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Welcome to podcast #76! Today is all about not being a wanker! We bring you tips that could save your business (and ensure you’re not a wanker!). Now, we use this term with love – we’ve all been there at some point so please don’t be offended by the word! One of the themes we have noticed lately is that people have made ‘wanker’ decisions which have lead to problems in their business – today we’re going to tell you about the things we’ve learned!
What did Andrew and Heather learn this week?
“Potato salad” says Andrew. What?! Well, a guy from Ohio decided to start a Kickstarter campaign just for a bit of fun, asking for $10 to make potato salad. This campaign has taken off to the point where he has thousands of backers and tens of thousands of dollars backed. Now Kickstarter is a great platform and has some very worthy campaigns to back, but seriously, as soon as this guy got media attention every wanker was jumping on the bandwagon to support – for potato salad! People seem to follow what everyone else is doing without really thinking about whether it is a good idea. It seems Kickstarter are approving some interesting campaigns these days…
“Yo!” Heather has seen a lot about an app that has been created called Yo App – literally all it does is send the word ‘yo’ to people. This app has received over $1 million in funding – seems that there are plenty of wankers around willing to jump on bandwagons and fund wacky projects! Seriously, all it does is send the word ‘yo’ out – how long can it last?
Tips that can save your business
True story: we know of a large company with offices in several cities who decided to hire a social media manager.
- Red Flag #1 – the person they hired didn’t have their own Facebook profile so had to create one in order to be an admin on their accounts.
- Red Flag #2 – a Google search of the person’s name pulled up nothing – they have no online footprint to speak of.
What the company didn’t do was check out these things before hiring the person – hiring was done based upon a conversation. Now, what would you do? You’d think a ‘social media manager’ would have an online presence, right? It’s common practice now that employers do an online search of potential employees, even outside of the technology space. Of course there are some job types where perhaps you will find people that don’t have much of an online presence, but again, what would you expect of someone who purports to work in social media?
What should you look for when hiring online?
ODesk and Elance
- Ask for a reference and ask to speak with that reference – this could be via Skype or email. Basically, make sure you follow the same principles you would if hiring offline!
Hiring for Social Media
- Ask them for the URLs of all of their social platforms. This way you can check how they work on the platforms that are important to your business.
- Red Flag – if they tell you “I only do it for other people”. People will always show the most interest and passion in their own pages, this is where you can see what they are truly like online.
- You don’t have to hire the very best expert, but aim to hire someone at least 2 steps ahead of you on the platform.
- Check how active they are (ie how often they post – you’d expect mostly daily).
- Check the engagement they get (people interacting with posts).
- Ask them what their number one most successful post has been on each platform and why… Find out what that post generated.
Website design and development
- Beware the difference between web designers, web developers and web strategists. They each fulfill a different role.
- Ask when hiring whether people do both design and development themselves. If they say they do (on their own) this is a red flag to us as they are often answering just to get the job. (Unless of course they work in a team with duties split).
- You need a strategist who can say what is best to go where on your site.
- Beware the wanker! People who claim they can build you a highly trafficked website. Ask to see their portfolio and ask them what made them put content in certain places. If they answer ‘because that’s what the client wanted’, leave! The chances are the client does not have an online marketing background so what you want to know is that the website creator has specific reasons/statistics for why features are where they are.
- Remember that digital agencies have different departments for a reason – there are different specialties to be covered, a bit like hiring a general contractor vs a specialist for work on your property.