Work.io: An Online Marketplace for Hiring Help

Work.io: An Online Marketplace for Hiring Help
Ivana Taylor is Curious About Why People Buy
Real Estate Content Strategy: SEO And Your Blog
Read Impact Equation to Help You Harness Your Social Media Message

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT

For small businesses looking to hire help or just outsource a few tasks, recruiting tools can often seem complicated, especially for businesses that aren't large enough to have someone who's specifically in charge of finding new talent. Work.io is a startup that aims to help connect companies with people who can help, but it does so in a new kind of way that may seem more familiar.

Work.io

The site, which launched last week, positions the company looking to hire as the "buyer" and creates a sort of online shopping experience for professional talent.

Businesses can browse through the specific skill sets and experience they're looking for, whether it's legal research, lead generation, or anything in between. Companies can also specify whether they need quick help for one specific project, or potentially a larger workload.

Once companies use the Work.io template to specify their needs, the site then finds relevant matches in its database and pitches the job to potential workers. They can then respond to the posting, including information such as rate, skills, experience, and bio.

Companies can see who is responding and how many individuals they've reached with their posting in real time. They also have the opportunity to reach out and speak with anyone involved at any time throughout the process.

Anyone can create a profile on the site, but Work.io controls who has access to the actual site database based on how well their skills and expertise match up with demand from businesses. So instead of wading through classifieds or creating a post on a general recruiting site, users of Work.io have access to a sort of curated list of potential help.

For companies, this type of site could potentially simplify the whole recruiting process by turning it into a more familiar kind of user experience, like an online marketplace. But it could also be helpful for business professionals who want to market their existing skills to gain freelance or consulting work. The constant stream of leads targeted to your experience could not only help freelance workers or very small businesses gain jobs, but it could also help create contacts in industries where you may continue to find work in the future.

However, this isn't the only site currently available that matches companies with new talent. Services like oDesk and Taskrabbit that help companies outsource certain jobs and tasks have been gaining some popularity and support in recent months.

But Work.io claims to have a more simplistic approach and fewer hoops for companies to jump through when looking to hire.

The post Work.io: An Online Marketplace for Hiring Help appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Ivana Taylor is Curious About Why People Buy

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Some of us know what we want to do “when we grow up” from a young age. However, Ivana Taylor, President and Chief Marketing Officer of Third Force, took a while longer:

“I got into marketing the day I registered for classes at Penn State.

I was there to register as a Chemical Engineering major and as I sat and waited my turn, I realized that I wasn’t nearly as passionate about engineering as I needed to be.

As I flipped through page after page of the different majors I landed on Marketing right when they called my name!”

She’s been immersed in marketing for the past 25 years – and loves it.

Curiosity Fuels Her Business

Whether she was working in a corporation doing marketing or running her popular DIYMarketers blog and community, curiosity has always been the driving force behind Taylor’s marketing efforts:

“My curiosity and interest in how people buy and why people buy has never changed. It’s just grown. I went into consulting in 1999 and when I had to convert my “jobs” into a service offer, I realized that my gift was in helping my clients become THE ONE their ideal customers choose regardless of price.”

Taylor focuses on helping small businesses with their marketing. Her clients tend to have sales of less than $1 million, and are overwhelmed with not knowing the best way to market their brands. She says she loves the commitment that small business owners have to build and create something that makes the world a better place.

“Tayloring” a Marketing Solution

Realizing that there was not one marketing strategy that suits all business types, Taylor recently launched a unique marketing style assessment that helps business owners choose their three best marketing strategies based on their unique marketing style on DIYMarketers. Once a visitor fills out the assessment, they are sent a customized report that helps them define their unique selling proposition and develop their brand to leverage the marketing strategies.

From Behind-the-Scenes to the Limelight

Taylor was heavily involved in coordinating the 2012 Small Business Influencer Awards, which she said was even better this year because voters had the opportunity to leave supporting comments and testimonials for their favorite nominees:

“My favorite part of the SMBInfluencer Awards is the focus on putting a spotlight on what I call the invisible heroes and influencers of small business.”

* * * * *

Editor's Note: This article is one of a series of interviews of key players in the Small Business Influencer Awards.

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Real Estate Content Strategy: SEO And Your Blog

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT

If content writers had cocktail parties, I imagine things would go along quite swimmingly for a half hour or so: interesting conversation would be peppered with the most random factoids that only content writers would ever know. Then, somewhere around the bottom of everyone's first glass, I can envision some disagreements breaking out.

You see, we're not all of the same camp.

I'm imagining an argument about SEO (search engine optimization) developing. The fact is, there are some copywriters who want to stuff their blog posts and static website pages with every keyword imaginable, over, and over, and over. Then, there are others who will use a keyword twice, and pat themselves on the back for writing an essay worthy of Montaigne.

Surely there's a medium, wouldn't you agree?

The Perks of SEO Focus

When it comes to real estate, there are many reasons why you might want your content to be SEO heavy. The truth is 94% of homebuyers begin their search for a new home online. 96% of first time homebuyers begin their search online.

Are you getting excited? Or, are you freaking out because you don't have an online presence? Hang with me here!

When that many people are looking for a home online, it's inevitable that the search engine terms they use are going to be all over the map. "My Title Guy" says that 50% of Google searches will happen once, and are never performed again. Wow!

So how do you combat those daunting statistics? The SEO camp would say you stuff your content with keywords in an effort to grab onto all the Web traffic you can.

But What About Quality?

If you're like me, you might be feeling just a little bit uneasy about that approach. Sure, you want to get traffic, but you also want to have a little style… a little flair, right? Well, you can. If you're new to this wonderful world of real estate content marketing, then there's one thing you've got to know about:

Landing Pages

Landing pages are the hubs that take your visitors from the busy streets of Google into the quiet, nicely decorated rooms of your house. They're kind of like the threshold. Your guests can see inside, but the street is also within earshot.

What am I talking about? Let me put it this way… your landing page is where you load up on keywords. Everything from "six bedroom house in Omaha with pool" to "Nebraska high end real estate." You throw everything you can out there onto your landing pages, and you spread these terms out over multiple landing pages, each with their own specific niche focuses. It might not be pretty, but it brings your visitors to your home.

Your Real Estate Blog

Next, your landing pages have a call-to-action that brings visitors into the comfort of… your blog. Your blog is where you can share valuable information. This is not the SEO-heavy, keyword-centric content. This is the meat: the juicy pieces that your visitors can savor.

If you're curious to know what a great real estate blog looks like, I'm happy to recommend you the Zillow blog. Zillow does a great job with their blog because they're largely non-promotional. They focus on being a valued resource, realizing that their audience will convert to customers as they consume more and more content.

Here are some great examples of Zillow's non-promotional blog posts:

These posts are completely different from one another, but they both offer valuable content (albeit, of totally different natures). Also, check out how non-promotional they are. Then again, notice how slyly that second post encourages the reader to link through to additional resource pages. Perfect.

Your Real Estate Content Approach

So what will your real estate content approach be? Do you see major issues with either side of the SEO spectrum? Or, do you believe there's a better way to reach a happy medium?

Do you have any thoughts on what a good real estate blog should do?

SEO Photo via Shutterstock

The post Real Estate Content Strategy: SEO And Your Blog appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Read Impact Equation to Help You Harness Your Social Media Message

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Impact Equation Pssst. Don't tell anyone, but I must be one of the few people engaged in the social media and Internet marketing space who hasn't read Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan) and Julien Smith's (@Julien) first New York Times best seller, Trust Agents. It was a Reader's Choice for the Small Business Trends 2009 Business Book Awards, but I just didn't get to it at the time.

That's why I was very happy to receive a review copy of their newest book The Impact Equation: Are You Making Things Happen or Just Making Noise?

In the introduction to the book (and in several of their online interviews) Brogan and Smith say they never wanted to write a sequel to Trust Agents, but it seems like that's what their audience wanted.

So, if you're one of those people who read and loved Trust Agents or who were left with a little something missing after reading Trust Agents – you will want to pick up a copy of The Impact Equation.

The Impact Equation Focuses You On What Matters Most

I'd say that this is really a book about how to effectively communicate in today's world. Now that you have several solid years of social media under your belt, what would you say is missing for you? You might struggle with this question because you're overwhelmed by the mountains of online media channels and the myriad ways of how to use them effectively.

Brogan and Smith did this work for you and decided that what was missing was – IMPACT. And to tie their concept together, they created the following equation that serves as the platform for the book:

Impact = Contrast x (Reach+Exposure+Articulation+Trust+Echo) or
Impact = C x (R+E+A+T+E) — If you're like me and didn't catch the cool acronym it's Impact = Create.

The authors are adamant that this book is NOT about social media – while being about communicating using social media. It's a tough distinction to get across and I have to admit, I was a bit confused at first. I think the analogy that cleared it up was this one:

"Saying that this book is about social media is like saying that Moby Dick is a book about boats."

Ok – I think I get it now.

The Impact Equation is about CONTEXT and not about CONTENT. What they are trying desperately to get across is that you should be approaching your online communications from the context of making an impact – a difference in the world.

The social media tools that they talk about throughout the book are really nothing more than vehicles to help you achieve your goal of making an impact instead of just noise.

How To Get The Most From The Impact Equation

As I mentioned before, I had a bit of a challenge "getting into" the book. I started reading and felt somewhat overwhelmed by the content. I just didn't get where they were going with this at first. That's when I turned to the table of contents and spent a little bit of time just digesting it. I'd recommend you do the same.

You'll notice that the book is divided into four parts:

Goals
Ideas
Platforms
Network

Brogan and Smith then broke up the Impact Equation into each of those parts:

The Goals section contains the introduction of working with the Impact Equation. This is where they introduce the concept and explain each element.

In the Ideas section, they discuss Contrast and Articulation. In other words, Contrast and Articulation are what you have to do with your ideas. In order to accomplish this – you need a clear idea; one that can be contrasted and articulated via a variety of channels.

My favorite section in the book was the one about Platforms. In this section, they discuss Reach and Exposure. It's my experience that people really struggle with platforms. And if you find yourself wondering which platform will help you achieve your goals, you'll want to read this section more than once.

Finally, they get into your Network. Inside this section, the authors get into what it takes to build on the Trust component and the Echo component of the Impact Equation. As much as they try to avoid getting into the details of social media tasks, you will find them there and I think that these examples and their advice only add to the relevance of the book.

How To Tell If Impact Equation Should Be On Your Reading List

First of all, if you're a Chris Brogan and Julien Smith fan, you'll want to read this book. It will give you all the things you love about them and then some.

If you are an online publisher, blogger or small business that has social media and internet marketing as a core strategy, reading The Impact Equation will help you to tighten up your message and your communication style online.

Just as an example: I visited Chris Brogan's Facebook page and my Facebook page (the personal ones) and I can definitely see the difference. Chris' Facebook page not only features his personality and personal life, but seamlessly integrates his professional brand as well.

One task I'm taking on is to make my Facebook page posts more intentional, deliberate and purposeful as I move forward. As you read through the book, you'll find yourself doing much of the same thing; reading, checking online, comparing and creating some new strategies for yourself.

Small business owners who are still a bit confused or overwhelmed by the entire online and social media marketing space will benefit from reading The Impact Equation. My only advice would be to not read a few pages and throw it down in disgust because you're not getting it right away. Give yourself time and space to process the information. Put it down for a day or two and pick it up again. I promise you will see the content differently.

Overall, The Impact Equation is slated to be one of those books you have to read if you're in the social media space. Ignore it, and you'll likely feel left out the next time you're chatting Internet trends and social media.

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