend more on food than you do on either clothing or shelter.
9.74% of people who took the quiz are this profile

Try the Saveur Foodie Profile quiz  and share what kind of foodie you are in my comments!

What kind of Foodie are you? is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

There has been a lot of talk about Google’s new Sidewiki…a tool which allows anyone to comment about a web page, virtually ON the web page itself in a sidebar. These comments and postings are only available to people who have the sidebar installed but, no-doubt, Google’s hope is that more web surfers will use this as part of their pursuit of socializing and democratizing the internet. That sounds well and good, but just isn’t the case. Excuse me if I don’t indulge in a list of HR messaging pros and cons to Sidewiki. Frankly the issues at stake are much larger than ‘What do I do if someone posts something negative in Sidewiki next to my web site?’ and ‘How to I utilize this as a social media tool?’ Even allowing for the most socially enlightened usage of this technology, the simple fact is that allowing random people to place commentary on a web site they do not own is illegal. This is why hackers who hijack web pages and change them are charged with criminal activity. 

Maybe I’m being too subtle, perhaps a touch understated. This is Google-enabled property damage. Your web site is the wall and Google is passing out spray-cans. This almost makes  Microsoft’s ’Smart Tags’ look good. For those who don’t recall this little bit of technical brilliance, Smart Tags was a new feature around 2001 in Microsoft XP which allowed Microsoft to highlight content on web pages with links to Microsoft and its partners. In other words, Microsoft’s web browser would be able to place links on your web page content without your knowledge or consent. There’s nothing quite like that warm glow you get knowing that some third party can leverage (translation: monetize) your content as an advertising channel — or considering the prospect that any fool with a Google application can comment, slander and advertise almost right on your web site (think blog comment spam or signature spam — point in case, I just deleted a blog comment from this site promoting auto insurance).

Consider just these three of the many ways this tool can be abused:

• Competitors or disgruntled former employees can visit every page of your web site and post lies about your employment experience, hiring practices, etc.
• Job seekers and candidates could mistake Sidewiki for a company endorsed and managed tool, posting pri­vate information or details you are unable to effectively correct or remove.
• Have a target hiring audience? So do your competitors and a wide variety of advertisers, Congratulations! Your site has just become their new marketing channel! I’m sure you can’t wait for some technical training service to start spamming your I.T.-related career pages with messages about how they can help them gain valuable skills for the job market. (Come on…I can’t be the only person who thinks this way.)

Back in 2004 Google made it very clear they intended to be different, that the company was guided by different stars and their core philosophy could be summed up as “Don’t Be Evil.” 

In a Letter from the Founders titled “An Owner’s Manual for Google’s Shareholders” you can find their approach stated as follows:

DON’T BE EVIL

Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served-as shareholders and in all other ways-by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture and is broadly shared within the company.

Sidewiki doesn’t live up to the promise to do good things for the world. It opens up another channel ripe for abuse not only by those seeking to make malicious remarks but also for those who will use this space to promote completely irrelevant commercial messages and spam. It all depends on how much market penetration and use Google is able to generate — the more users, the higher the potential for abuse. While I am all for pro-active brand monitoring online, having to consistently police your own web presence so you can alert Google that you want something removed (which they may or may not act on) is just another daily task most IT and HR departments simply do not need on their plate. 

Google has a little legal wiggle-room to play with when it comes to Sidewiki. Technically the posts aren’t actually ON your site but rather posted in an application that ‘rides shotgun’ right next to your carefully crafted brand and message. No doubt Google is counting on this to provide them the legal room they need to sidestep any claims that Sidewiki promotes or enables illegal activity. And let’s face it, Google has the position of power here. As Chevy Chase might say: “I’m Google and you’re not.”

So what can you do in the meantime? There are some tools which can block Google Sidewiki, but rumors already abound that doing so may damage your search engine rankings. My advice: take control of your Google sidewiki content. As the owner of the web page you have the opportunity to have your content appear at the top of all posts. This is a great location to take control of the conversation by recognizing your audience, pointing out important site content or functionality (and even link directly to it!), you can even introduce Search Engine Optimized keywords since Sidewiki is indexed by Google. Check back soon (or subscribe by RSS) to find out how easy it is to set this up…heck, I might even post a video showing you step-by-step!

Remember, there are appropriate locations online for people to engage in dialogue and express their opinions about your organization. Your branded social media sites or profiles are appropriate places for such communications, like the Wall application on a Facebook page. To reap the benefits of social media realities you should get involved with discussions in these environments, especially those which are critical or negative, and use them as opportunities to promote your value, share success stories, clarify mis-conceptions, address grievances and provide solutions. This proactive attitude allows for you to build a reputation as a transparent and responsive organization. It also doesn’t involve random people spray painting on your web site.

Don’t Be Evil? Don’t Be Ridiculous.

Kevin B. Hawkins

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter

Three Ways Google Gets Evil with Sidewiki is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

YOUR DREAM WEB ANALYTICS JOB…IN CLEVELAND, OH!

 Read more details about this web analytics job right now!

Are you looking for the right place where you can flex your metrics muscle?

Do you speak fluent bounce rate, landing page, KPI, visitor intent, actionable metrics, goal completion, or campaign performance?

Do you want the opportunity to provide data-driven insight and solutions to nationally recognized brand name companies?

We are a friendly, tight-knit team of collaborative Interactive Marketing professionals looking for another star performer to join our team. We promise you hard work, challenging projects and the chance to develop innovative, next-generation analytic solutions. We don’t even have a dress code.

 Find out more details about this web analytics job right now!

48htp2im7r

Web Analyst Job in Cleveland, OH is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

My reply:

How do I continuously increase my following on Twitter? is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

Still not sold on the need to use twitter, email or mobile job alerts to engage candidates? What if a simple mobile TXT campaign could make a potential candidate get excited, fill them with anticipation and even, pleasure? Would you use it then?

Imagine this: you are Pavlov’s Poodle and your Twitter Alert, TXT message notification, incoming wall post notice (along with other social media ‘incoming content’ cues) are all bells triggering a behavioral response. Triggering, in fact, your brain’s pleasure centers and creating a loops which virtually assures continued engagement. In “Seeking. How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that’s dangerous.” Emily Yoffe reveals some amazing research shedding light on how the acts of searching and finding trigger pleasure centers in the brain. Remember those studies with lab rats who would ignore food as long as they could press a button to stimulate their brain’s pleasure centers? Well — essentially we’re the rats and Google is the button. One of many such ‘buttons’ like mobile phone TXTs, Tweets, emails, etc.

According to the results from some researchers, it isn’t even the act of getting a reward which is the most powerful element in this phenomena. The acts of wanting and seeking or EXPECTING new information can become more addictive and pleasurable than actually getting the information in question. So you sit down to search for one item of information and find yourself still online an hour later performing search-after-search, caught in a loop where the act of seeking is just as important and fulfilling as actually finding what you are looking for. This is called a seeking/wanting system and if you’ve ever felt a shiver of excitement or anticipation at the incoming tone for a TXT message, tweet or email you have experienced the phenomena first-handed.

So let’s go back to our would-be candidate, the job seeker who has requested to be notified whenever a position fitting their criteria has been posted or when an article specific to their interests is available. You’re already providing them convenience — providing information to them in the media and format they have requested through the device of their choice. All great reasons to take advantage of this technology. But if researchers are correct in their findings, you are also ‘priming’ your job seeker: getting them excited, triggering anticipation pleasure in expectation of a ‘reward’ as you ring the bell. Would these be worthwhile emotions to tap into and engage right before they read about an job opening specifically related to their career goals? That would be pretty powerful stuff, and is very likely exactly what is happening every time someone gets a mobile (or other social media or email) career-related message.

Are Mobile Job Alerts Turning Job Seekers into Pavlov's Poodle? is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

I’ve been travelling a lot lately and so, when I’m not trying to catch up on sleep or devour some new book in-flight, I find myself turning to that staple of the coach class: the airline magazine. Lately, it’s been very disturbing.

You see, for months I’ve been having the same ad inflicted upon me. If you fly frequently and have flipped through any of these airline magazines I am sure you will be familiar with it. The company (Cenegenics) claims to be able to reverse “the signs and symptoms of aging.” As Paul Newman says in The Hudsucker Proxy ‘Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure.” Maybe it’s true but their ads just creep me out.

First there were a few variations on the ad below:

Look, I hope all the claims about this wonder-whatever are true. And maybe this guy is cut from the same cloth as Jack Lalanne, fully ready to kick sand in my face and twist my head off as easily as a bottle cap. I mean, look at that muscle tone! Look at that definition! Look at that cut-and-pasted on head! oh, wait, um….yea. Really?!?

OK, so maybe my reaction is a little knee-jerk skeptical. Maybe I’m just assuming the worst. So for months I let it slide until I saw the follow up ad below featuring another happy (what a coincidence!) physician. BTW…I have to wonder if a little research would show that these examples of Cenegenic’s amazing results are also tied to the company in any business sense. OK…so here’s the next ad:

OK, so at least in the first ad, IF they altered it, they did an OK cut and paste job. I don’t know quite WHAT I’m supposed to think of Dr. Jacob’s ‘After Cenegenics’ image. I mean…is it even real? Maybe something gets lost in bringing this picture off the page and onto the web, but the after image looks like it’s totally CGI…something made in Poser or some other 3-D modelling tool to create Dr. “Pump You Up” And is he really a doctor? He looks like he should be moonlighting as a South Beach gigolo in some bizarre ‘C movie’ by Dreamworks for the Lifetime Channel feature film.

What do you think? Am I too jaded and cynical or does this look like good visual proof that Cenegenics has the uber-cure for aging in their hands?

The creepiest ad ever is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.

Did that title get your attention? Good. This is all about grabbing attention. This is about a video you HAVE to watch…all the way through to the end. I’ll give you the link in just a bit. First, some back story:

The other day I received a call from an associate engaged in recruitment video marketing. He had just read my recent post “Do You Have The Best Job In The World?” and we got to talking about the power of video to reveal culture, work experience, and how it can help job seekers self select whether they are appropriate for employment in an organization or a particular career. Our discussion reminded me of a video I stumbled across some time ago which I’d like to share with you. You may have seen it before (it’s about two years old), but it’s certainly worth another view.

If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times. IMHO our aim should be to make people salivate with desire to work someplace. Create desire…point at opportunity. Make your pipeline a throng of people wanting behind the red velvet rope. Now I’ve said it one hundred and one times.

Of course if you can make your message social media friendly and viral too…well, all the better.

If you’re bored of recruitment videos that remind you of a PSA spot on ‘local cable,’ or something out of a show on The Learning Channel or Discovery, I have an example of the recruitment video cure. Let’s make something clear: the difference between what this video HAS and DOES NOT HAVE is not an issue of who wrote and produced the video; rather, it’s a result of what the company was willing to reveal about itself. The company had to “get out of its own way” and allow a shift in communication from corporate mission to authentic revelation. The two are not mutually exclusive. One is just less formal than the other.

This video has no:

1) Talking Heads
2) Description of Work
3) Voice Overs
4) Company Stats

In other words, none of the ubiquitous hallmarks that make you feel like you are being sold or lectured to.

Check it out now: http://ow.ly/i1Yy

What it does have:

1) A great soundtrack
2) Work Environment – and a fun one at that, complete with a ping-pong table – you get to travel the office through the song
3) Co-workers who aren’t afraid to be silly or have fun
4) Good production value…no shaky camera or bad lighting
5) Sly pop-culture (like the SILF t-shirt)
6) FUN
7) Just when you feel like you’re watching a music video, the sound shuts off and you get the employees singing and the aftermath of the shoot. They are real and you get to see them that way A link to an annotated Flikr photo of the people in the video, with each person identified

The company is Connected Ventures. They run Busted Tees and College Humor (hence the very Gen Y staff). The video was shot in one take. ONE. The first take, even.

The bad thing…their careers page is ONE PAGE linked to brief, underdeveloped job descriptions. Also, there is no sign of this video…or testimonials…or photos (through Flikr which would be awesome with this audience)…or example projects…etc. Oh and the link on their video goes to a 404 File Not Found message — the result of an orphaned social media campaign. This is something for us to keep in mind for any social media/bookmarking campaign. Just because an initiative is over doesn’t mean links (or potential link juice) go away. A branded 404 “Page Not Found” would be useful here to say the least, even if it isn’t specifically recruitment focused.

Why does this video work? I’ll steal a line from Jeffrey Gitomer: People hate to be sold to but they love to buy. And this video gives the passive (and active) candidate something to BUY. They can buy the workplace (some wide-open, sunlit places complete with a ping pong table), they can buy the casual (t-shirt friendly) dress code, the can buy an employer who is willing to have fun on video and and employees who aren’t afraid to get on camera and act silly. Without telling you anything specifically, the video tells you a lot about Connected Ventures.

Not every place is a Connected Ventures…many are the exact opposite. But if you can open up to DISCOVER and REVEAL even just ONE powerful Employment Value Proposition which is vibrant, realistic and RESONATES with your ideal candidate, you can use it, share it and benefit from it.

There is a lot of talk about corporate transparency and corporate ethics and responsibility. Transparency can also be used to attract and communicate, but you might have to loosen your tie a little bit and let your workforce, your environment, your inner voice speak up and say the things that can not be expressed in a brochure and corporate mission statement. Give that a try and you might be amazed at how job seekers (both active and passive alike) respond, they might even say:

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter

I’d leave my job to work at this place. is a post from: Kevin B Hawkins -- Career Sites, SEO/SEM, Recruitment PPC, User Experience (UX), Pop Culture and Beer.