There’s an old adage that says “money makes people lazy.” Although there is some truth to that, as a marketer in an industry that relies so much on interaction, there are far greater threats to one’s laziness.
To me, my biggest pet peeve is an over-use of RSS feeds.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term; RSS is an acronym for “Really Simple Syndication.” It basically automates content to a location that you specify.

I’ve noticed that a lot of recruitment firms (ourselves included) set them up to fire off their stream of jobs to their Facebook and Twitter pages so now they don’t have to keep signing in and posting new ones every day.

Pretty convenient right?

Sure.

But with one small issue; it kinda destroys the whole point of those social networking sites. In my first post, I talked about how important it’s become as recruiters to be a relationship heavy business. Being active on Twitter and Facebook allows you to engage more without having to make as many uncomfortable cold calls. But who is going to want to “Like” your Facebook page or “Follow” you on Twitter if you’re not creating interesting and unique content
along with posting your jobs?

If you want people to keep coming back, give them a reason to.

I think it’s important to engage on the social media sites, so people know that they aren’t just following a robot or a company who doesn’t actually care about who is following them. A good way to think about it is, would you join a page where it was just content from somewhere else
being pumped into a page or would you rather join a page where there is
conversation about topics you’re interested in?

Below I’ve Included a before and after shot of one of our Facebook pages where it was just RSS
and what it’s like now:

Before

After

By all means use RSS, it’s an incredibly important feature for recruiters, but don’t get carried away.

I’m curious to know your ideas on RSS and how you’ve used them with success.

Any other tips that you’ve found effective?

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