The employment/hiring pool has never been bigger. The internet has broken geographical boundaries and reduced marketing costs, leveling the playing field for every production team out there.
Before the internet, you could do well if you were the only production team in the area, or perhaps the only one people knew about because of pricey marketing.
Now, employers are searching virtually everywhere for the best team at a competitive price. To be successful, production teams need to take advantage of the digital medium by creating virtual personas which are available to clients on a global scale, 24/7, 365 days a year.
Recently, a professional drone pilot and cameraman, Steve Radley, reaped the rewards of his online presence when hired by Jynx Productions. Instead of relying on one personal site or the main social media outlets, he created a profile with ProductionHub which led to a job opportunity.
His experience is evidence that a diverse, widespread online presence increases the chance of being hired. Additionally, his online profiles provide him with data that can increase his market intelligence (MI) – an understanding of your success within your industry which helps the decision-making process.
Collecting Profile Data to Increase MI
Facebook, LinkedIn, ProductionHub, Instagram, Indeed, and Monster are sites capable of propelling your production team into the limelight, and they aren’t exclusive.
Why rely on one when you can have numerous online profiles capable of reaching infinite customers?
Granted, these sites need to be monitored, updated, and regularly engage with clients which — is time-consuming. It's safe to say that the time spent is well worth it, as these profiles do more than virtually reflect your team’s services. They also offer data which can hone your MI.
MI is important, especially to smaller businesses. It is comprised of data from online sources, sales, reviews, competitors, and trends that is analyzed and interpreted for insights and predictions. It provides an understanding of where your team has been, how it currently stands, and what paths you should take for further success.
Analyzing data can be a complex process that often requires a professional, but many of the sites, like FB’s Ad Manager, provide digestible metrics that even a beginner can understand. With these metrics and a comprehensive MI, smaller production teams can compete with bigger, well-known ones because they understand the current/future industry climate.
The virtual presence and provided by social media and professional networking sites are a major benefit and are leveraged by large companies, startup, and public entities.
Virtual Networking on the Public Level – What NOT to Do
Two-thirds of 18-24 year-olds participate in political activity via social media networks. Yet, government departments are finding it difficult to reap the benefits. There could be several factors at play, but evidence suggests they simply haven’t figured out how to effectively use social media. Low engagement rates and poor response times, public social media profiles remind us what we shouldn’t do. Similar to the real world, first impressions are crucial online.
More so, online interactions are transparent, meaning others can see how an interaction is handled. If it doesn’t go well – slow response, canned response, no response, etc – then a first impression was made with more than just that individual.
Instead of being hindered by the basic pitfalls public entities have hit, learn from there mistakes and adjust accordingly. Engagement and response time are crucial to your online presence, and social media sites provide metrics so you don’t have to guess how you are doing. The key is to pay close attention to your virtual presence; making time for managing, engaging, updating, and responding to interested parties. Just like Steve Radley, one of your profiles can create employment opportunities and increase your MI, furthering your production team’s success.
**About the Writer **
Ryan Ayers has consulted a number of Fortune 500 companies within multiple industries including information technology and big data. After earning his MBA in 2010, Ayers also began working with start-up companies and aspiring entrepreneurs, with a keen focus on data collection and analysis.
