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And the Halftime Analytics Top 10 goes to …

July 7, 2015 by Fiona Roddis Leave a Comment

Image of text "Top Ten" in red and white 3D text

Image courtesy of Iabusa on Flickr

It’s that time of year again when we take a few moments to review the site for your top 10 favourite posts in a variety of categories. We scoured our analytics to find out which posts you’ve read the most, which ones you’ve shared out on Social the most and this time we have a brand new category for you!

To gather this data we use Google Analytics and our WordPress plugin Social Metrics Pro for the total likes/tweets/shares on social media. Our date range for the post was December 1st to June 30th which is slightly more (well a month more) than our usual 6 month range but our last Top 10 Favourites post in December meant that posts at the end of the year got a raw deal.  

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Attire for Hire – Who really judges Profile Pictures?

October 22, 2013 by April Wilson 3 Comments

Last month, we had a debate in the office about the age-old adage that to be successful in business, a man needs to wear a suit. This debate was prompted by one of my colleagues who had seen a LinkedIn profile photo of a man in just a dress shirt without a tie or jacket. Another argued that the “old days” of wearing a suit and tie were over – that the internet and social media had changed the standard definition of what is appropriate business attire. Fortunately for all of us, a simple usability test would prove or disprove the belief that jackets are still required.

Why argue when you can settle it with an experiment?

To settle the debate, we created a 5-second test on usabilityhub.com to test the impact of a jacket on a LinkedIn profile photo. Five test subjects were given the instructions to send two profile photos of themselves – one wearing a dress shirt only, and the other with a jacket on over that shirt. Backgrounds, expressions, and the shirts were identical in both photos – the only difference was the presence of a suit jacket.

Respondents were randomly selected and shown one of the profile photos for 5 seconds and then asked four questions to answer with the assumption that they had seen this photo on LinkedIn:

  1. Please list 3-5 adjectives to describe this person
  2. Based on the photo alone, would you agree to meet with this person?
  3. What is your age?
  4. What is your gender?

We had over 350 test responses over two weeks, with testers both male and female, age 19 through age 73. Most of the testers only saw one of the two photos, although there were a handful that saw both (and did not remember seeing a jacket or not – but they did use different adjectives to describe the person they saw).

Photo of a man with and then without a jacket

 

 

 

 

 

Key Findings:

  • Wear a jacket  – it increases your likelihood to get a meeting face-to-face by 14%
  • Smile – it increases your chance of getting a meeting by 16%

Yes, You Still Need a Jacket

Across all five men that volunteered for the profile pic experiment, all of them had more favorable results with the jacket photo vs. the shirt-only photo. When run through a statistical significance check, wearing a jacket in a LinkedIn profile picture gave the subject a 14% lift in someone wanting to meet with them.

Looks like ZZ Top Was Right

We’re assuming that every girl is indeed crazy about a sharp-dressed man, because when this was further broken out by the sex of the person who viewed the photo, most of the difference was driven by female testers. When the LinkedIn photo had the jacket, women were 63% more likely to want to meet with the candidate. For male testers, there was no significant difference in whether or not a man had a jacket on in his LinkedIn photo.

Younger People Care More about Appearance

When the results were broken out by age range, the 20-30 year olds were the only group that cared about the jacket. The younger demographic was 16% more likely to want to meet with a candidate if they were wearing a jacket. Testers that were age 31 and over showed no significant difference in wanting to meet with a candidate based on the presence of a suit jacket alone.

A Suit Jacket Alters Perception

Another interesting trend was the impact the jacket had on how testers described the person. If the person was not smiling, in the jacket photo this was seen as proof of dedication and intensity towards doing their job well. In the shirt photo, the exact same person was seen as creepy, scary, intimidating, and angry.Experiment_Results

For subjects that smiled, the jacket photo made them seem more confident, relaxed, approachable, and professional. In the shirt photo, the exact same person was still seen as happy and fun, but also perceived as not serious, or sloppy.

Smiling Is Good, Too

Men who smiled in their profile photo were 16% more likely to get a meeting. This difference was more pronounced with female testers, who were 61% more likely to meet with a smiling man versus one with a more serious expression. There was no significant difference with male testers when it came to the impact of a smile.

When broken out by age, the presence of a smile had no impact on testers age 30 or younger. However, with respondents age 31 or older, smiling increased the likelihood of a meeting by 40%. 

Conclusion

Smile and wear a jacket – it doesn’t necessarily impact your ability to get a face-to-face meeting with men, but it definitely helps if the target is female or older than 30. Testers also noticed the quality of the photo’s background – if it was not professionally lit or taken outdoors, comments indicated that the person was not seen as a “legitimate” contact. The presence of facial hair was always noted in the adjectives to describe someone who had it (hairy, bearded, scruffy), but had no impact on the person’s ability to get a meeting. 

Who Owns a Social Media Account?

August 29, 2013 by Irene Bodle 2 Comments

gavelsmall Increasingly companies encourage employees to use social media accounts e.g. LinkedIn and Twitter to promote a company’s products and business. However this often results in a conflict arising between misuse of confidential information and “ownership” of accounts and contacts when the employment relationship comes to an end.

The High Court has again highlighted the need for businesses to have a clear policy on the ownership of such social media accounts and contacts when they are used by employees for business purposes.

Whitmar Publication Ltd

Recently the High Court granted an injunction to Whitmar Publication Ltd against 3 ex-employees (and their newly established rival company) to prevent the individuals and the company from using 4 LinkedIn groups. One of the individuals had been responsible for dealing with the LinkedIn groups as part of her responsibilities at Whitmar Publication Ltd.

The ruling used arguments similar to those used in the decision of the High Court against a former Hays employee in 2008 who was ordered to hand over all of his LinkedIn contacts after leaving the company to set up his own consulting business. In this latest ruling, an injunction was granted on the basis that the individuals had misused confidential information belonging to Whitmar Publication Ltd, infringed the company’s database rights and breached duties under their employment contracts.

Ownership

This will depend upon who set up the account, why it was set up, whether it is also being used for private use and who is paying for and maintaining it.

In the Whitmar injunction the court determined that the following factors were key:

  • the extent to which the account or group was created for the benefit of the employer; and
  • the extent to which the account or group promoted the employer’s business.

Social Media Policy

The above emphasizes the need for employers to have a clear social media policy in place with employees. This should cover:

  • ownership and use of accounts on termination of employment;
  • access details to accounts;
  • use of information collected through social media accounts.

If an employer has a signed social media policy it will restrict what ex-employees can and cannot do with social media accounts and/or contacts after leaving the company.

Employment Contracts

Additionally, employers should include non-solicitation or non-compete clauses in all employment contracts which specifically prevent ex-employees from using social media accounts or contacts upon termination of their employment. Employment contracts should also include general clauses preventing employees from using confidential information.

Conclusion

In view of the above, both employers and employees need to consider “ownership” of social media accounts and contacts and agree, in social media policy and employment contracts, on what happens to these when an individual leaves the company 

Other measures that companies could consider taking are:

  • to simply ban all use of social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter;
  • to ensure that relevant employees add all new social media contacts to the company’s CRM database;

By considering the risks and taking necessary measures to prevent these issues arising in the future, employees and employers should be able to avoid costly litigation when employees leave, potentially taking their contacts, accounts and followers with them.

Do you agree with this latest ruling? Let us know in the comments.

image courtesy of Sam Howzit

Who owns Social Media Contacts?

July 10, 2012 by Irene Bodle 1 Comment

Did you know that your LinkedIn contacts or Twitter followers are more likely to “belong” to your employer than you if they are customers, employees, or vendors you did business with. In the last few years there have been a few court cases on this issue in the UK and US covering employee use of contacts in social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter.

Twitter

In October 2011 a US company, PhoneDog Media, sued a former employee for taking 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left the company. PhoneDog claimed that the followers constituted their client list which was confidential.

The BBC also had a similar problem last year when an employee with 60,000 Twitter followers moved to a rival TV channel and took all of her followers with her by simply renaming her twitter account.

LinkedIn

Back in 2008 the High Court ordered a former employee of Hays (a UK recruitment firm) to hand over all of his LinkedIn contacts when he left the company to set up his own consulting business. Hays claimed that the contacts were confidential information of the company and that the former employer had breached the terms of his employment contract by using this information for business purposes.

Social Media Issues for Employers

The above decisions highlight the conflict between businesses encouraging their employees to use social networking websites for work and then having to deal with “ownership” or breach of confidentiality issues relating to contacts when the employment relationship comes to an end.

In order to avoid the above scenarios, both employers and employees need to consider “ownership” of social media contacts and agree on what should happen if an individual leaves the company.

Who owns your Profile or Account

This will depend upon who set up the account, why it was set up and who is paying for, and/or maintaining it.

Generally your LinkedIn profile or Twitter account is your own, even if your employer told you to create it – as it relates to an individual. It is “ownership” of the contacts that becomes complicated. For example, if your employer has asked you to set up a LinkedIn account for business and marketing purposes and you then use the database to download your business contacts before you leave it will be difficult to argue that the contacts are not confidential information of your employer.

Who owns Contacts or Followers

This is the wrong question to ask as no-one can “own” a contact. The question to ask is whether there are any restrictions imposed on you by your employer which will prevent you from using the contact once you leave.

For example if you have signed a contract of employment which contains non-solicitation or non-compete clauses these could prevent you from using the contacts stored in your profile, as they will be confidential information. Alternatively if you have signed a social media policy this will also restrict what you can and cannot do with your contacts after leaving the company.

Conclusion

In view of the uncertain legal status of social networking contacts it is advisable for companies to have employees sign a social media policy which sets out what use can be made of social media contacts once an employee leaves the company. Other measures that companies could consider taking are:

  • to simply ban all use of social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter;
  • to ensure that relevant employees add all new LinkedIn contacts to the company’s CRM database;
  • to include non-competition and non-solicitation clause in employment contracts or other agreements;
  • to include social media clauses in all employment agreements.

By considering the risks and taking necessary measures to prevent these issues arising in the future employees and employers should be able to avoid costly litigation when key employees leave, potentially taking their contacts and followers with them.

2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report [Infographic]

April 9, 2012 by Angela Wilkinson 1 Comment

Sponsored by NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud, the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report came out last week. This 4th annual report on nonprofits & social networks is intended to provide insights for both nonprofits, foundations and those serving this sector about behaviour and trends relating to social networking as part of  the nonprofits’ marketing, communications, fundraising, program and IT work.

Conducted between 24th January and 21st February this year, nonprofit professionals completed an online survey covering two main categories of questions:

  1. Commercial Social Networks: Looking at the use of commercial social networks e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, etc.
  2. House Social Networks: Looking at the social networks built and managed by the nonprofits

The report summarises the 3,522 responses received and provides top insights for this year, top trends and future trends to watch, top factors for social network success as well as community size and monetary costs/gains through social network entities.

Visual.ly have designed this rather attractive and informative infographic to support the report’s findings, but of course the full Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report can be downloaded for free if you want more detailed information.

It’s probably no surprise that Facebook is the most utilised network with 98% of nonprofits having a presence on Facebook in 2012 and an average community size a healthy 8,317. Twitter is the next most utilised at 72%, followed by Linkedin with 44%. It will be interesting come next year to see how Google+ and Pinterest perform for the nonprofits.

However engaging in social networks uses resource, which is one thing all nonprofits have in short supply. While 79% of nonprofits only have one person spending half or less of their time on this, and 74% allocate a budget of less than $10,000 it’s worth noting that staffing and budget levels for maintaining  social networking activities is on the increase. 

The main 2012 goals given for commercial social networking activity was “Grow our Base” at 76% and “Engage Members More” at 74%. Given the low cost of acquisition, it is understandable that nonprofits and supporting organisations are keen to maximise these channels.

by visually. Browse more Social Media infographics.

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