2. Help Wanted: Strategies For Surviving The Social Media Revolution
Sarah Rotman Epps
Analyst
Forrester Research
September 8, 2008

3. Have you rated your CEO today?
Steve Jobs:
90% approve
Jerry Yang:
41% approve
George Colony:
59% approve
Source: Employees of each company on Glassdoor.com

4. Consumers trust information from each other
“How much do you trust the following information sources?” [selected 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale]
Base: US online consumers
Source: Forrester’s North American Media and Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2008

5. Glassdoor lets job seekers get the inside scoop on companies – free and anonymously

6. Wikis are blowing the lids off hiring processes
Academic wikis benefit job seekers by providing more visibility into the process, and make universities accountable.

7. TwitHire: Job seeking for micro-bloggers

8. Definition
Groundswell A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations

9. The groundswell has a material impact on your business
job.com
Job seekers are getting harder to reach
It’s hard to know where to connect with them
They can’t get everything they need from you
Advertisers have more alternatives

10. Three strategies for success
Aggregate content and functionality needed to meet key job seeker goals
Syndicate broadly to engage job seekers wherever they are
Use social technologies to get job seekers to engage with you -- and each other

11. 1) Aggregate content and functionality to meet key consumer goals
job.com
You know your audience better than anybody
Leverage the relationship to be the first resource
Creates more page views to drive ad impressions

12. Consider aggregating content from blogs like BlogHer

13. 2) Syndicate broadly to engage consumers wherever they are
job.com
LinkedIn
Blogs
Syndication means going to where your readers spend most of their time

14. SimplyHired syndicates content to LinkedIn

15. 3) Use social technologies to get consumers to engage with you -- and each other
job.com
You become part of the community you serve

16. Dan Black, Director of Campus Recruiting for Ernst & Young

17. Ernst & Young talks to college students on Facebook

18. Idealist energizes job seekers to spread its message

19. Massify: Video resumes for the YouTube generation

20. Forrester’s four-step approach to the groundswell
People Assess your customers’ social activities
Objectives Decide what you want to accomplish
Strategy Plan for how relationships with customers will change
Technology Decide which social technologies to use

21. One in five US online consumers use job boards at least weekly
“How often do you use job boards (e.g., monster.com)?”
Base: US online consumers
Source: Forrester’s North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2008

22. The Social Technographics Ladder
US adults
14%
16%
11%
22%
43%
49%
Use job boards
21%
25%
24%
36%
61%
30%
The Social Technographics Ladder
Creators
Critics
Collectors
Profile your
customers at
groundswell.forrester.com
Joiners
Instead, look at it in terms of a ladder of participation.
People in the groundswell are at different rungs, different levels of participation.
Go through the levels.
Two things to remember:
- This is not a segmentation. You can be a Creator and a Spectator at the same time and in different parts of your life. But once you’ve been a Creator in one area, you’re much more likely to do that same thing in another area of passion.
people will move up and down this. Inactives will be drawn into being Spectators when they find content that feeds a passion. Or Join a social network when a friend invites them.
Spectators
Base: US online adults and US online adults that use job boards
Source: Forrester’s North American Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2008
Inactives

23. Gen Y leads the way, but consumers of all ages are active in social media
Percentage of each generation that belongs to each Social Technographics group:
Base: US online consumers
Source: Forrester’s North American Technographics Benchmark Mail Survey, Q1 2008

24. Gen Y’s behavior is the future of job seeking
Online portals/classifieds
Social media sites
Newspapers
Aggregators

25. Social media affects advertising and the economics of your business
Impacts the content and context of advertising
Expands the insight you have about your audience—and the solutions you can provide for advertisers
Creates new partners and M&A targets

26. Recommendations
Empower employers with tools to participate in the conversation
Pursue strategies of aggregation, syndication, and social engagement
Use POST as a guide for your social initiatives

27. Thank you Sarah Rotman Epps +1 617.613.6249 srotman@forrester.com
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