We have the pleasure of welcoming our newest addition to the Paladin Team and the new voice of Paladin - Cindy-Lee Pijoos. Cindy is taking over my role as Recruitment Coordinator. She will be the point person for our working Associates and initial inquiries from Candidates and Clients.

Cindy’s story about finding Paladin is a classic case study for how social networking can help you find a job. Recruiters, mentors, bloggers, and even Forbes continuously buzz about personal branding and networking through online communities to find a job. After reviewing Paladin’s postings online, she contacted me through a direct message on Twitter. Her social media savvy gained her an interview, and her experience and professionalism won her the role.

Cindy graduated with an integrated marketing communications degree in PR. She comes to us originally from Cape Town, South Africa and has lived in various cities before settling in Chicago. She thoroughly enjoys volunteering, cooking, and networking - so be sure to introduce yourself at the next event.

As we welcome Cindy as the new face and voice of Paladin, I am personally taking the next step in my career. I have recently accepted a position in social media, which will be a new challenge I am very excited to take on. My passion for interactive, online marketing has spooled through my experience at Paladin. I am happy to have had a chance to hone my social media experience in my Paladin role and look forward to staying a part of the extended Paladin family!

The first association I joined was the student chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, the PRSSA, primarily because Al Walker offered extra credit for my journalism class at NIU. While I may not have appreciated it at first, it is here where I built a strong foundation and friendships that I’ve drawn on throughout my career.

There are many reasons to join an association, and there are many for marketing and creative professionals to choose from. The key common thread they offer is a forum to interact with peers facing similar business challenges, and most importantly, an opportunity to further your personal and professional development.

Regardless of the stage you are at – from young professional to mid management, or even if you’ve reached the pinnacle of your profession, there is a wealth of benefits to tap into by not just joining, but actively participating in one or several groups.

Sure there are the tangible benefits of educational programs, access to thought leadership articles, access to member directories, subscriptions to trade publications and the like. But if you talk to long-time members and association leaders, there are far richer rewards and reasons to believe:

• Build a trusted peer-to-peer network to call on to help navigate a particular issue
• Exposure to best practices to benchmark what other companies are doing and spark new ideas for your organization
• Stretch your marketing skills as a speaker or committee volunteer, take on challenges outside your comfort zone or current work responsibilities
• Surround yourself with smart, savvy peers to inspire and encourage your own and your team’s creativity
  
• Be an industry insider and uncover new career opportunities that may be right for you
• Be a mentor – you’ll not only feel good, you’ll likely learn a few things right back!

We are fortunate to be part of a community of communicators, so perhaps one of the best perks I cherish through my involvement is the fun and lasting friendships gained along the way.

Follow Paladin’s association Twitter list for global updates from variety of networks: http://twitter.com/PaladinStaff/associations

Tell us your opinion! How important is it for professionals in marketing or creative positions to participate in associations? Take our Poll

Margaret Essary is Director, Business Development of Paladin and is an active member of several associations, including the Business Marketing Association, the American Marketing Association, and the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing.

]]> http://blog.paladinstaff.com/paladin-information/associations/feed/ http://blog.paladinstaff.com/paladin-information/locationmarketing/ http://blog.paladinstaff.com/paladin-information/locationmarketing/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:48:34 +0000 elizabeth.stiles http://blog.paladinstaff.com/?p=928 Recent marketing industry events have highlighted the coming wave of mobile marketing. Location-based marketing has had a particular hype. I wanted to learn more about it first hand, so I took to the road to test it out myself while on a short vacation this past weekend. In advance, I researched some of the latest location-based marketing techniques and platforms. Twitter has integrated geotagging into tweets accessible by computer or on your mobile device. Marketers can target and communicate virtually, which makes it easier for marketers to find customers and quickly get in touch in real-time. Foursquare was the instigator of geotagging presented as the highly popular location based game/application, rewarding customers with ‘check-ins.’ In most recent news, they are close to 1.8 billion users and just raised $20m in a Series B investment. Yelp newly introduced a similar concept to Foursquare by adding badge features and ‘Dukedoms’ to their mobile application. Ideally, Yelp [...]]]>

Recent marketing industry events have highlighted the coming wave of mobile marketing. Location-based marketing has had a particular hype. I wanted to learn more about it first hand, so I took to the road to test it out myself while on a short vacation this past weekend.

In advance, I researched some of the latest location-based marketing techniques and platforms.

• Twitter has integrated geotagging into tweets accessible by computer or on your mobile device. Marketers can target and communicate virtually, which makes it easier for marketers to find customers and quickly get in touch in real-time.
• Foursquare was the instigator of geotagging presented as the highly popular location based game/application, rewarding customers with ‘check-ins.’ In most recent news, they are close to 1.8 billion users and just raised $20m in a Series B investment.
• Yelp newly introduced a similar concept to Foursquare by adding badge features and ‘Dukedoms’ to their mobile application. Ideally, Yelp would like to provide readers with quality reviews since they will have the ability to track the number of times the reviewer is actually visiting the venues.
• Gowalla, also similar to Foursquare, has just rolled out five new local language settings for global users to actively participate.

An article last week from Noah Elikin on Media Post Marketing Implications of a Truly Mobile Internet, discussed the idea that frequent travelers were a prime target for location based marketing. I put the theories to test on my adventures to the Northwest and Canada. From Thursday to Monday, I utilized my social networks by checking into Foursquare and sending updates to Twitter. Being an avid user of social media and having a fairly sizable network of 1150 followers, I was curious to see if brands would indeed market to me as I was on the go.

On Foursquare, I made sure to check-in everywhere I stopped, including: airports, train/bus stations, hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, well-known tourist attractions, and tours. I logged over 20 check-ins and 15 tweets throughout the trip. Surprisingly, the results were underwhelming. Out of all venues I visited and tweeted about, I only received one automated response from the tour company, @SavorSeattle, thanking me for the follow and participating on the tour.

The only ’specials nearby’ notification I received was from @Starbucks on Foursquare. For the sake of my research (and being a frequent coffee drinker) I couldn’t travel all the way to Seattle without visiting the original Starbucks store. The company has quickly adopted location-based marketing on Foursquare. When users check-in to the store, a notification pops up offering incentives to “Mayors” (most frequent customers) discounts and free drinks. It is a program that drives increased customer visits and alerts to Starbucks near their immediate location.

Findings: Despite the location-based marketing hype, the practice has not become an integral part of the marketing mix. It will be interesting to watch brands roll out the efforts in the months and years. However, for the moment, there is not very much activity visible at the traveling consumer level.

Although I was not geotargeted by marketing brands, I did learn more about an interesting tool for travelers worth noting: @Boarding

The recently new idea was founded by Damien Guinet in France and seems to be leading in the developing an ideal platform for travel-based marketing. The concept is to find ’stranded travelers’ through online social media tools. Simply tweet #boarding followed by the airport code and moments later you will receive a message with a link to a map plus list of Twitter handles also in the airport. What I found most interesting about the concept is the ultimate end goal of the idea: Proposing specific airport service/product coupons plus tips to help occupy the time while waiting to board.

Traveling back to Chicago from Seattle, I put my research to the test myself. After reviewing the list of Twitter profiles in who were also at SeaTac International Airport, I came across @AirlineReporter, who I have recently started following. So I did what any other tweep would do - sent a direct message to see what terminal he was in! We ended up meeting at his gate and chatting about how we had just put social networking into practice. He had valuable insight for location based marketing. Airlines are finding creative ways to integrate social media into brand strategy. For instance, there is future talk of allowing customers to check into their flights via Foursquare, providing a quick, efficient way of flying. Incentives are also being created, such as becoming the Mayor of the airline terminal and given the chance to bump up to business class or win 5,000 frequent flyer miles. The tools seem to be a great starting point for airlines and companies to build up to specifically target the traveling customers.

My end result showed that many companies are buzzing around location-based marketing and hoping to roll out their innovative and creative concepts, although the ideas have not yet been fully implemented. After putting myself out there, one thing is for sure - thanks to social media and mobile apps, you can connect virtually with anyone, anywhere. How will companies catch up with real-time connection on the go? What examples have you come across in your daily activities recently that integrate location-based marketing?

Paladin would like to find out where location-based marketing is headed in your companies. Take our quick, one-questioned polls and results will be given next week on our social networks.

1. http://polls.linkedin.com/p/93828/jqvtu

2. http://polls.linkedin.com/p/93830/cmzdo

We are happy to announce a few new enhancements to the Paladin web site! After weeks of brainstorming, mock-ups, and opinion-gathering, the new Paladin splash page has features that will appeal to job seekers and employers alike. Needless to say, we want our viewers to have a successful web experience. We understand the importance of a user-friendly environment – and the ability to locate specific elements without having to go two or three layers deep.

To begin with, the site has a cleaner all-around feel. The softer image of pastel-colored pencils replaces the harder image of the three solid-colored category boxes. As the eyes shift from left to right on the page, the viewer immediately sees “How can Paladin help you?” They have one of three options to click on that are highlighted during scroll-over: One for employers, one for job seekers, and one for our associates.

Heading back to the left side of the page (under the pencils image), the viewer sees a simple, straightforward paragraph on what we do, who we work with, how we operate, and why we’re different from the rest. Directly to the right is a Job Search column that allows the job seeker to search via keyword entry, or by selecting the geographic location or job category. Adjacent to this column is the Available Jobs section, which gives job seekers direct access to immediate openings. The last column to the right features thumbnail images of our talent Portfolios. A potential employer can easily click on an image that will take them directly to an imbedded version of that individual’s portfolio.

The top and bottom tabs of the page have remained the same, to comply with traditional professional home page standards. The social media directory is clearly noticeable as well.

In summary, Paladin’s home page is now easier to navigate than the previous version, allowing you to find what you’re looking for in a much shorter period of time.

This week, Paladin participated in the Heartland Mobile Council’s MobileU101 conference. As companies awake to “the year of mobile,” this event discussed strategic approaches to mobile marketing.  But is this really the time of mobile?

Motorola’s Dana Warszona, a panelist, said the mobile tipping point for Japan came about 4 years earlier compared to the US. She and her fellow panelists Andrew Koven, President, E-Commerce & Customer Experience, Steve Madden Shoes and Julie Krueger, Senior Vice President, eCommerce and Direct, OfficeMax felt that the US is just now at that point. They stressed that for retail companies, in particular, this is the time to pull the infrastructure together and to get smart on mobile and to do it quickly. Two-thirds of retailers are already doing mobile or in the midst of implementing it.

They advise moving away from simply the siloed campaign and to develop mobile as a part ongoing strategy and business operation. For consumers mCommerece is coming and it will mean that cash registers and credit cards will become obsolete. Krueger said that mobile will do away with kiosks and that the in-store experience will change radically. Warszona pointed to Best Buy as example of a company that was truly tying mobile into their business operations.

Koven said, “Mobile is the second coming and we’re [Steve Madden Shoes are] going to lead. We’re not going to wait and see.” 

How are these initiative being done? Krueger said that companies are not yet investing in additional human resources needed for mobile. Her current teams are adding it to their work load. But as the tide turns and mobile heats up, we will see companies ramp up the internal resources needed to manage this growth.

Staff, roles and ownership for mobile were reoccurring discussions during the conference. Which departments should own the mobile marketing strategy or execution? Will marketing generalist take mobile marketing on as an additional tool in their tool belt or is mobile best developed and managed by specialists? As Mobile Marketing emerges, we look forward to following this debate and the trends.  We would like your input on the topic. To weigh in, please take our poll - http://tinyurl.com/2bfolsr . We will be happy to share the results with you.

Here are a few recent articles and links related to mobile marketing:

 Mobile Marketers: Just Do Something

Chicago mobile event highlights opportunities of mobile marketing

Heartland Mobile Council

What Apple’s Acquisition of Siri Means for the Future of Mobile Search

Twitter Stream from the event