Recruiter's Messaging Is A Mess | In the Comments

In this episode of In The Comments, James is joined by recruiter Ben Goodwin, who is looking for guidance on how to use social media effectively to reach out to both clients and candidates. James breaks down some ideas for future content such as polls, the importance of authenticity and knowing who your audience is as well as why some content may be actually more detrimental for your brand than helpful if done incorrectly. Whether you're a marketer, content creator, or job seeker, this episode offers key insights on digital marketing and career growth. 

If you would like to appear on the show, you can fill in our application form here: https://demo.rupert.digital/podcastapplication

Ben's links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-goodwin-71b37b14b/
https://www.geminipeople.co.uk/

Transcript

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Can I be really honest? Yeah. She can. I saw this, and when she on the job. Oh, she had ten beers. I reckon I probably did. And some of them. We've seen the meteoric rise of Tik to its amazing platform. You lot of broken out. You've broken up the UK. Get rid of it now because of you. Like, totally gone. Can I be honest? I've never seen that. It's utter nonsense. I think that's valid. I wouldn't go. These are the guys who get me a job. They're also not the person to get me a candidate. Yeah. What's in there for? Ben Goodwin. Welcome to in the comments. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for applying. It was, yeah, I was I was saying earlier it was perfect time, and I've only just really took over the socials and I've, I joined LinkedIn for about six months and I thought, oh, all of a sudden the stars align and it's perfect time. And we were having a discussion before that, we need to start doing more with social media. So the TikTok's pretty much brand new. The Facebook needs a little bit of work the late. And I'm starting to change, which is where we do most of this. Recruitment is where a lot of clients are, you know? But we need to have more of an outreach for younger generations as well, which we don't really have a lot of agencies don't. And that's more to the fact that it's not really been a focus where we're just coming into our second full year now. And we've got a really good baseline of clients and candidates and things like that. And social media contacts are between the wayside. But I think 2025 is going to be massive for social media, AI and all of that. And they need to kind of be ahead of it. Otherwise you are going to you're going to fall behind the wayside, you know, and ultimately affect that bottom line, which is turnover. Yeah. Well that's actually you sort of asked asks the question which to ask, which is who are you. Yeah. What do you do and why you're here? Going back on the one in the middle, which is so you see, obviously Gemini people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say recruitment is not I keep quite to myself there. So Gemini people what do what do you do. So is recruitment. That's that's the of that. So a lot of what we do is warehouse and industrial and logistics things like that. So that anyone coming in at DPD as an example, Amazon. But then we've branched out into salespeople, health care, you know, it's quite a small company that we've got at the minute. I say small, we do a decent turnover, but there's not that many people. So there's we can kind of be here, there and everywhere in terms of it. But it's also creating the content that puts it in that direction, you know. January, February, March is that it's for everybody in the, in, in the industry unfortunately. But we tell off I mean, December was manic. I think I had one day off and it was Christmas. But it's building up those clock time. So when we get to the end of that financial year every April, we're not dried in. What's your February March looking like? You know. But yeah, that's what we do. We're, we're we're specialists in recruitment. We've got 30 years of experience between as open and recruitment about five years now. The managing director has been about 25. We got, a couple of people in the office as well, and that's literally it. We we find the right people for the right jobs, I suppose. So recruitment got a, a negative halo out there. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's point, a point. Slightly less colorful than a lot of people, but I suppose, yeah, I've come from five years, so one of my all businesses might be. We used to, we used to have a a big call center. Yeah, I haven't I'm in turn. We, won a Vodafone contract like, two years ago, and it was just we needed people and out the door like it was madness. It's a hard job. So I dealt with all the recruitment firms within limited time. And that's go to Coventry in the end. Strong fun stuff like it was Dominic. So I've had experiences with, recruitment and I think the hardest thing with recruitment and please interject at any point is your product is people. Yeah. And we know that people are always an issue. Yeah. Typically like that. The biggest issue when it comes to growing businesses is people you're bang on. I mean look, if I, I'm not the product I'm selling is it's volatile. You know, it can lie to you. If I was selling an iPad and iPod, can't lie to you comment. And I can do all the things in the world to go. Yeah, yeah. It'll be. Yeah. And I can ring him three times. Yeah, I'm on my way, I'm on my way. And then all of a sudden, is that a car crash on the way? And then, some of the stores, all of I'd probably on. I can tell you in private, I'll put it that way. But I want you to have it all the time, like we used to be. You know, these four on the way. Yeah, but the amount of people whose nans have passed away is incredible. Like, honestly, it's it's. I'm pretty sure that every single work that I've got has about five Nans. I'll put it that way. If it's, especially on a Monday morning, a lot of nans passed away on a Monday morning. That's fine. Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah. Know, and it's weird because they're texting you at like, 3 a.m. is odd I. Which is strange, isn't it? So, yeah, the product you're selling is is tricky. And obviously you're not. You know, it's nothing. It's not your fault. It's just the nature of the beast. And again, you like you said, it's it's volatile and. Yeah, there's only so much you can do I think bring it back on social. So in terms of the size of your business, I think the best businesses are the ones that are smaller. Like my both my, my agency's were were lean and we were very, very profitable. You know, in terms of, social media, you know, our net profits were probably four times what the industry standard is because we were relating to having a small team isn't a bad thing at all. I think, if anything, too many firms focus on headcount as a currency, and I think it's a vanity metric that most businesses need just a sack of completely and go, how much you making? Because the reality is that it will make the world's turn, not how many people you've got on your own. Yeah, and to be honest with you, that's that's recruitment in a nutshell. It sounds like you've been there in the past. To be fair, it's a lot of agencies just foregoing all. They're a really good agency if they've got a headcount of 12. But in actual fact their profit margin is the same as us as an example, you know, it's all big vanity and the turnover goes up. And again, the way I see it, turnover is a vanity project as well. It's very much look how much we turnover. But how much of that is profit. And that's where it's at the bottom line you know. Yeah you can churn cash in many industries. And it's pointless. You know, you're just churning cash you like. Well, we come to the end of the financial year and go, that was absolutely pointless. So no, that's not a bad thing until I find AG. Having that mindset is really good. I think coming back on to the social side. So obviously the EU failed in application form, which again, you were very candid on. Yeah. Which is great. I think the one thing that is interesting, so you've got a TikTok account, you've got LinkedIn. Yeah. You put on there. So LinkedIn is your is your preferred social media platform, which I agree with. My question is why? Why do you think that, I think that's the one that on the most comfortable on to be honest, you probably seen my personal profile as well. I try and post once, twice a week. Yeah. With, with a brand that I've tried to build for myself, I suppose is the way to do it, you know? Is that very candid? I you'll probably see my tagline is taking the best out of recruitment, you know, and it's, it's one of those things. And I think LinkedIn, that's where that's where I'll target audiences and especially for the new clients, you know, not not necessarily the candidates, but it's very much it's a platform that's starting to change a little bit. I think LinkedIn as well, I do think it's starting to be a little bit more candid in terms of it's not quite matte on Facebook and Instagram, candid, but it's not how it was five years ago where if you put a personal post on LinkedIn, everybody was having having a go, you know, how dare you. This isn't Facebook. And I think for me that that's quite important. So just because I'm comfortable, I know the content that will work on LinkedIn a lot more than I get on an Instagram and TikTok and stuff. I mean, TikTok wasn't my idea. It was the the, the branch administrator. Maybe because she's younger, the May as well. It might it might be one of them. But but yeah that that that's kind of where I'm comfortable where I was up. I have this thing with TikTok and your Instagram and stuff that I want to create content that's good, but I don't want it to be cringe. And that's the most important to me. Well, we'll go into that because I've seen your TikTok. Yeah. And, we'll go into that, which is interesting because the administrators I was going to ask me and I say, I agree with you in terms of your ICP for getting a candidate site. And I think when I looked at all your socials, whether it be TikTok or LinkedIn, more on the company page is I saw a mixture of reaching out messaging to candidates, but also messaging to your client. Well, yeah. And I, I think that's where you need to look at your messaging. Okay. Especially because if you're putting a candidate post on LinkedIn and, and this is no disrespect to the candidate, if you're, recruiting for a as 7 pound, 15 hour role in a warehouse, they're not gonna be on LinkedIn. Yeah, in my opinion, basically, statistics are great. So my question would be why are we posting that? Yeah, I wouldn't be doing it personally. Yeah. I just would not do it. Now. Maybe it's, an end of week review of these are all the roles we've got to show that you're active as a brand. Yeah. But in terms of actually trying to reach out to that, that candidate, I just. Well, even your impressions when we look at, you know, when we looked at that, you know, even on TikTok. Yeah. Go. And so, so I think when you look at LinkedIn and you're right, a personal brand on LinkedIn is very powerful. Like, you know, I use LinkedIn for that. It's worked very, very well for me and for the brands and hopefully for Rupert as well, which obviously we're launching and have launched. So now I think going down the, the personal branding perspective on LinkedIn is powerful. Yeah. When you said on your application, sort of one of your objectives is to get the company page up to a certain amount of followers. Yeah. I totally disagree. You need to have those followers. Okay. The managing director need these followers. Yeah. Recruitment again I've used recruiters. Yeah I can name the recruiters I dealt with. I couldn't name you the businesses okay. Because I trust that person. Yeah. So like Amanda, I, you know, Samantha, I know the people that I dealt with because she was. I trusted them to go and get me the right candidate. Yeah, it could have been any of the firms I actually went with, Sam to three different businesses. Yeah, because I trusted her. She knew my business. She knew what I needed. So I think. Forget growing the company page. Yeah. It's going to be a lot more powerful coming from yourself and the MD. Yeah, of course, as opposed to the company page. Yeah. And also, you know, when you look at the, the statistics, you won't get any rich, you know, company pages. You've probably noticed that. Yeah. Just got. Yeah. The odd one out of there. Yeah. It's just whereas you get you post from your personal. Yeah. It's game changer. Yeah. It's 20 times see what you'd get. So I think in terms of your objective, I think you both need to be growing your personal brands, okay. Not the company page because you're going to be put load a resource. Yeah. An effort and unfortunately money because time is money into that. You're going to get 3000 and then you go we actually got absolute jackal from that. Yeah. Whereas if you grow your I don't know what your follower count is. At the moment. Again, if you've got 3000 people following you and then you're out there, your idea like pay, you know, for every single impression that sees that content like that's, that's, that's relevant to them. Yeah. I was to one maybe in the company page it goes up saying I want to sell. Yeah of course. So I think that's where you need to change that. Now in terms of platforms you mentioned like Facebook and Instagram, I think those platforms need to be for, candidate recruitment. Yeah, yeah. Not clientele. Yeah. So when I look at, a couple of businesses so TLC up in Leeds, I know they use their Facebook for and again, they do similar a lot of warehousing. A lot of the logistics as well. For couriers, they'll use their Facebook and Instagram to recruit the candidates. They won't be using those channels to reach out to a DPD. Yeah. Head of recruitment or HR. So I think looking at each individual individual channel for a different ICP is important. Yeah. So yeah, I definitely think, you know, grind it out and we'll go through LinkedIn in a second actually, because there's a couple of bits I'd like you to just tweak in your messaging, which is, which will help. Again that recruitment. Sorry. The growth in that. And then in terms of, yeah, Facebook and Instagram, I wouldn't also spend a huge amount of time because it's coming from a company account. Yeah. You're not going to get tons and tons of impressions, which means it's, you know, depend on how much time the administrators got, I would say a really basic, Canva up. Yeah. And just get them just to change. It takes two seconds post. Yeah. Post. Spending loads of loads of time on it. Yeah. Especially with recruitment, especially when you're a smaller recruitment firm. Yeah. When a candidate looks on a social channel, all they'll want to see is that you're posting on a certain amount. You know, you're. Yeah. You know, posted 20 years ago. Yeah I call it the lights are on. Okay. So I would you know, again for those two channels the lights are on. Yeah. There's jobs going every Friday or twice a week, whatever it may be obviously in terms of frequency, but just don't spend loads of time on it because you're not going to get one. Yeah, exactly. The objective is to get sales. Yeah. No leads or candidates. You're not going to get tons. Yes. You know, because obviously you're pretty on all the the job sites. Yeah, absolutely. That's why I get the vast majority going to come. Yeah. So what we'll do is let's look at your LinkedIn and I want to just give you a little bit of an again, Michael, type this down as well in terms of things that you could use. So if we go to Ben's personal one to start with Michael. Brilliant. So face shop. Brilliant take in the BSR recruitment. Brilliant. Yeah. You haven't got a header. Yes. You need headers. And those header need to be across. Everyone needs to be the same one in the business. Okay, so if you were to pull up my account I want to show Ben an example. Now those headers are really important because it's the first thing people say. Yeah. And actually there's quite a lot of room to get a message out there. Yeah. So when you look at mine, obviously Rupert is a 24/7 social media system. You know what it does. Yours could be, you know, taking the boys out or it could be a bigger version of that. Look at, you know, you could, you know, go look at some other recruitment firms that are already big on LinkedIn. Yeah. I mean get some get some examples. But again Canva you can actually click LinkedIn header and it will create it. Yeah. Yeah. So I would that's just the one thing you're missing. But make sure that they're all the same across the business. If you can that would be great. You could also if you go out spend Michael, you could also potentially in your take in your font color, you could do a ring round your face and then everyone in the business could have that potentially. So you can see there's some continuity there. Yeah a little bit extra if you didn't need to do it. But the head is the head is massive. Yeah. Because again that's a real big, piece of real estate which you're not utilizing. Yeah. Which is huge. Yeah. In terms of your connections, you've got over 500, which is great. I would just keep growing up. Yeah, I would absolutely keep barring that a huge amount. Yeah. And we'll, we'll go on to actually things up, poles that you mentioned earlier. If you scroll down a little bit, Michael, under your experiences, there's no text, okay. There's no text about what you do in the business, obviously. So if you again, if you go to mine, Michael, scroll down, scroll down. Thank you. So you'll see here, if you see more, you can say under all of these as a bit of text about what the business does and what I do within that business. So again, you know, sales manager okay. But what's your role? You know, I help, you know and all that stuff. So course start that's going to help especially when people start on your profile. Yeah. How how massively. But I would I would apart from that there's not much more in terms of your profile you can do. Yeah. Once you've done that, you know, there's, you know you're pretty much nailed it. Yeah. In terms of the company page. Thank you Michael again header obviously logo in there is absolutely fine. We're posting stuff off here again I wouldn't post I wouldn't spend loads of time doing it. Keep the lights on. Yeah. You're not going to get what you want from it. You know we're going to use Legion LinkedIn for lead generation, which is what you want it for to produce revenue. Yeah. Posting from this page is not going to produce that for you. So just I would just be careful of time. I speak to so many brands say that I know we post every day. You just it's just a waste of money. It's madness. Yeah. I thought there was one that I saw that was doing an advent calendar. Okay, I'll try and find it for you another day. A requirement for. Yeah. Or recruitment time during an advent calendar. And it was, fun facts about us. And it was one of their picture. And then it was a red font on a white background. Okay. And like, Gothic, like, And you were squinting. I'm blind as it is. I mean, like, but. Yeah, stuff like that, I would, I don't want to do, I mean, I get what you mean. I get what you mean that, I get more messages from my posts than I do on this show. And, Chase, when you look at some of yours in comparison to those, again. Yeah, it's it's upset. It's totally talking to you. But this isn't just you. This is the platform. Yeah. You know, LinkedIn want to promote personal brands. You know, you've seen you pretty there's some big people in the recruitment market. They've got hundreds of thousands of followers. Yeah. And they've just done it because they've made two posts a week or they've put something out controversial or you know, the post you did for the New Year. Yeah. Again, you got loads of interaction with that, which is brilliant. So actually, how can you use that as an example and then put that into a post maybe every week. Yeah. Again. And it can't you know we, we talk about ChatGPT on here. What a tool. Yeah. No it's absolutely you know apart from just make sure it's in UK English from the past. You know the ad says that. But again you know you could summarize your week, put it into a post. You know again make sure the BS is in there because that's your branding. Yeah. You know really get that get that out of it. So I would start looking at those types of comments. Yeah. Post now in terms of the poll. So when we looked at your application form, yeah, we asked what was your sort of most successful type of content. And you said polls. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I think people like to express their opinions on stuff. And I think that's all true. I mean, I like to, if I see a poll, I'll have a click. It's easy, isn't it? You know. Oh, I wonder what other people think about that as well, you know, and even on the content that I see when I'm scrolling, that's the ones I usually stop and, yeah, I prefer coffee over tax that. Yeah. So something basic like that. But I think people like to interact in a way that is an having to sometimes write a comment, as you say. It's just it could be as simple as, oh, I disagree with that. I'll put no. And and that's the way we kind of find it. And that's the most people interact with them when they're voting for something because the British people are argumentative. Let's be honest. But yeah. So it's just what we found. I mean, we, you know, there's any videos that we've ever posted. I think that was before my time. They didn't really get a lot. But we've noticed if it's not a poll on mine, on anyone's, to be fair, it's the same people like, you know, and it's usually because they're honest clients or friends. The mind post yesterday that comes to mind, you know, that was the same people like that. Three of them worked for the company and me. And then obviously we had a couple of friends as well. And that's something that we wanted to shout about because, you know, it's important to have a charity partner and give back, especially something that we all believed in in the office. But yeah, people just like interacting with polls. I do as well. I'm I'm a sucker for a poll. So I would and I agree, you know, what are you in poll every week and I get, you know some weeks are good, some it's bad. But when I get a good week, it's, you know, I get hundreds of people, you know, you know, telling me what they want. Yeah, I, I think for what you could do and I think, you know, because time is always of the essence. Yeah. However I get on here, you know, we don't have huge social media manage, teams, okay. We just don't have it. So we've got to be very conscious of a time. But we also want to extract the value that we can from LinkedIn, all these other social channels. So I think you could post twice a week, and I think you could do a poll. And because your branding is very, you know, use the word bold. Yeah. Which is great. I think you could do polls or things like we were discussing about. Yeah. Which one of you not heard excuse for kind of turning up monotonous, dyed with dogs, dogs, ale or. My car's broken down. Yeah. You know, and the map thing is, everyone hiring managers are all going to understand, have a relevant so that relevance to that. I think when I look at some of your post in the past is that we're not talking to our audience. Yeah. And this isn't just, this is a natural issue with with LinkedIn and just posting, which is a lot of people talk and about ourselves, which is fine, but we've got to make sure that we're giving value as well. Absolutely. So we've got to talk to our audience. And I think, you know, this is and this isn't like this isn't just a US issue. This is never one issue that, you know, there's some of the stuff Mike and I do. We have to sometimes say, I'm, have I done the right thing? That right. Yeah. So I think doing those funny polls, you'll then see your follower count grow. Yeah. So in the last year I've grown my followers to 2000 to over ten. Yeah. Just from doing things up. Polls. Yeah. Like it doesn't take much, much time. It's really simple. So I think you do one of those a week. And I also think if you look at the post, it did really well in the new year. I think you should do one of those type of posts every week. Yeah, 100%, 100%. It won't take long. Yeah, I think I think that one that the reason why that one did in my head is it was it was just honest and passionate and I was, I was just it caught me on a bad day. I remember I was scrolling and, I had a good friend of mine who works for a different recruitment firm telling me about something, and I was just my my eyes have never rolled as much in my head, you know? And, there were there were a couple of people who commented, as you saw, some of them were friends who owned other agencies out on I've Got a way. It was it was this that man I want a little bit. Yeah. And that's kind of where it comes from. You know, I've, I've worked for several agencies in different capacities from being a trainee where I didn't really have an input and thinking, oh, this is normal to that. And going, I must do it. I can't be bothered to play Wheel of Fortune once a week, you know. You know, I can't me it doesn't look good on LinkedIn. It does allow someone to spin in a way. So to me it just looks cringe. And there's a lot of things the way that that does it, you know, it's the let's celebrate success. Let's do a massive event for no reason other than to show that we've got loads of money and it's stuff like that. And I remember I was I was sitting there and it was getting to the new. Yeah. And I was scrolling and I'll say, you know, I'm left, right and center. I was like, right, LinkedIn is going to be on Facebook for a second, you know. So black goes on to the point you said at the beginning, which is about like cringing content. Yeah. It's not cringe like it's reality. Yeah. Like I, I did one I was in the gym just for between Christmas. Yeah, yeah. And the what annoys me about LinkedIn is that and this is LinkedIn's issue not yeah. People is a LinkedIn promote content, which in my eyes is nonsense. Yeah. About like entrepreneurial links and you know, oh, I've done it. And they've done. Oh yeah. And it's so frustrating and, but it's amazing because for every one person doing that, there's another four people that aren't doing it who are 20 times more successful than they are. Absolutely. Yeah. People are like loving it and they're engaging with it. But that's LinkedIn. That's not our issue. Fair play to them. I look, I recommend it because they're getting what they want from it. Yeah. When you then do value type posts they don't go as far. Yeah. And that's the that's the concern I've got with the platform. But whether we like or not bit work. So I did that post in the new in the new year. Go in. You know, finger up in the gym guy. Yeah that's my default. Yeah. But what's amazing is and this is why I love LinkedIn and all these social platforms, is that even though you might not, you know, you'll just have a quick look, see how many questions you got in the first hour or two. What's amazing is that as long as you're consistent. Yeah. And the content is good and it's relevant, it will push it out. So like I did that post before Christmas, I had a massive spike over the last two days. Oh okay. So it hit like a thousand impressions and suddenly it hit. I can't know what it was. I can't see you. Yeah. You won't be able to see. Yeah. That was just in general pretending to be in the gym at the minute and console log base. Yeah. That's why. Anyone in for that? Yeah. Anyway, anyway, it went to market straight after that rather. But you know, but that's. But then I've got a spike. Yeah. That will be on the platform forever. Yeah. And as long as it's engaging someone at that time the algorithm will fade it up. Yeah. So even though you don't see that instantaneous gravity, gravity, gravity, gravitas, gratification. Great guy. There we go. You might get it in four months time. Yeah, you might get in five months time. Yeah. You know, but also what is interesting is the amount of lurkers you get. So something else you mentioned, which again, which is, how do we define success? Oh, social. Yeah. And a lot of his engagement, a lot of his likes, views, all that stuff. There's two metrics that I really I, I think we should all measure. You don't do a lot of video content. No. I think you could bring that in, even if it's just with your phone. It's so powerful. Yeah, I do it. It is a bit cringe, and I'll be really honest. You can you for I write my mates if I, if I, I know and and something's gone on and it's a bit controversial because my WhatsApp starts kicking off. Yeah, yeah. I'm like I just yeah. But is if it's video how long people are viewing that video for. So like have you had five hours watch six hours watch. And the reason why is, if you put a short ten second video and six hours of viewership is there, how powerful is that? Yeah. Six hours. Someone. People around the world have been watching you for six hours talking about, you know, my case. Social media or something. Yeah. You know, imagine if you did that and you have six hours of people talking. Yeah. You talking about, issues with CVS for logistical highest. Yeah. Again. Yeah. Yeah. Example. So it's really, really powerful. The second one is lead generation. How many leads we actually generating from social. Yeah. Legion in terms of people filling in a form or they're calling the office. But also when you're having conversations people and they say oh I saw that LinkedIn page. You did. Yeah, I saw you online. Yeah. I sat as a lead because what it means is it's done right. It means that we've they've seen your post and they've engaged it, not engage in terms of maybe liked it or commented, but they've engaged enough to go I remember. Yeah. And that's the stuff that no one can see. Yeah. And that's how I think when I see LinkedIn I'll go to events. Yeah. And some somebody will go, I saw your LinkedIn post they've never engaged with. Yeah. And I would never have known yet is it lurks in the background and there's tons of them because a lot of people don't actually like to engage them. Yeah of course. Or they don't have the time. Yeah. So actually there's there the metrics the to that I like to I like to really try to measure not see if people are just naturally in the conversation. Yeah. In the conversation saying you can't noted down every time. Of course you can't. But you know but you're not it's not it's working. Yeah. 100%. You know. And the problem is then you start having to think about, okay, how do I attribute value towards social. And again in my case it's and I think everyone should be doing this, which is you need a social presence. Yeah absolutely. And sometimes you can't directly measure how successful is. Yeah. Yeah yeah. It that's the reality I mean I think it's massive especially this year now because look up internet. Yes. Cold call it is dying. It is dying I love it you know. Oh yeah. Oh you know what the thing is cold calling. There's nothing better than going. That was amazing. And then you get that rush. The phase. That's what I used to call it. You know? Yeah. He's a man with the Fitz love that I still do. Now. What's so. Yeah. Oh, my, I don't know, I, I love it. Yeah, I, I love it. The issue is the amount of especially like let's talk hey HR director stuff like, oh my God. Yeah. You get some excuses. Just in to me. And why have you answered the phone? Oh, yeah, I have. No, no, I, I was James I mean to me am I. Oh you answered the phone. I think you're probably going be. What's the 5000I know, yeah. I'm not just coming back because, there's obviously, we're going years ago, when I first started in recruitment, it was 3030 sales calls, ten till two and then 40 sales calls two till four. Oh my God, it was horrible. It was good. So amazing. I love chatting to people that, you know, I mean, but those H.R. Directors that never going to take your phone call. But what I will take is if they. You know what, I'd love nothing more than to go on LinkedIn on a Monday morning and go, oh, the message is that from never heard of you, but you want business. You know that that that's what, that's what, that's what the goal is. And that's why I've started particularly paying a little bit more attention to my LinkedIn. I don't know. At this time I shared an advert, again, it was that don't see the value. I'm not quite there yet, but obviously as my role has changed and I've started growing and understanding the wider range, it's not just making a sales call and and you target it's now personal brand you you are going to get business. You know, you scroll down and you see all the LinkedIn influencers and that's quotation marks in there for a reason, you know, and then you invest it, you're investing in this and this. And I can I've seen I've seen the value in it. You know, it takes a long time. It's not a quick win. But if you keep banging the same drum, the very few people are consistent. Yeah. Mike and I, the end of this year did a review of one of us. So we've got three different podcasts. Yeah. This is a new one. Yeah. One of them is called the Fight Market. We talk every Wednesday night. Me, my clinic, sit upstairs in the evenings, and we just talk about what's relevant in marketing right now. Yeah. Now, from the outside in, we get call isms, okay. But we generate about two and a half grand a month revenue from it. So from the outside, it from the outside you'd go awful. Yeah. If you look at behind the scenes you go, wow, look at that stone. Right. Yeah. All of a sudden and again it's the same with, with with things on LinkedIn is that you will not see things instantaneous. No one does. But it's that investing. It's I have, you know, every single week, you know, doing two post doing a poll and it might be one week. We don't get any. Yeah. Any views or. Yeah about sorry. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You've just got to be consistent. And it does get you know there are some times I go, oh is this worth it? People are saying even if 100 people are saying it, it's 100 people. LinkedIn have gone these 100 people are going to be engaged. That content. Yeah. Powerful if you think about it. Definitely. You know and that's why it's be consistent. And there are going to be some weeks and days we are. But just go ahead and also book batch, you know get a ahead by a few weeks. You know you know we do this a lot with our content. Is is you know get a load. You know, like this episode. Now this won't be released for a couple of weeks. Yeah. You know, a few weeks, we'll just start, start, you know, getting ahead. But you can we have, you know, some of your, some of your posts. But again, use chat to beauty. You know, ChatGPT is huge. Yeah. I would, I would use chat and I would create a prompt for yourself which is using this as an example. This is now what I've done this week. This is some the good, the bad, the ugly that I've done this week. I want you to create a new LinkedIn post. Yeah, in UK English in the same tonality. And I want it and I want you to copy it. Yeah. And it would create you a obviously you might change slightly. Yeah. That's to take two seconds. Yeah. I'll post having to sit and think about a new post. Yeah. You fly in and then you're going to be that guy that I know every Friday at 10:00. Write some post about how his week's been. Yeah, yeah. You know you shouldn't have a week in recruitment guys. Welcome. You know that. But again try and you know bring out the personal. Yeah. Because people are going to invest in you know like I said you know smartphone around to to to recruiters I used to use I wasn't buying into the business. Yeah I was buying into the person that's going to sit down with me and go, James, I understand who you need. Yeah, I want to go and search them. Yeah. They could be into any umbrella. It wouldn't have mattered to me. What it matters is that they get. They really me. And then when things are up, you know, it's just. And that is just happens. Yeah. Oh they don't have it because that's dog style or some nonsense. Yeah. There's a there's got to say I think I could probably show you about five pages of excuses that I've had over the years. There's a lot. The one last thing on LinkedIn, sorry, is, is commenting on other people's posts. Yeah. Very, very powerful. I've just started doing this. So I, one of my is she spends 20 minutes a day commenting on my ICP. So my ideal candidate posts. And it's more powerful than you think. Okay, so even if you could do it, for once a week, for ten minutes, or just as your LinkedIn, you know, someone's got a new job. While the might don't just like it, what am I? It's great news or someone's, you know, whatever it may be. Yeah, just, you know, one of your clients has has done a walk for for mind or whatever it may be. Yeah. Oh, that's absolutely fantastic. You know what? I could cause, you know, very quick. Yeah. You be shocked at how quickly you're going to be then seen by the people. Yeah. Because the people that engage with that will then see you've commented very, very powerful. So if LinkedIn is your is your method to when to win business and lead generation. Yeah. Start doing that as well. It'll make a massive difference again. It's time. So I always recommend you just do ten minutes a week. I'll be doing scrolling. I'll do scrolling on LinkedIn anyway. It's fine. Okay, go back to scrolling quick, quick type, you know, 4 or 5 words onto the next one. Yeah, it's a huge, huge dip. Yeah, it plays since the algorithm a lot more. And then you're going to be seen and seen in a much better life. Yeah. Of course. In terms of LinkedIn, I think that's pretty much it. You can get some, bots that will reach out to, to your ISP's in terms of emails, I would recommend a few of those. Yeah. Raw hot dog is one. And I'll send you another few. You have to have LinkedIn premium. And then what we'll do is we'll pull in a list and you can send out ten emails a day. They're very good. I will actually send you a few examples of some very outlandish opening lines. Yeah. You read them and go, They're amazing. Yeah. So it's like, oh, what you have for dinner last night? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, and also, I mean, I've been to, the mad thing is, and this is where people fail. Yeah. In marketing is that they're so precious about their brand. Yeah. All you can do is open a door. Marketing is opening a door, and then let's get the the professionals in. Yeah. To sell it. Right. Yeah. That's all we're trying to do. So again, if you're going to open the door of some bizarre question which they're like, because they're going to get millions of messages, I get so many. Yeah, I don't even look at them beaches as a form me. But some of the lines are saying they're fantastic and I'm happy, but they're not. Actually, look at the email quickly. Yeah, yeah, I'll get them at you. So you could look at bringing that in as well. Yeah. And that could be from you and the MD as well. You could both do that. Yeah. I think there's a lot more powerful coming from both of you. Again opposed to the actual company page. Yeah. Of course. So yeah, in terms of LinkedIn, I think that's pretty much, pretty much now. But again, what Michael to do is Michael's talking all this down. Yeah. On your crib sheet and then when you, when you leave, you can lock or give you access and you can take away. I think there's also some examples of some other brands on there where we think that could be worth having a quick look at that content potentially, if you wanted to. Yeah. Yeah. Could we add me like that. They'll give you a bit of an example. Yes. Right now we're going to take stock. Okay. Right. Ben. Yep. Can I be really honest? Yeah, she can. I didn't know if this was a take. I agree, I agree. Honestly, I agree. I, I saw this and when she on the job here I was. The temp is all right. Good. I probably did it. So for some of them, I'm not going to take full credit for this because they may still used to do some of them. No, we can't do it anymore. Okay. So TikTok. Yeah. Okay. Is a video platform, right? Yeah. It's all about engaging. You know, we've seen the meteoric rise of TikTok. Yeah. It's amazing platform. You lot of broken it. You've broken six up essentially. Yeah yeah yeah the UK get rid of it now because of you lock up is totally gone. I I don't click on this just yet Michael. Right. This post that you did, which I'm shocked, got nearly 2000 impressions. He's going to be well happy with that as well. That's the worst thing. You know. It's the worst thing I've ever seen right. But you know what? It's not bad. I think there's a play here which me and Michael actually said didn't wait. But if this was it like, ironic if you were doing this ironically. Yeah. This could work really well. Yeah. It was, it was. Can you know the one I was talking about, Michael. Yeah. It's like on that bad boy. So this company, it's like a 90s, 90s ring of fire canopy, all this. I've never seen that one. I, I, I, I've never seen anything like it. I want to know what he's used to edit it to be like. If you put an image in it gives you some light effects you can to make because it's not a video of you never seen a poster with lightning and fire on before. Is that what you're trying to tell? Oh wait, it's got sparkles at the end as well. I, I was flabbergasted. So yeah, your TikTok is interesting. Yeah. Like, you know, if you click on this post here, Michael. That one there. Yeah, it's on that one. Like it's not full screen. Yeah. Like it's it's it's it's utter nonsense. Yeah. Yeah I think I think that's valid. Yeah. Yeah I think that's pretty fair. So I've never seen some of these I've seen the, the Christmas wall. Yeah. Again that wasn't my lovely editing skills I promise. That's been made on Windows Movie Maker that, and there's some very, very strange overlays. I, I don't look good in that kind of filter. I, I, I, I don't even know what to say. I when you just put an image in, it goes, aren't you want to put some content, you know, as long you know, when you're in year ten and you have an iced tea thing, you have to make that really flash PowerPoint presentation with pictures and stuff. Yeah. It does. Look, I'm sure that I've made one of those when I was 14. 15. Yeah, I'm not too sure about that. So I would say your whole TikTok needs a bit of a revamp. Yeah. But before you revamp it, I think what you need to do is and again, it's a bit of a, you know, a bit of a reality of why we're using TikTok. Yeah, it might be. We don't need one. Yeah. Like it might just it like we all do it, right. We all see a new search platform. Want to jump on it. But as I said, like with Gordon, you know, there's some you know, we got an assignment early this week. I said just focus on this one platform. Don't focus on the others. You know, remove, Facebook just because what he's going to be doing is repurposing content so we can just do a crossover. So it's easier for him. Yeah, yeah. Of course, the problem with what the kind of content you're doing on LinkedIn, you can't replicate that on TikTok. Yeah. You can't replicate that across YouTube shorts or Instagram Reels. So my question to you is why are we using TikTok? What's the objective of TikTok? Look, cards on the table. I disagreed with the TikTok idea. I did, and that's because I don't like TikTok anyway. Okay? It's amazing though, because it's like the biggest takes on my my wife will sit there and send me stuff at 3 a.m. while I'm lying next to her and go, what's that? I, I don't have TikTok controls to make you download, and I just download it. No, I'm not downloading TikTok for the sole purpose stream. So Instagram reels, different story, different story. They're not the same. The Instagram Reels is just people posting on TikTok. No, no no no, you guys come on. I oh, hold on a second. Don't put me in that box. But I think the, the MD Michael, and I will I will mention him. Bonnie. He, he loves TikTok because he's got a personal TikTok account. It's, it's his Twitch stream and stuff that he does. He strains Fortnite. Okay, 50 year old man. Exactly. Oh, you know what? So we say it is quite long, and he streams on Tik Tok, but the content is the same as that. But I don't know if he does that on purpose or if he does it as a joke. But I saw a lot of agencies recently go on TikTok, and, you know, a lot of them do get a decent number of views, likes, etc. all my question was, what's the objective? What are we getting out of it? Well, even if you get those of you is like like like we got a couple of Tik Tok channels. Yeah. And we get, you know, a fair, you know, pretty average across 900, 2000 on most posts right. Yeah. So it's not huge. It's really small numbers. Yeah. Where I see it work for us is because I my phone numbers touch all the accounts. Yeah. And because I've had the same number from 15 years, every single client I've annoyed for the last 15 years has my phone number. Yeah. They, they go on TikTok and they start seeing that content. Everyone I see says, I can't get away from you. You're everywhere on TikTok, which is great. So I so there's a benefit to that. Yeah. The problem I've got with yours is that I think I know what's got on. Michael's created it like we all done. And businesses have been this up and down the country and overseas. Yeah. And then you've posted a couple of stuff. Which looks like that. And then we go, what's funny that maybe it's just a mega man probably like mean, maybe it's done as joke as, but you know, so my, my my question would be iPhone and this is, you know, more of a serious one, which is do you need it or is it just, is it what's it there for if it's to attract candidates, maybe. Yeah. But if it's there to get again the HR director of DPD, I ain't going to. Well, let's be honest, if they see any of this stuff, you're going to be off their roster pretty sharpish. Yeah. Yeah. Well they might find it funny. But again, these are the questions. All I was asking about, you know, that it was you were talking about polls and you said how on LinkedIn people like to engage with poll. Is there a way you can do that sort of content on like TikTok, like know some of the as long as we can have that fire and lightning attached to the poll, I think that would work. So you could do a play, which is what which is like where I, you know, we are the most advanced recruitment firm in the world and then produce that, which would be ironic. Yeah. And as you go on LinkedIn, I don't know if you following called James Clutterbuck. Yes. Okay. Right. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. The guy is an absolute genius and I love how he's done it. The ironic post he does the guy like he's he's nailed the white man mind. I want to speak to white man. He has got money I love it. Yeah I absolutely love it. He's actually a really good guy as well. I spent a few times really good guy. And it's not him that doesn't. It's his team. Yeah. All right, so that could be a play like that. With this, the problem I've got is that I know how long TikTok takes. Yeah, TikTok is not a platform where it's going to take you ten minutes. Yeah. So Michael, like for example, this podcast will be on there. It will be put for a big, AI platform. Michael, strip out all the edits. He'll donate them all. It will take him 2 or 3 days to edit the entire lot. Yeah. And then you've got ten posts, but, yeah, well, make sure you get the part where I say I hate Tick Tock specifically as well. That might do. Well. So I, so I, I think like, I see what's been done. Yeah. But I would be very cautious of having this live. Yeah. And not that that's why I don't promote it anyway. Goodness. It's not on our website again. This was, I think last month I was like, why do we have one? And he was like, oh, we're having one. So why what's the what's the goal? You know, we've got a goal for LinkedIn. We've got a goal for Facebook. A lot of candidates are on Facebook, but they just saw because a lot of them don't know how to use Dropbox. It's just the fact. Whereas are we getting anything from TikTok apart from satisfy of use? And when does maybe make you again, you know, again it's still playing and I'm still saying that it starts to give me a headache. You know what you could do? You know, you could do like an a piece to camera if you're going to do those. Want to. Yeah. You could put them on here. That would do really well. You know the the journey of a of a no bullshit recruitment. You know this that that's engaging. Definitely. This is not. Yeah. Like at all. Even if because the problem is regardless of a candidate or a client saw this. Yeah. Like they're not going to I wouldn't go. These are the guys to get me a job. They're also not the person to get me a candidate. Yeah. So I think potentially there's, A but I won't use the word crisis management because that's what overbought. Yeah. I think in terms of reputational damage I think this this isn't great. Yeah. Like makes you look a bit out of date isn't it. Yeah. Yeah it does. It makes it makes it look like an old man is trying to get on TikTok and be relevant. Yeah, and I agree I totally agree with you on that. Again. That's that's very much why I as little I'll put my hands up on the table. Now, I don't know how to make engaging stuff on TikTok. I don't maybe it would work if I put on a video once a week of May. Just say that would work. Isn't this bogus? Again? You know what I mean? Yeah, but like, again, time is money. There's not a lot of us. So the money, the time is even more valuable because one person spends two hours doing something. It needs to have an angle. It needs to have a value it with. Spending that money for that person might not seem like a lot of money. It might be £30 for those two hours, but that equates that equate, especially when there's only four of you. It's a lot of money. And this is where most brands and this is why I get my knickers in a twist when, oh, it's only TikTok or it's only LinkedIn. No, no no these take time. Yeah. Time is money. That's right. That's the reality. And again when I, when I saw this you know I've seen it I find it funny. I do it how I wish I was a fly on the wall when you first opened that up. I genuinely want you there as well by the channel I think I was with you. I thought messaged me saying, oh, I wish I could say the WhatsApp, you're gonna have to shout it out. I was just like, what is this? I've heard they're on one. Is it like, this is the wrong one or is he just watching this all this? So I would, I would look at this. Yeah. And I would consider unless you're going to change it completely, I would, I would seriously consider just deleting this. Yeah. Personally, I wouldn't want a candidate or a or client saying this, I think I think there's a few clients that I've had for years. Again, we talk back early, you know, they follow you in there and everywhere. If they saw that, I don't think I'd ever live it down. And I think it would cost me a good bottle of drink to get them to take me seriously. I got, but again, it's been a while since I saw this Tik Tok I've set. The last one that I saw was the Halloween one, which is even worse. Don't get me started on it. He's got a thing with green and red. There it is. Oh, the transitions of the hair. Yeah, it's like, I get it. The problem is, I understand it. Yeah. You know, everyone's flocking on TikTok. You know, B2B brands are doing it, so I'm doing it really successfully. The ones that are doing it successfully, the ones that understand what TikTok is therefore. Yeah. And it's to engage and for people to to I know a lot of it's comical or it's educational. Yeah. Obviously TikTok lives are flying at the moment, as you probably say. Yeah, you know, there's no reason why you can't have a TikTok live just in the office about, you know, recruitment. So yeah, there's no reason why that that would work. That would work, but this won't. Yeah. And again if clients or and and candidates all this I don't think if I was it comes out I'd pick you guys if this was only the only time I'd see them. Yeah. And vice versa if there was a H.R. Director. Yeah. Or a recruitment manager who was. And they saw this. I personally don't think they would go. These are the guys for me. Yeah, yeah. No, that's not being totally, totally agree. So I think there's some potentially some brand reputational damage if people saw this. Yeah it's up. And you know every business has got an old social account somewhere. I would yeah I would just be a little bit what's funny is whoever has created this account, every number on is fine will say this. So just one of my last can I just want to say it. So this the idea is create this account and I promise you he's got that 3000 numbers on his phone. But again it's linked to two. So he's got he's got a TikTok as well. And he's he loves it. Loves that it does. All right. Don't get me wrong. Like streams and everything. Yeah. Which is class. But this is a different business. Exactly. This isn't right. Exactly. This is an MBA. And he likes call himself Shabbat Stevo. Okay, That's brown. Shabba, Shabba. There we go. You got it. Literally. You are literally. Well, and it's all the same kind of content, but he's doing it because it fits with him, if that makes sense. It fits with that persona. Yeah, which is fine. But he's got a different persona when he's Michael Stephenson. Yeah. So and that's kind of the way it works. And that's the point that I'll be telling him when I get back to the office. Like yeah, okay. But he's going. Well I've sort of gone through all the questions. I think the first, the last sort of question I've got is, well last two, which is what's the first change you're going to make after here? Minus TikTok, minus TikTok. All I'm going to go and, make is all banners. Yeah. So all the same banners. I think that's quite important. I think I'm going to take some of the stuff that you told me as well, and I think I need everyone in the company, not just in the updates. Sorry. Engage in on LinkedIn a little bit more. Branch administrator. She's only just made it because I was on. You need to link tenant's recruitment. You need to link tenure. But then it's also working out what their personal brands are. Obviously, I've kind of got mine, but I need to stop putting that post out. Maybe it is. Every Friday. I just start going off about someone called in sick today because yeah, it's for. By the way, I did have someone call in sick for an ingrown hair. There you go. That's the first one. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's first one literally that they guys can relate to that. Yeah. And that's that's the thing. It's not relatable stuff. Yeah. And and and yeah you're you're but yeah. No the banners are really important. I'm glad you said that. Obviously. You know because again that's you know if you can do that across the business again continuity is going to help. And I will be sorting out that TikTok. I hope for you to have one of those 49 followers that actually follow it on Facebook. Yeah. I know I'll go and I'll sit down and have an honest conversation about the TikTok of what you want to achieve. These are the options we offer. Get rid of that or we delete all those videos that are on there. And we start again with a different thing that we want to do. And that works. You know, that might be me or him or someone in the branch just having a ten second video guide. This post up and again today. Yeah. And that exercise that just got remember there's a different platforms. Like you said reels are different to TikTok. Yeah. People go there for a different experience. And this is why you know again a lot of marketing fails. Yes. They they go with a preconceived idea of what we want people to say. It's not what they want to say. Yeah, that's what you've got to be very careful with. And again, this is unfortunately already good. Very good example of that. Yeah. And it happens you know again all over the world. You know this isn't just a Gemini people. This is everybody. I've got some of the biggest brands I dealt with had that issue. You know they had real issues with it. And it was really frustrating. Yeah. Because social media really should have its own tonality. It should have its own brand guidelines. People like Ryanair do it really well. Look at how Ryanair, you know, use their socials to promote Ryanair. Yeah, they're literally keen in the South. I mean, the worst airline in the world. Yeah. Yet when you speak to the customer service team, though, you'll have a very different tone than you would on social, which is why, you know, again, with your LinkedIn again, what you know, your tone is your tone and that's that's going to be why you make your, your I think the reason why I wanted the company page to do it as well originally, is the fact that I don't know, I follow them because I'm a bank with them. Anyway. So bank incredible on LinkedIn. Oh my God, they are though. But there are faces part brands. Yeah. You know, this is. Yeah. You know, I was having this conversation the other day, weren't we, about, about Nikon. Yeah. And you know, TikTok live is flying. But now I can't do a TikTok live because there's no personality there. They're a faceless problem. Yeah. You know, so I was mentioning this guy in America that, he's now sells sneakers. He sees the fake ones, and he's got really big. He now does lives, and he's flogging all Nike stuff. Yeah, he's now flogging some of his own stuff that he's created and he's literally fit. Like he's screaming. Yeah. No, I could never do that. Yeah. Because they're not like, you know, they just couldn't do that. Yeah. Smaller brands competing now because they've got access to everyone via essentially QVC on your phone. Yeah. Which you can make a purchase in about four seconds. Dropship is massive. Well, it's just huge. So, but no, I think that's that's. Well, thank you for coming in, Ben. For having me. I have enjoyed it. I hope I wasn't too, yeah. I'll be honest, you've been quite restrained after I've saw that, I'm going to I'm going to go and show that to my wife and try and get to delete TikTok in general, though, you know, but not I mean, yeah, I don't genuinely don't think I've seen those video effects on that TikTok for about ten years. And I'm not that old, so it tells you about it. It's like, well, thank you very much. Coming on for in the comments. And, and yeah, we'll send the crib sheet after and good luck. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Someone.