And if you’re confused now, that’s okay! I just wanted to let you know that utilizing Facebook as a tool will help grow your business – gaining customers and also employees. Facebook pages allow you to provide a humanized and familiar version of your brand to your current and potential customers. If you’d ever like to learn a little something about how to use Facebook as a business, there’s a book written by Justin R. Levy entitled Facebook Marketing. It gives all kind of tips on how to make people familiar with your brand, such as pictures of your employees doing what they do best, as well as interacting with those who interact with you. And Levy’s book also helps you set up personal profiles as well as pages, in the event you’ve never been on Facebook.

Still doubting why you should try Facebook on for size? Google “Plumbline Services.” Yes, their website comes up as the number one result, but you’ll see that their Facebook page is still on the first page of results. That’s the power of generating an online presence – it makes you more relevant on the internet and puts you up there on Google. If you Google my name (Carissa Crittenden), you’ll see that my personal Facebook page is the third result – behind only my personal website. You’ll encounter these high rankings (a little thing we call Search Engine Optimization or SEO) with other BirdDog employees. Google Karen Enos, and you’ll find her LinkedIn and Facebook pages right there on page one. Obviously, this process gets a little more difficult the more common a name is. But hopefully you get the idea.

So the point of this really long blog entry was to let you know that creating some kind of Facebook presence (and updating it fairly regularly) will help you be more findable on the internet – not only by Google standards but also on Facebook itself.

Stay tuned for our next blog in the series about the network LinkedIn: Adding Links to Your Network Chain

If you have any questions or would like further information, please don’t hesitate to let Karen, Rachel, or myself know!

And before you think that this won’t be relevant because HVAC technicians, plumbers, electricians, and crane operators aren’t going to care about your social presence, I want you to know that I’ll be referencing an article focused on social media in the HR realm. Still feeling doubtful? How about knowing that Ron Kubitz, the recruiting/training manager of Brayman Construction Corp., contributed to the article? Convinced that it couldn’t hurt to pay attention to what we’re talking about? Read on!

Rachel actually sent me a link last week about the insanity that is social media marketing. And looking at that particular picture, I’d have to agree with her! But as time progresses and our children grow more tech savvy at a younger age, it’s important to remember that our long-term success will be dependent on continuous growth. One way to do that is through social media. Throughout this first blog series, I’ll be talking about things like building a Facebook community, establishing a Twitter following, creating a word-of-mouth network, and using those tools for recruitment. Don’t worry – this won’t all be thrown at you in a short period of time – we’ll take it slow. And throughout the whole process, I’d like you to keep in mind that our Relationship Managers, Karen and Rachel, can help you leverage the BirdDog tool to the best of its advantage utilizing the resources – primarily telling you how to share jobs on your personal social media with just one click. Not only will these lovely ladies show you how to utilize the BirdDog tools to get your jobs in front of a bigger audience, they’ll also give you some tips that they’ve picked up on how to leverage social media as a whole.

I know the girls look forward to working with you – just as I look forward to sharing some social media tips in my next blog of the Social Recruiting series: Make Facebook Your Next Employee.

Contact our Relationship Managers:

Karen Enos
Email Karen
Direct: 515-473-9234
Rachel Dell
Email Rachel
Direct: 515-473-9226

Don’t worry too much – you can certainly still expect to see relevant information popping up in non-series blogs. Of course, these series won’t be overwhelming. Just expect two entries or so a week focusing on our blog series. Then we’ll take a little break and start another one!

Our first series will discuss social media, and is quite simply entitled Social Recruiting. You’ll be able to recognize all of the entries in this series because they’ll begin with the title of the series. Just some thoughts to keep in mind.

I expect that this series will carry us into June, and then hopefully we’ll take a short break and start our second series in July.

You can read the Social Recruiting series here:

• Why You Should, and How We Can Help

• 2008: Record revenue of $338.38 billion
• 2010: $259.41 billion
• 2011: $282.14 billion

You can read the article here: The Market Begins to Clear for the Top 400 Contractors

BirdDog’s FasTrack solution allowed us to get our job opening in front of a broader audience than we could by ourselves. This resulted in a variety of applicants and lead to us hiring someone we’re confident about in a very short amount of time. We also have other applicants that resulted from this one project that we might use for other openings which is a great bonus. I would recommend this solution to any company who needs the ability to reach a broad audience of job seekers quickly.

-Dana Lueth, BSB Construction

I am finding the value in my BirdDog services. I am looking for a really good Service Tech and seeing the benefit of having a pool of applicants to choose from as we get closer to spring. I like the ability to track them online without worrying about keeping a paper file. It’s an excellent tool to help me stay organized.

-Kelle Sickerson, General Manager, Heartland Heating & Cooling

BirdDog really helped me multitask.  I am a one woman HR department.  Budgets are tight and so is staffing.  FasTrack brought qualified, screened candidates directly to me for one set fee!

-Hilary McGann – HR Administrator Bes-Tech, Inc.

So what does this mean for you?

Well, if you’re a home services company in an area with a growing population, putting your business on Foursquare can help new residents find help they need from your business. You can run specials on these geosocial sites, exclusive to the site. If you’re a business where you often have customers come in to your physical location, then offering them specials by checking in will encourage them to come back – especially if you change these specials on a regular basis. Plus, many geosocial users have these sites connected to other social networking sites, like Facebook. That means their network will be exposed to your brand as well, gaining you a little free exposure. And the best part? It’s free (unless you need to claim your venue – then it is a one-time fee of $10)!

On Foursquare, you can create either a brand page (probably best if you won’t have customers coming to your venue) or a physical venue page. The instructions on how to set these up are relatively self explanatory.

The point here is: You always want to be growing in some way – whether it be your customer base or making more people aware of your brand. And utilizing the growing number of adults using these services is just one more way to get your name out there.