12 BANDT.COM.AU JUNE 26 2009

Roger JamesChairman,AustralianMarketing Institute

I’ve been playing around with LinkedIn for a yearnow, which means it no longer qualifies as a new toy(that is now Twitter). LinkedIn is a global socialnetwork which describes itself as “aninterconnected network of experiencedprofessionals”. Think of it as MySpace for managersor Facebook for financiers. With the two majorconsumer social networks ‘friends’ are key, but withLinkedIn everything is centred on your network of‘connections’. These are defined as other LinkedInmembers who you have agreed to connect with,regardless of whether the invitation was sent byyou or them.

LinkedIn works on similar principles to sixdegrees of separation – you are the centre of yournetwork and you have three degrees of connections.First-degree connections are your direct contacts.Second-degree contacts are the connections ofeach of your first-degree connections. Third-degreeconnections are connections of your second-degreeconnections.

The main reason I find the site so fascinating isdue to my highly inquisitive nature. LinkedIn offers aform of professional voyeurism – daily statusupdates are tailor-made for a professionalstickybeak like me. There are numerous otherbenefits of LinkedIn. For starters, it is reported thatbeing well-connected in LinkedIn can help toimprove your Google page rank. If someonesearches for your name on Google, you have morechance of coming up high in the organic listings.

It is also a useful reference tool for doingbusiness. Your LinkedIn profile is a live credentialsdocument you can point people to, which also makesit a form of ‘personal branding’ if you believe in sucha thing.

In addition, the People and Company searchcapabilities are a useful heads-up before you meetsomeone, like a potential supplier or new recruit. Infact, you can even search for people according tospecific skills and experience.

Smart marketers will see another majorapplication for LinkedIn, one which I think will have asignificant influence on the executive recruitmentsector. LinkedIn allows you to attempt your ownheadhunting, and in turn increases your chances ofbeing headhunted directly by a recruitingorganisation.

A relatively large network of connections onLinkedIn becomes your virtual little black book, yourfirst port of call for any recruitment needs. Andbest of all – zero recruitment fees.

comm

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NO FREE RIDE SETTINGA MARKETING BUDGET

I’M CONNECTED TO THEWELL-CONNECTED

TO MAKE A COMMENT EMAIL EDITORIAL@BANDT.COM.AU

Many small business managers and quite a fewmarketers worry about the amount of money theyallot to marketing. A very reasonable concern ofcourse, particularly in these tough times.

So, when setting budgets for the forthcomingperiod, what do most people do? “How much did wespend last year and should next year be more orless?” We all know that’s less than ideal, but often itjust seems too hard to start with a blank sheet ofpaper, set our marketing objectives, plan ways toachieve those objectives, catalogue the marketinginitiatives required, then cost them. Hey presto, abudget. And of course, it does happen this way inmany businesses, but there can be niggling doubts.Is it too much? Too little? This is when we may betempted to ask, “Well what proportion of my totalrevenues am I putting into marketing, and how doesthat compare with other similar businesses,particularly my competitors?”

The idea of marketing spend benchmarks isseductive. It would be reassuring to know thatothers are coming to the same conclusions as weare. But very little examination reveals that while itmay seem reassuring, it is a flawed method ofcomparison and may be downright dangerous.

Consider benchmarking, if we could, against ourcompetitors. It is very likely our competitors will nothave the same market share as we have, so rightthere we can see it would be risky to use such abenchmark. If you are the clear market leader andyour main competitor is trying hard to take some ofyour share, he may decide to live with reducedmargins to allow him to put a higher proportion intoadvertising. To judge against his proportionalexpenditure could lead you to the wrong course ofaction for your situation. Then again, your productmay be a market leader, but it’s getting towards theend of the cycle, while your competitor may have afresh, new offering. Should we both put the sameproportion of revenue into marketing? Hardly. Andso on. Your competitor may have a superior, andmore efficient means of producing his product andgetting it to market, meaning if he wants to he canput more into marketing, while maintaining marginsand profits at healthy levels. If you spent the sameproportion of your revenues you would be out thedoor backwards in no time.

Of course, you would quickly work this out andnot take that course of action, but it’s just anotherreason why benchmarking is seldom a worthwhileand legitimate approach.

Now, where’s that blank sheet of paper?

Adam JosephInsights manager,Herald Sun Melbourne

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