Living in the Midwest and paying close attention to business news, the reports are very clear that the economy and the employment situation are not very good. Although I recently questioned how these reports added to the situation, I know from real life interaction and the stories that I hear that people whom have lost jobs or that are out of work are having a very difficult time finding employment. This also creates a challenge for hiring managers as they are being overwhelmed with job applications and many of the applicants do not meet the requirement of the job description, but it is left to the hiring manager to weed them out. A good example is a recent listing for 250 jobs at Office Depot yielded 4,000 applications, which is now up to the human resources department to choose the best 250.
In most cases, hiring managers will take the natural course of reviewing resumes and determining who is the most fit based on an applicants work experience detailed in the resume. There are other processes that are sometimes employed like pre-application surveys and personality tests to determine how well a candidate may fit a job, but after all of those processes that are developed to weed out applicants are used, someone still has to make the decision on who is the best candidate to hire.
That makes me wonder if in these trying economic times, with the overwhelming number of resumes that are received, if it has created an environment that has caused hiring managers to make hiring decisions based solely on past work experience more than evaluating the person, their work experience, and their natural instinct to succeed in a position.
My guess is that although many companies are down-sizing, this is also a great opportunity for many companies to upgrade their talent as many talented people are now searching for employment. But if their work experience does not closely match the requirements, will they get the opportunity? For instance, if a person has a history of success with increasing responsibility in a variety of positions and has the natural instinct to handle direct reports, communicate with clients, successfully direct teams, effectively manage upwards, and quickly adjust to changing business needs, would that person even make it through the screening process of the many job applicants. My gut feeling says probably not.
I am not totally discounting experience because it is very important, but I have often seen successful people succeed in whatever situation they are placed mainly due to attitude, work ethic, effectiveness, and approach. Although there is a learning curve to their new task or position, they typically ramp up very quickly and excel by the way they approach the situation.
I really don’t know how to best solve this problem because the challenge for a hiring manager is always tough to select the right person even before the complexity of stacks of resumes were added. I just think that there are so many talented people who could probably improve the quality of a work team who will never get the opportunity because their career path does not exactly match the requirements. There has to be some value placed on a person’s natural business instinct and how they handle situations and when combined with work experiences and successes, that separates them for the rest. Companies should use this time not to just piggy-back the recession and down-size because it is acceptable, but to use this as opportunity to improve their workforce and set themselves that much further in front of their competitors when the economy does turn around. I can almost guarantee, that the companies that take advantage of this opportunity and focus on the level of talent that is available during the recession, will benefit ten-fold when economic times improve. It only requires going one step further in your evaluation and using the natural instinct to determine if a candidate can be successful outside of limiting the evaluation to the items listed on a resume.
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As we all hope and expect to see some of the best commercials of the year during the Super bowl, Google purchasing a commercial during the game was a little shocker, but it was a good commercial that quickly demonstrates how importantly they view search( if you didn’t already know) and how much Google has become intertwined in every part of our daily lives.
With Super Bowl ads costing around $2.6 million for a 30-second spot, we know Google is one company that can afford it during this recession, while other companies, like Pepsi, that are known for their Super Bowl ads, sat this one out. The Google commercial takes us through a sequence of a man who meets a woman in Paris, France and then uses Google in every step of the process to find locations for a date, how to impress a French woman, plane tickets, a church to get married, and finally, how to assemble crib. Besides the commercial probably being well-liked by women, this is a sequence of searches that most of us use over a period of time for information that we need. As search results, become more personalized, my guess is that suggestions from Google will soon become more accurate as well because searches will probably follow similar sequences when aggregated overlarge groups of people.
What was clever was how Google demonstrated the many different features of search at the same time, which included Google Translator, Google Maps, Google Liveview, and Google’s flight status look up feature. Very good use of less than a minute to exhibit their search functionality, especially when most of the Super Bowl ads were lackluster except for the Doritos commercials and E-trade commercials. At least it was a good game.
Unfortunately, the United States is still in the middle of a recession/depression where depending on whose stats you listen to, between 10%-16% of adults can not find employment. Even at the low end, that is an alarming statistic that does not bode well for our national economy or the world economy. For our economy to do well, we need a larger percentage of people employed and contributing productivity.
But in the last week, three major companies released their quarterly earnings and based on the results, I have to wonder if the economy is really as bad as the media would have us believe or if there are parts of the economy that are doing well and that many of those that are unemployed are in industries that probably will not recover for a while or are supported by other industries.
Microsoft, Apple, and Google all released earning statements that far and away exceeded Wall Street expectations. What makes them important as I consider the real status of our economy is that for the most part they sell luxury items that in theory are not purchased as frequently during down times.
Microsoft reported revenue of over $19 billion and net income over $6 billion as sales of personal computers and it’s new Windows 7 software saw strong sales. Consumers are buying computers at a record pace during a recession?
Apple, which sells primarily high- computers and phones, also had a record quarter and sold the most Iphones that they have in any quarter. Sales of their Mac computer were also up. What is also interesting is that their future forecast is even more rosy with many analysts predicting even better quarters with the introduction of the Ipad. Consumers are buying $2,000 laptops and $400 phones during a depression?
Google which generates over 90% of it’s revenue from advertising also had a record quarter with revenues increasing by 19%. They also have a rosy outlook as they expect growth in display and mobile advertising although the company does not make future predictions. So companies are advertising at a record pace during a recession?
There are other factors to consider with Google’s growth, like the decrease in traditional media spend could more than offset their gains, but what I find interesting is that it is typically believed that in tough economic times, advertising is the first budget to be cut. But it looks like companies are still advertising and doing a lot of it.
So maybe the economy is not as bad as projected and that it would even turn around more quickly if all the doom and gloom stories would stop. The people that are employed would feel more comfortable making purchases again which would stimulate the economy and create jobs. There is still much to be said about the jobs that are going overseas, the transition from manufacturing jobs to service jobs, and the increase of automation. All those things have an impact, but based on the earnings that have been released in the last week, there is money being spent, so there is some upside to the terrible economic stories that we are force fed on a daily basis. Let’s try to stimulate the economy by changing the messaging about the status of the economy and I would be willing to bet that would have an instant impact and increase the number of jobs. That’s just my hunch.
January was my first full month of blogging in which my goal was to post at least one post per day, Monday through Friday. I did pretty well with posting on most days, but also missed a few in which I was able to make up for on the weekends. I thought I would have trouble finding topics, but between current events, some mind mapping I did at the beginning of the month, and simply remembering to write about some of the techniques that I regularly use, topics were not a problem. As I wrote more posts, new topics came to mind that I could add to the list, so topics should not be a problem for a time to come.
Here are some stats from Google Analytics that I was able to achieve in January. The numbers are not bad for the first full month and they set a good baseline for the months ahead. Using these numbers I can set goals for February and measure the percentage improvement.
Some of the January results: Visits – 302 Pageviews – 546 Pageviews/Visit – 1.81 Time on Site – 2:05 % of Traffic From Search Engines – 30%
I am pleased with the 300 visits in January considering that I did not start posting until the 6th of the month and did not do any promotions on the blog. All of the numbers trended positively over the course of the month and with an average time on the site of over 2 minutes I can only expect that stat to improve as more content as added to the site
Goals for February 2010
My goal for February is to improve on the results from January and increase traffic to over 1,200 visits. That represents 4oo% increase in visits. It sounds optimistic, but without any outreach to increase traffic in January, a small effort in February should help to increase traffic. At least that’s my plan.
How I Plan To Meet My February Goals
I expect to be even more busy in February than I was in January, but there are some steps I will take ti increase traffic that I believe will have the biggest impact. Some of the techniques I will use are:
Social Media Submissions – I submitted two posts to StumbleUpon in January which drove 22 visitors. In February I will submit every post to Stumbleupon as well as other sites like Digg, Delicious and Reddit using Social Marker to save time. I would expect social media sites to drive at least 300 visitors in February.
Increase Twitter - My twitter account, @briankeithmay, only has about 80 followers right now and will have to increase for better exposure from Twitter. I will probably use Tweet Adder to increase my followers. In order to reach my goal of 1,200 visits in February, I will need over 1,000 twitter followers by the end of the month. I expect Twitter to drive over 200 visitors to the blog in February either through posts that I tweet about or through link on my profile page.
Post Four(4) Video Posts to Youtube – Although, I am not sure of the topic, I will post videos to Youtube that are training on some topic related to internet marketing or just life in general that may drive some traffic back to the site. My expectations for traffic from Youtube postings is pretty low, but it will help me to understand how to post videos best for success and which topics perform the best.
Three(3) Guest Posts – To increase links and to increase traffic, I will guest post on 3 other blogs throughout February. Since I have not identified any targets for guest posting, this will be more of a challenge, but it must happen if I am going to meet the goal of 1,200 visitors in February.
Facebook – With over 800 friends on Facebook, I will post at least 4 posts over the course of the month and my expectation is that I can receive at least 100 visitors from Facebook over the course of the month, Now that I type this I also think I may create a fan page so that I can get a message out to a group more frequently and more quickly. Facebook should become a nice traffic source.
Carrying through with each of the methods that I listed coupled with direct type in traffic and search engine traffic, I should comfortably be able to reach my goal of 1,200 visits in February. If you are reading this and want to help out, pass this post on to a friend or a hundred and help me reach my goal for February. I also have a personal goal of losing 10 pounds in February. This will simply require discipline in going to the gym regularly and eating better and staying away from the fast food.
The goals for this month are kind of aggressive but very attainable. I expect February to stand as the groundwork for even more aggressive goals in March. I will update my goals list on March 1st to let you know the results. Let’s go!!!
There has been more than enough hype over the last week as Apple introduced the Ipad. From most observers, the Ipad is little more than a larger version of the Ipod Touch and Iphone. The screen is about 10 inches and battery life is supposed to be 10 hours during active use and up to a month on standby. If that is true, then why is the battery life on the Iphone so terribly short. From my perspective, the importance of the Ipad is not the technology, but the increase in mobile device usage and what that means for marketers going forward.
As I detailed earlier this week, mobile data usage is exploding and will grow exponentially over the next few years as the introduction of more smartphones and other mobile devices drastically changes how and where we consume information. I believe this will lead to more accurate ways to target your market across any device that they are using. Within Google Adwords, there is already the option of targeting by device and phone carrier.
This system will become more intelligent and segmenting will become that more important. You will have the data to analyze the behavior of Iphone users versus Ipad users versus laptop users and adjust your ads, landing pages, and offers accordingly. No longer are the days of throwing ads out to the the wild and hoping for conversions. With the information and tracking that already available, targeting down to small user groups will be the determining factor on how to maximize ad spend as click costs increase.
Imagine that you can target Ipad users while they are on an airplane and give them an offer that appeals to most airline passengers during flight. You think that would help conversions? Undoubtedly. Or you know that a person in Florida is watching a Disney Movie and has visited sites pertaining to other Disney movies or child toys. You think you could find a way to put an ad in front of this person that appeals to their interests? Hope so.
We will soon walk that fine line between targeting and creepy as the intelligence of tracking improves. This will lead to better conversion rates if you are willing to invest the time and money into the technology and people to segment and target. If not, then you will probably waste a lot of unnecessary money hoping for conversions and not understanding why your visitors do not convert more frequently.
Yahoo recently introduced traffic segmentation that gives the option of segmenting your traffic between the search engine and their partner networks. This is an option that Google has had for years, but it is just making it’s way to Yahoo. This is important because as you track conversion rates and attempt to maximize your paid [...]
The mobile web has not been fully embraced by most businesses and for good reason because up until now the return and usage has not warranted the investment. Over the last few months, that has drastically changed and the outlook for the near future, next 12-18 months, is that your mobile web strategy should be [...]
Google recently created a search option for businesses to find Google Adwords Certified professionals and companies more easily. The search engine lists all of the companies that have completed the Google Adwords certification tests and who have completed the business information in the Google Professional admin panel.
In addition to the badge that is available, like [...]
Brian is an online marketing professional that specializes in Pay Per Click, Web Analytics, and Search Engine Optimization. Brian is a Google Adwords Certified Professional who truly understands how successful online marketing can be when used with web analytics to make data-driven decisions. [read more...]
Living in the Midwest and paying close attention to business news, the reports are very clear that the economy and the employment situation are not very good. Although I recently questioned how these reports added to the situation, I know from real life interaction and the stories that I hear that people whom have lost jobs or that are out of work are having a very difficult time finding employment. This also creates a challenge for hiring managers as they are being overwhelmed with job applications and many of the applicants do not meet the requirement of the job description, but it is left to the hiring manager to weed them out. A good example is a recent listing for 250 jobs at Office Depot yielded 4,000 applications, which is now up to the human resources department to choose the best 250.
