Monster Moves in on LinkedIn with new Facebook app

LinkedIn's monopoly over professional-social networking may have met it's most serious challenge to date, with the launch of Monster's new Facebook app. Leading jobs site Monster, who have around 40 million members compared to LinkedIn's 100 million, launched their new BeKnown app over the weekend in over 35 countires, which account for of 450 million of Facebook's 700 million-strong userbase. The app solves two problems that have previously inhibited people from promoting themselves professionally both on Facebook and LinkedIn. Firstly, it enables users to mobilise their Facebook friends in order to search for professional contacts without exposing their personal behaviour - all activity on BeKnown is kept seperate from personal Facebook accounts. Secondly, the app allows users to import their LinkedIn profiles and manage them within the comfort of Facebook, thus making use of the large number of LinkIn profiles that are hardley being used.

Harriet, a senior technical recruiter at BD Recruitement, thinks that if the app takes off (and it's a big 'if') it could mark a sea-change in how jobs are searched for, found and filled: "If BeKnown can solve the pitfalls associated with the blurring of the personal and the professional on Facebook, that would significantly change how we look for potential candidates online. LinkedIn is very much used as a professional-only tool at the moment, and if you could harness the personal/social-time people use on Facebook in order to recruit, then there is potential for seismic shifts in job search and recruitment." Harriet specialises in .NET recruitment and is currently recruiting for jobs in the IT/Technical area, click here to see the jobs.

Are you a multilingual marketer? Consider a job in online travel

With increasing numbers of people searching for and buying airline tickets, train tickets, hotel rooms and holidays online,it is perhaps no surprise that the major players in the market are currently looking expand and reposition themselves, in order to ensure a larger slice of the pie. Last week, global online travel brand Expedia looked to reposition itself as a 'trusted travel partner' through a global advertising campaign, in an attempt to move away from the 'online discount' brand strategy followed by the bulk of its competitors. Expedia are pulling no punches with their £40m 'People Shaped Travel' campaign, overseen by advertising heavyweights Ogilvy and Mather, and are emphasising the 'human face' of the brand in a new series of TV adverts featuring Expedia employees showing their passion for travel. 

The move is thought to be a response to lastminute.com's decision to embark on brand realignment earlier this year, when they moved to a concept of telling 'unforgettable stories' in their first pan-European advertising campaign, which was also designed to distinguish them from the crowded discount market. Expedia also recently lost it's prestigious Eurostar contract to Orbitz, but due to the booming European travel market, it's stock price rose to to a more than healthy $30.60. Closer to home, UK website thetrainline.com has moved into the thriving European market, cutting a deal with Rail Europe to sell Interrailing tickets from its website, which now offers travel to 29 European Countries. 

These major moves in online travel have cleared the way for multi-lingual marketers says Chris Crawford, head of BD Recruitment: "...more and more we are being asked to find multilingual marketers, with companies looking for a more global feel, so people who have SEO and PPC skills but have worked in European markets and can apply content and search strategies in (usually) Spanish, Dutch and German." Although this has lead to an influx of European job seekers coming to London to fill this need, pricing many of their British counterparts out of the market, the market is going from strength to strength and it may be wise to develop your digital marketing career in this direction if you have language skills, as competition at the top digital agencies becomes more intense.

Facebook and Apple: Friends or Foes?

We are all well versed in the battle for mobile app supremacy between Apple and Google’s Android platform, but a new battleground may well be emerging, which pitches Apple against Facebook. Whilst Facebook is ramping up its efforts to become more Apple-friendly with its forthcoming iPad app, it is also planning to dethrone Apple as king of mobile app distribution.

Facebook users have been crying out for a dedicated iPad app since its release a year ago and CNET have reported that the app is in the final stages of testing. According to the New York Times, Mark Zuckerberg has personally overseen development, and its slick design has been tailored to the iPad’s touchscreen interface, and users are able to seamlessly upload video shot by the iPad.

 While this may suggest that Apple and Facebook are scratching each other’s backs, other reports suggest that this is merely the first stage in Facebook trying to beat Apple at its own game. Recently, TechCrunch uncovered details of Facebook’s top-secret ‘Project Spartan’ – a new Safari-only app platform designed to work on iPhone and iPad. Facebook plans to use this to design and distribute its own apps from within Apple’s devices, and is apparently working with 80 outside developers including The Huffington Post and Zynga. Techcrunch claim that Facebook’s intention is “…to use Apple’s own devices against them to break the stranglehold they have on mobile app distribution.”

Relations between the two digital giants soured earlier this year when Apple chose Twitter as its partner in the development of iOS 5, when it was thought Facebook had been the preferred partners at an earlier stage. So take heed all you mobile app developers looking for jobs, as you may soon need to focus your energy on building apps for Facebook’s 700 million strong userbase. BD is currently recruiting for UI, PHP and .NET developers in London and Manchester. For our latest technical/IT jobs, click here.

Destroying Your Business with a Single Tweet: How Social Networking can be a liability

It seems there isn’t a day that goes by without an actor, professional footballer or politician apologizing for a misplaced rant on Twitter - just ask Russell Crowe, Wayne Rooney or Anthony Weiner. Recent events have shown that these pitfalls are not confined to celebrities – poor usage of social networking can also ruin your business. 

Redner Group, a PR agency based in California, managed to lose its largest contract last week, with video games publisher 2k, after tweeting that those who had given bad reviews to the game ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ would not be receiving review copies of games in the future. The tweet read: “too many went too far with their reviews. We r [sic] reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.” It was sent by the founder of the Agency, John Redner, who later returned to Twitter to apologize. It turned out he was too late to stop his company losing the contract.

Earlier this year, car company Chrysler fired New Media Strategies after one of their employees, who was being paid to tweet on Chrysler’s behalf, used the f-word in a tweet from Chrysler’s account, thinking they were signed in to their personal account.

Chris Crawford, MD of BD Recruitment, thinks that the increasing importance of online reputation management could see more jobs being created for specialised social media analysts and reputation managers in coming years: “One person’s slip up could see multiple people losing their jobs and business’s going under. The appointment of social media reputation managers could become commonplace in organisations, as the glare of Twitter and Facebook increases.” BD Recruitment specialises in digital marketing recruitment, including social media jobs. Click here for our latest jobs.

Google unveils Voice Search, Image Search and Instant Pages, but what impact with this have on your SEO strategy?

Google revealed a new bundle of search features last week, which prompts the question: will the emergence of new forms of search change how results are generated? In an attempt to make complex requirements like …ahem… typing a thing of the past, Google has now made it possible to drag and drop images into Google search and to enact search using voice recognition.  There are clear knock-on effects for recruiters and job seekers in the world of SEO, SEM and PPC here - with search becoming increasingly non-textual, companies have to prioritise the development of novel ways to optimise audio and visual content, and to understand the different types of behaviours used when searching via images and speech.

Google also claims it has shaved half a second off page loading times through its new Instant Pages feature, which pre-renders pages it thinks you will click on.  Improvements in speed and efficiency are the selling points here, but the real motive is to make us search more, with one Google exec saying: “We have found even shaving 50 milliseconds from search process, users search more and more.” 

Attempts to ramp up the number of searches are reflected in improvements to Google’s mobile search app, which works to localise search results so users can find destinations more quickly, in view of the popularity of location finder apps such as FourSquare.

 Adam, our SEO recruitment specialist, thinks this underlines the need for companies to be more responsive to changes in the SEO landscape than ever before, and for candidates to sharpen up their mobile, audio and visual SEO skills to compete in an already crowded market: “Businesses who react to new forms of search the quickest, and recruit with this in mind, will reap the benefits, and if you’re an individual looking to move up the SEO ladder, a knowledge of mobile apps will put you at a distinct advantage.” BD Recruitment have exciting opportunities inside the UK’s top five digital agencies. For our latest jobs, check out our Twitter and website.