Posts Tagged ‘Digital media’
Calling digital media PRs (freelancers too)
July 30th, 2008
At Liberate Media we’re on a growth spurt, so this is an unashamed call for experienced PRs (freelance or permanent) to get in touch. If you’re reading this post, hopefully you already understand the digital media sector and the importance of social media within digital communications, so it’s a relatively safe bet that you are the type of consultant that we want to speak to.
We also have an immediate requirement for freelance assistance, as I’m off on honeymoon shortly and would like to add a bit of extra resource to help cover my absence. Beyond that, we’re always interested in speaking to freelancers to see where opportunities might exist and to add new ideas to our campaigns.
So, whether you are freelance looking for a short term placement, or even looking for the next career move, you will find further information on the ‘Join us’ section of the site, or you can contact me directly via jobs@liberatemedia.com
What’s wrong with digital agency comment?
July 1st, 2008
“Client side comment only please…no agency comment needed at this stage…desperate for brand-side comment – can you help?”
In recent weeks we’ve spotted a growing trend in such requests from digital trade journalists, either directly or through feature tracking services that we subscribe to. It seems journalists are increasingly less interested in digital agency comment, and more and more focused on brand-side opinion only.
As an ex-journalist for New Media Age, I can appreciate the need for big brand comment, but what I don’t understand is why those at the coalface, the specialists in digital marketing, creative and design, are being sidelined?
I thought a story always had two sides?
Reading between the lines, the problem is being compounded by an absence of readily available client-side comment on digital matters. From my experience this is either down to a brand not prioritising a digital trade comment opportunity, or acknowledging that the subject matter might be out of their depth.
At Liberate Media we’re always willing to do a journalist a favour and help out with these sorts of requests, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating to have to battle to offer the agency side of the story. If you want to talk to a brand about their digital investment, why not also speak to the agency in charge of their digital strategy?
I’d be really interested to hear what features writers/editors think about this. Is it a growing trend, or merely coincidence?
Digital skills crisis: we need industry-level collaboration
February 22nd, 2008
As with nearly every organisation in the digital media sector, recruitment is an ongoing issue for Liberate Media. Actually, let me rephrase that, finding the right candidate is an ongoing issue.
We’ve tried adverts, using our network of contacts, various social recruitment techniques - Facebook, Twitter, blogging etc and now even recruitment agencies to find the best people. We’ve managed to overcome the issue and secure some strong candidates, but it hasn’t been easy or quick. So the problem remains, how do you find reliable candidates quickly? Is it even possible?
What if, we as an industry were to stop fighting over the best candidates and start sharing them? For example, if I come across a really strong candidate but one that isn’t suitable for a role we are looking at, I recommend this individual through the recruitment network to those agencies (PR/digital/or otherwise) who are after the relevant position. It’s a collaborative recruitment network, and benefits both the candidates and the recruiters.
This is still an idea in formation but I wanted to put it out there and see what people thought. But first a few points of confirmation:
- I don’t mean a network run by a recruitment agency
- I don’t mean a network/alliance of recruitment agencies
- I don’t mean a paid service
- I don’t mean a job site or an advertising platform
I mean an agreement between digital media companies to share and recommend candidates, across some sort of social media network. If they’re not relevant to you, but think they have the attributes to succeed - share and share alike.
So what do we think? Has it been done? Could it work? Let me know your thoughts and following feedback, I’ll do my best to drum up support and see where this could lead us.
Chinwag: Fishing in the digital media recruitment pond
January 30th, 2008
Or should i say puddle…
Some of the Liberate Media team went down to Chinwag last night to get to grips with the digital media skills emergency and it seems the problem maybe worse than we had first suspected.
Sam Michel, Chinwag’s Founder and MD, kicked off the evening by sharing the results of the Chinwag skills survey, with some rather alarming stats such as ‘97% of digital media organisations find it difficult or impossible to attract digital people’…Ouch, and i’m afraid the outlook didn’t get much brighter.
There were many good points raised on the evening both from the panel and the floor as to why this is occuring, so i’ve summarised my top three below:
- The digital industry cannibalises itself, especially in our recruitment. We don’t look to other industries to recruit and we don’t think of transferable skills. This means an ever shrinking pool of talent is being sucked dry by an ever increasing roster of potential employers. Simple demand and supply.
- There is a lack of training and education for those wanting to get into the industry. Academic media courses are, in the main, run by those without specialist digital knowledge, so the graduates that are coming out simply aren’t up to the job. And even if the courses are up to scratch the industry changes so fast that within the three years taken to complete a course, the teachings are out of date.
- There is no body, force or will to face these issues head-on and promote the industry to other sectors, or - God forbid, make it seem an interesting and worthwhile place to aspire to be. Last night there were calls for a digital media recruitment body, calls for the IAB to step in and calls for help from just about everyone - even the recruitment agencies.
Add this to the issues of no time to recruit and according to Matt Alder, head of digital at Barkers, only 10% of digital jobs actually being advertised, and you can soon see why we’re in this mess.
For me, the problem is routed in the issue that the digital media industry doesn’t look, recruit or even engage outside of the industry, which is shocking - yet obvious when you think about it. We are insular beyond belief; other industries promote themselves and flutter their eye lashes at potential employees without a second thought, so why should we expect our industry to continue growing without some investment in people.
Why shouldn’t we look at transferable skills? Some already do and at Liberate we’ve already looked outside of the industry to recruit, and the results have been both eye-opening and rewarding. Having a new perspective on the industry is very powerful.
The time for procrastination and blame has passed. In times of crisis only action will turn the problem around, and we’re going to have to make some serious changes to open ourselves up to the type of candidates we want. In Liberate’s cases that’s - senior and experienced digital communicators, just in case you were wondering!
We’ve already got a plan in place and you’ll be seeing the fruits of our labour both on our site and reported via our blog. We are going to be embracing digital marketing to assist our recruitment targets and doing what we do best, which is communicating and driving results.
Watch this space.
November 22nd, 2007
The long-awaited digital edition of New Media Age has gone live today, available here. It is aptly part of an online video special, incorporating demos of cutting-edge online video advertising.
It’s a great first attempt at integrating digital-focused editorial with interactive content. For a magazine that pitches itself as being at the forefront of digital marketing, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
NMA has great journalists on staff, and is well-respected by the industry…but that won’t be enough to carry it through the social media era. My RSS feeds are full of expert digital commentators and bloggers, and for NMA to keep its head above the rest of the crowd, it’s increasingly going to have to find more ways of engaging with its audience online.
So big thumbs up to NMA!
As a funny aside, just as I was about to click ‘publish’, I received an email from NMA saying its advertising rates are due to rise in 2008. Great timing Centaur!
Technorati tags: nma, e-edition, publishing, online+video, magazines, digital+media, centaur