How you communicate can say as much about you as what you communicate.

For example, you may have noticed that people often fall into either one of two contact categories – e-mail or voicemail.  You would do well to find out which one that new client or manager prefers as soon as possible.  Your lines of communication will be that much more secure.

Yet when it comes to e-mail, voicemail, Instant Messaging and even Twitter, there are traps waiting for you.  The way you use these vehicles on a day-to-day basis can be particularly revealing.

Here are some best practices – reminders for some, news for other – to keep in mind.  Don’t worry – they’ve all been field tested:

• You say goodbye and I say hello – It’s a typical scenario: Someone sends you an Instant Message at exactly the wrong time.  Sure, it’s nice to get an unexpected missive from a friend once in a while.  But IM’s can arrive just when you don’t have time to engage with them.  And the sender doesn’t know when to get off.  If the IM conversation needs to go on for more than five or ten minutes, call.  And if someone writes that they’re in the middle of something, let them get to it.

• In cyberspace, everyone can hear you scream – Everyone can tell how you really feel when you dash off that e-mail/IM/Tweet response to something (or someone) that really bugs you.  Write the e-mail if you must, but save it as a draft and read it again later.  Better yet, delete it and start anew.  The ancillary to this is the e-mail written so quickly that it becomes the electronic variation of bad handwriting.  No one will know what it means, so it wastes everyone’s time and says “I’m too busy to care.”  Not a good message.  Take your time, use spell check and review before you send.

• It’s all personal – On a subliminal level, hearing your voice say that you can’t come to the phone right now tells me that you will get back to me.  Hearing your assistant or a “standard greeting” tell me you can’t come to the phone says something else entirely.  Seriously, is it that hard to set up a voicemail greeting using your voice?  Set it up once, keep it brief and you’ve demonstrated a personal touch that speaks well of you.

• Can we change the subject, please? – By now we’ve had e-mail long enough to know that in a long e-mail series, the topic will change.  So either stop replying and start anew or change the subject line to reflect your current topic.  Be specific in the subject line (e.g., “Statistics on sales for October”) rather than general (e.g., “Information requested”) to make it easier to scan and identify.  And like the IM conversations mentioned above, if the series threatens to go on for more four rounds, pick up the phone.

• “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” – Alexander Graham Bell had just spilled battery acid on himself when he made that first telephone call.  Not all of your voicemails are quite so urgent.  Don’t mark them as such unless it’s truly vital.  When every voicemail is special, then no voicemail is special.

I could go on but now it’s your turn.  What are your best practices?

Contributed by: Frank McGee
Writer, trainer, coach

Last week I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at the first Chicago Social Media Breakfast. SMB has been in existence in other cities since 2007 but this was the first one in here in the Windy City. The event was separated into different groups with specific topics to discuss. My group was focused on social media and personal branding in regards to the job search and career advancement.

As marketers we are seeing a wholesale change in how companies engage in communication with their clients and consumers. In addition, the ways we as individuals communicate are also changing dramatically. I think for the most part marketers (especially in the last year) are really starting to grasp the enormous changes going on within their space.

What has continued to be a struggle for people is telling the difference between “blowing your horn” in regards to your talents/expertise and “communicating your passion” to a wider audience than your existing personal/professional network. The ability to help people and in turn receive recommendation has never been more important.  It’s a very organic way of self development which also can help you gain recognition and ultimately a new job, a promotion or new business for your organization.

My Top 5 Takeaways from our group discussions were:

1)      “The golden rule” treat others the way you would like to be treated. This will ultimately be something that will come back around to you.

2)      When networking on LinkedIn or other sites don’t “ask for a job” use the tools available to create awareness for your expertise to gain a larger network of targeted individuals for potential career placement and/or advancement.

3)      Use social media to create an integrated marketing campaign around a helpful blog post you have written (become a resource). This is a post I wrote describing an initiative I created here at Paladin: 

       Paladins Marketing Ninja guide: The 30 Minute Challenge

4)      Don’t close yourself off to just blogging, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. One of the attendee’s was discussing his use of Tumblr something I am going to attempt to utilize.

5)      Nothing replaces face to face contact. Definitely get out from behind your computer and regularly get out to coffee meetings, association evening events and luncheons. This is a post I wrote regarding networking events in Chicago: Paladins Galaxy Guide to Networking in Chicago

 We are all hearing the constant chatter (no pun intended) around social media. Some of the discussions are valid and some of are based upon lack of understanding and experience. My recommendation is to continue to share openly with each other and pay it forward. It’s a great community we have here in Chicago and I’m excited to attend future Social Media Breakfast’s!

Last month I wrote a blog highlighting a hiring trend I’m seeing recently at Paladin. In short, we found that although a recession typically leads to an increase in mid-level interim staffing needs within corporations and agencies, our clients were disproportionally hiring senior/executive level marketers for both direct-hire positions and for interim roles.

To gain a larger perspective, we asked the marketing community for feedback via a LinkedIn poll. We wanted to determine if what we are seeing at Paladin is an anomaly, or actually a hiring trend in marketing departments.

The Findings:

Nearly 60% of the respondents polled said their companies were not hiring at all in 2009. Not shocking given the current state of the economy.

However, what’s interesting is that 30% of the remaining respondents said their organization was hiring due to one of the following three reasons:

-         The need for a fresh marketing approach

-         A shift in business direction

-         Business growth

We also saw that enterprise and mid-sized organization were seeing the least hiring of senior level marketing talent. Small and large organization were the most active.

So, how can this information help marketers who are looking for work? The good news is that there are opportunities, and in order to find those openings, you should keep an eye out for companies that match the three indicators for hiring.  As you network through organizations like the BMA or CIMA, read key publications such as Crain’s Chicago Business and The Chicago Tribune or leverage corporate Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds, keep an eye out for corporations that are taking a distinctly different approach to marketing or to their actual business model.  As always, those companies that are experiencing rapid growth are ideal opportunities for senior marketers as well.

The poll is still up and active. Feel free to participate and add comments. We continue to be interested in tracking this trend. 

As recruiters, we expect to see specific hiring trends during economic downturns. Historically, we anticipate increases in contract/freelance staffing because corporations, which are in the midst of hiring freezes, have laid-off large numbers of marketing and communications pros. With a skeleton staff and the same daunting workload, the inevitable outcome is that organizations bring on contract/freelance staff to fill the gap.

Generally the most common need is for mid-level talent with 5-10 years of experience.  The senior level positions are less often requested because strategies have been set and companies want simply to execute on plans.  But 2009 has not played by the standard rules.

While we are seeing an increase in contract/freelance hires, we’ve been surprised that another trend has emerged: our staff is recruiting for a significant number of senior and executive level marketing openings across a broad range of industries.  

Most recently, we’ve recruited for a CMOs, VPs and Directors of Marketing across a wide variety of industries including retail, telecom, health and beauty and tech.

 The question: Why the change in upper management at this time?

Are these executive level openings a result of the company taking their business in a different direction, and, thus, needing a new leader with fresh thinking? Perhaps this recession has provided management with the opportunity to clean house and let go of senior marketing staff that have not been able to make a measurable impact. It may be a case of organizational growth despite this challenging environment. Some suggest it may be a case of attrition. Or perhaps it is simply an anomaly that we alone are experiencing within our recruitment practice.

To find the answers or at least further the conversation, we are reaching out to our community of Marketing Professionals. As marketers on the front lines, we’re interested in hearing directly from you. Click here to take a five question survey about hiring trends within your organization. We’ll be sharing the findings with our readers, and individual responses will remain confidential. And feel free to comment on the subject here. We value your insight, your questions and your feedback.