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Best Practices

Even Gladiators Need Presentation Skills

With the roll of drums and the crash of cymbals, the gladiators for next year enter the arena. These are the global warriors of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI).

They don’t bow or mumble strange sentences in Latin; instead they simply give themselves a hearty clap on the back and get on with the job in hand, bestriding the world as champions of business sustainability.

Every year companies from all over the world seek to qualify for membership of the DJSI. Each is measured against 12 criteria covering economic, social and environmental issues and those who score over a certain threshold are allowed in.

Which is all very well, but what about their websites? Well I have to admit I haven’t been through every single one with a tooth comb, but one caught my eye as worth highlighting. [Read more…] about Even Gladiators Need Presentation Skills

Are you looking in the right place for recruits?

David Wilson at Social Media Optimisation points to a very interesting article in the India Times. In this article, HCL Technologies estimate that over the next two years, two thirds of their recruits will come from social media.

2/3 of recruits will come from social media

We all know that these days recruiters are quite likely to Google recruits … and that this could come up with their dodgy Facebook profile, or the inappropriate comments that they made on a forum. A few companies set up areas in Second Life to help with recruiting; others establish forums and live chat on their own sites.
[Read more…] about Are you looking in the right place for recruits?

Some Really Good Advice That’s Hard to Get (Part 2)


advice-2

As promised in a previous post, here’s a roadmap to the four articles that comprise Dr. John Sullivan’s analysis of “127 suggested features or capabilities for the corporate careers website of the future.”  The links will take you in order to the articles archived on Sullivan’s own website.  (Links to the ere.net version are provided at the end of this post.)

Part 1:  Contains an analysis of the current state of most Career sites; a list of “16 Reasons Why the Web Is a Powerful Recruiting Sales Tool”; an index of the “18 Categories of Website Features or Capabilities” that will be discussed in the series; and discussions of the first three categories, which are:

  • Careers page easy to find on the lead-in page
  • Immediate “wows” to get their attention
  • Quick identification features

Each category has its own list, so Part 1 contains the first 23 of the 127 suggested features or capabilities.  (The category names in the individual parts sometimes are not the same as they were on the index list, but they are similar.)

Part 2:  Covers the next five categories, which are:

  • Initial classification of the visitor
  • Features that provide personalized information
  • Personalized features and expedited treatment
  • Features for attracting employed top performers
  • Features for attracting active job seekers

This group brings the features/capabilities total to 56.

Part 3: Covers the next four categories, which are:

  • Other information-gathering elements for all visitors
  • Careers page features that sell them on the firm
  • Jobs page features that sell visitors on this job
  • Features that make it easy to find jobs

This group brings the features/capabilities total to 92.

Part 4:   Wrapping up with the remaining six categories:

  • Features that bring the firm to life and make the firm appear genuine
  • Features that help assess job qualifications
  • Features that provide feedback to candidates and that answer their questions
  • Elements that help build the relationship over time
  • Geographically localized features
  • Other things to do related to the site, including metrics

The features and capabilities in the last category (Other things . . . ) are not numbered, so they are not included in the 127 total.

The links provided above are to the Sullivan site because the articles are more readable there and the titles are part numbered.  If you prefer to read them on ere.net (where the list numbering is continuous) here are the links in order:

Ere.net Part 1

Ere.net Part 2

Ere.net Part 3

Ere.net Part 4


(Thanks to “Solo, with others” for a lakeside view of the advice business.)

Corporate websites and the case for accessibility

I recently asked Helen Baker to give us some advice about accessibility and the corporate website.

Helen provides a range of freelance web content services, with a focus on accessible, usable copy in plain English. She started out in technology PR for a global firm before moving on to the corporate communications team of FTSE 250 engineering company Balfour Beatty, and was responsible for http://www.balfourbeatty.com, when she was first introduced to the issues surrounding corporate websites. Find out more about her on www.concisecontent.co.uk.

Over to you, Helen:

Corporate websites and the case for accessibility

accessibility

As more and more companies provide and actively encourage their stakeholders to access corporate information online, accessibility is becoming an even greater issue.

Accessible websites benefit everyone, both visitors and business. But research shows that many corporate websites are still failing to reach even minimum accessibility standards.

Accessibility is a legal requirement for many businesses

Service providers in the UK have been legally required to provide accessible websites and applications since 1999. According to the Disability Discrimination Act, businesses have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable a disabled person to make use of its services, including those provided online.

A website’s design should make sure all users can have full and equal access to both services and information. If not, they run the risk of being accused of discrimination against people with disabilities, followed by being sued and receiving a lot of negative publicity.

All visitors benefit from more accessible websites

However, an accessible website isn’t just for people with disabilities. All visitors benefit from more accessible websites, from faster loading times through to easier-to-read text.

Accessible websites also benefit visitors with changing abilities, such as age-related issues, or people accessing information using both older (dial-up internet) and newer (mobile handsets) technologies.

Corporate websites serve audiences with diverse needs

Corporate websites provide information ranging from shareholder resources through to job vacancies. Consider two typical, very different audiences that would benefit from a more accessible website:

  • Retired employees: many older visitors suffer from age-related issues, such as poor vision and mobility difficulties (where using a mouse may be a problem). They also often use older equipment or browsers to access information.
  • Institutional shareholders: analysts often need to access financial information quickly via, for example, mobile handsets and platforms. They might also be using a slower internet connection reliant on a good mobile signal.

Accessibility provides tangible business benefits

Organisations with corporate websites that meet minimum accessibility requirements experience a number of business benefits. For example, the website will have an greater audience reach, it will be ‘future proofed’ as technologies change and its content will be optimised for search engines.

A popular case study is Legal & General, which launched a new website in 2006. It saw a massive increase in conversion rates (people asking for quotes), its search engine rankings significantly improved and it experienced a 100 per cent return on investment (ROI) within just 6 months, among many other benefits.

Corporate websites need to do better

In March 2006, Nomensa conducted research that showed ‘almost 75 per cent of businesses in the FTSE 100 list of companies fail to meet the minimum requirements for website accessibility’, as set by the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Why are so many corporate websites failing on this front? There are a number of reasons, many of which may be practical but certainly aren’t an excuse. These range from under-resourcing through to a lack of in-house knowledge.

Some simple fixes for the short term

Convinced but not sure where to start in the short term? Try some of the following simple (but not necessarily quick) fixes. This is by no means a definitive list.

  • Make sure your text is presented in short paragraphs, using plain English, lists and descriptive headings
  • When you add the headings, make sure you use header tags and put them in the correct hierarchy
  • Add and use appropriate alt text for all images, where applicable
  • Check for good colour contrast between the text and the background
  • Check that links are descriptive and easily distinguishable from other text (e.g. underlined and in a different colour)
  • Ensure that body text is a reasonable default font size and can be increased by the reader
  • Provide text transcripts for any video or podcasts.

The following websites also provide some good starting points and quick reference documents:

Where to go for more information

Thanks, Helen!

Energizing the Employer Brand

QuikTripStop the presses! Readers are expressing their opinions on the Fortune list of ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ — and the range of comments is a reminder that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Though some folks express enthusiasm for their listed companies, others said something like ‘How could you put Company X on this list???’ (And often enough, different people are saying opposite things about the same company.) Another big response category is ‘What about my company?’ or the variant, ‘What about Famous Company X?’

Well, as promised, today’s episode will be notes from my tour of the Careers sites for companies from the list, focusing on ways to energize the employer brand. But the comment-fest at Fortune is irresistible reading—and offers some useful insights–so I’ll post a follow-up soon.

Starting off: I set a goal to visit the Careers sites for half the 100 companies. Didn’t make it! But I did get through quite a few, and have decided that 25 is the new 50. Based on the adventure so far, I have three overview observations:

  • Too much video is . . . too much. After the first dozen companies, I felt like I was channel-surfing instead of web-surfing. It takes the visitor time to view each video, and soon you’re feeling like a passive audience rather than an active applicant. So–now that website video is no longer novel–look for fresh, meaningful ways to use it, rather than just putting up obligatory testimonials. (Chesapeake Energy sets a good example.)
  • Location of access to the Careers page from the home page and menus is important. When you see a prominent link in the top or side navigation, the message is ‘jobs/employees are important to us.’ When you have to search out a tiny text link at the very bottom of the page, you get the opposite impression. (There can be challenges on this point for some companies. I’ll talk about integrating the Careers page with other site components in a future post.)
  • Message fragmentation is the problem I found most frequently in sites that don’t energize. If the visitor has to click on ten different links to see ten different kinds of information, the energy deflates rapidly. So if you need lots of pages, keep the core message focused, make the navigation very clear, and give visitors a logical path rather than just a pile of links. (QuikTrip and Arnold & Porter both do a good job on this, in different ways.)
Umpqua
Stew Leonard
Zappos

Wrapping up: Here is ‘Cynthia’s List of 5 Interesting Company Career Sites.’ Out of the sites I visited in this blitz, here are the ones I fell for. They are good examples, I think, of creating positive energy for the employer brand.

  • Umpqua Bank: Their whole site is so charming that I considered moving so I could bank with them. The Careers page highlights unusual perks, such as paid time for volunteer work.
  • Stew Leonard’s: The Careers page for this small grocery chain made me laugh and cry. (Really.) The use of snapshot-style photos to illustrate each of the ‘Ten Reasons”’ creates an emotional connection, making the company’s benefits seem personal rather than abstract.
  • Starbucks: Although I’m a major Starbucks enthusiast, I think their Careers site could be better. But the approach of creating a ‘Career Center’ works well from an energizing perspective. The site is visually active and information-rich, with a good brand fit.
  • Zappos.com: In a class by itself! This quirky site makes the list not just for the Core Values Frog (though that’s a hard one to top) but also for clever use of social media.
  • Alcon Laboratories: I was determined to find a big company with an energetic Careers site, and it wasn’t easy. But Alcon finally won me over with a bold, blog-style site that steps outside the typical corporate look without losing its dignity.

And FYI: If you’re wondering how I picked my visits—I went to every company with a Q in the name; three companies I really like; three I really don’t like; several I thought would be fun; and a random selection of law firms, construction companies, communication giants, etc.

The Psychology of a Smart Slogan

“Let’s eat out!”

This 3-word masterpiece proved to be a tremendous for success as McDonald’s first slogan in 1960. Since this time, McDonalds has used over 23 slogans to date, with the most recent being the catchy jingle sung by pop icon Justin Timberlake “I’m Lovin’ It!” which was released in 2003.

This litany of slogans represents changes in consumer demand as well as changes in overall consumer culture. McDonalds claims that all of their commercial campaigns have encompassed the “…overall McDonalds experience,” always portraying …”warmth and a real slice of life.”

More like a real slice of marketing know-how.

For a company that has visited the courtroom hot seat numerous times due to the unhealthy nature of their classic cuisine, their slogans seem to be serving them well. With over 31,000 locations worldwide and still growing, and over 4.3 billion in net income, McDonalds definitely knows the secrets of the slogan. [1]

A slogan is a phrase intended to capture the essence of the ideas connected to an organization. It is a short yet powerful way to present product features and benefits using only a few punchy words. The idea is for the slogan to make the consumer feel good when they read it. Slogans may seem to be nothing more than just another marketing approach; in actuality however, a strong current of subconscious activity runs beneath this seeming simplicity.

The importance of priming

Slogans work (or don’t work) due to ‘priming.’ The application of priming is a twofold: to influence subsequent thoughts or actions and to increase the speed at which these subsequent thoughts or actions occur.[2] The interesting element of priming is that it is almost always a subconscious process – consumers have no idea that their thoughts and actions are being controlled. Almost always…but not always.

While priming typically occurs beneath the consumer’s mental radar, there are instances when they realize they are being manipulated by a slogan. When this awareness occurs, the consumer will automatically and unconsciously react against it, trying to correct the bias that they feel the slogan has forced into their heads. Instead of returning to a neutral attitude towards the product, the consumer’s attitudes quickly heads south as they form a negative appraisal of the product. This process is termed ‘reverse priming’ and its importance is gaining notoriety in the marketing realm.[3]

In order to understand how a sloppy slogan can create the reverse priming effect, one must understand the psychological processes behind how consumers mentally process a slogan. The Elaboration Likelihood Model, a prominent theory of persuasion, outlines how this processing occurs.[4] According to ELM, the brand item, which is in symbolic form, is processed unconsciously. The associated slogan, is more complex however, as it is composed of words. Therefore, the slogan requires more complex cognitive processing, providing just enough time to raise suspicion in the mind of the consumer.  Once the consumer becomes suspicious reverse priming occurs, creating the behavioral backlash.

Avoiding reverse priming

Organizations must therefore carefully craft their slogan in a way that makes the consumer feel good as opposed to feeling as if they are being duped. Experts claim slogans that are humorous, creative, and contain entertaining elements are most successful, and will bypass the reverse priming trap. This is due to the psychological rule of reciprocity; when someone does something for us, we return the favor in order to maintain cognitive equilibrium (i.e. avoid guilt). Thus, when the slogan is entertaining, the consumer will forgive the manipulation attempt and reciprocate the provided entertainment by accepting the message, and liking the product.[3]

Interestingly, both priming and reverse priming are driven by processes that lie completely out of consumer awareness. For example, researchers found that consumers will even unconsciously revolt against mere subliminal exposure to the word ‘slogan’. In one study, when the word ‘slogan’ was flashed on a computer screen without the consumers’ awareness, the consumers reported they were less willing to spend money on the product that was subsequently presented.[3]

In regards to the implementation of slogans into corporate websites, it is important to not only avoid reverse priming, but to also be conscious of where the slogan is located on the page. Remember, the Internet user scans a web page in an F-shaped pattern, placing most attention to the top left corner of the screen. Therefore, slogans are most effective when placed in this region.[5]

It seems that in order to avoid the behavioral backlash of reverse priming, and optimize the implementation of your slogan into your website, it is best to place a creative, humorous, or entertaining slogan at the top left corner of your web page. For an example of a well-created, and well-placed slogan, visit the world’s favorite fast food joint http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html.

References

[1] “McDonalds” by Wikimedia Foundation

[2] Bargh, John E: What have we been priming all these years? On the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior.

[3] Laran, J, Dalton, A. and Andrade, E. The Curious Case of Behavioral Backlash: Why Brands Produce Priming Effects and Slogans Produce Reverse Priming Effects

[4] Petty, RE, & Cacioppo, JT: Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes to Attitude Change.

[5] O’Connell, Christi: Eyetracking and Web site Design