My favorite question in the Salary Survey is “What are the primary sources your company uses to recruit new hires (check all that apply)?” While the same question was asked for Field, Office and Executive recruiting, the chart below displays the comparison of office and field recruiting sources:

Source: AZ Construction Salary Survey – CFMA VOS – Dec 2011

The actual reported LinkedIn recruiting usage in the survey were 8.7% for the field workers, 17.4% for office personnel and 12% for management and executives. While Monster, Craigslist and Jobing.com usage were more popular, the Arizona construction industry has begun to embrace some social media. Facebook and Twitter usage were almost non-existent, used by less than 4% of participants. While serving the construction industry, it is still surprising that when it comes to technology that we continue to lag behind other industries. Compare this with statistics from the 2011 Jobvite Survey [slideshare] where

“89% of U.S. companies will use Social Networks for Recruiting”

and you clearly see the disparity.

LinkedIn is the business executives and professional recruitment golden roledex. If your Human Resources Department didn’t realize it, your professional recruiting firm does. As Jobvite has reported, “2/3 of Companies have Hired Successfully using Social Networks”. This is why I blog and teach contractors about LinkedIn, social tools and technology, because there’s a bottom line business value, and it’s not just in recruiting employees.

For those that participated in the Arizona Construction Salary Survey, the full results will be sent to you via email in January 2012. The 2011 Survey is available for purchase for $100 (2009 Survey is available for $50). Request your copy via Email.

If you are looking for ways to better Leverage LinkedIn or have successfully recruited field, office or management positions in the construction industry on social networks, please let us know in the comments. Lastly, please share this with your business connections so they can benefit too.

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Construction Press Releases Need to Be Social goo.gl/fb/qAuzS

— Carol Hagen (@carolhagen) December 29, 2011

Click on the link to read the article, “Construction Press Releases Need to be Social.” While you’re there, please consider subscribing to that blog too!

FYI – As my activity is more frequent on Twitter you may want to follow me @carolhagen where I’m sharing tips on Social media, smartphone apps, along with AEC and construction tech topics (just click the button above). If you don’t have a Twitter account you can still read all my Tweets aggregated by topic using this Twylah page

Perhaps you’ll use these ideas as well to share your content across the AEC industry.

May you all have a Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2012!

The post Are Your Construction Press Releases Social? appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Construction companies and the AEC industry struggle to leverage social media. They don’t understand the value that LinkedIn brings as they just see more emails notices they don’t want from overzealous salesmen. The business value is hidden in learning the obvious but overlooked features and functions. Let’s look closely at LinkedIn Today.

LinkedIn Today has a story trending about the Hensel Phelps Construction solar project and I couldn’t help but peek to see who was sharing this story. By clicking on the number in the lower right, a popup displays (shown above) of my connections up to the 3rd level sharing the story with their network. Why is this important you ask? What if this story was about your firm? If the social media maven at Hensel Phelps is paying attention there is an opportunity here that doesn’t occur when someone shares privately via email. An opportunity to make LinkedIn connections, show gratitude and strike up conversations. It’s the advantage that social media marketers have been shouting about but that your construction, engineering or architectural firm is still trying to figure out. If it catches someone’s interest and you know about it, don’t miss out on these social openings. You may find your next client!

If you found this interesting you may also like these articles:
LinkedIn Privacy
Google Loves LinkedIn

If you want to learn more about what you don’t know about LinkedIn or other social tools, I’m available for consulting, speaking engagements and strategy building.

The post Has the Construction Industry Noticed This in LinkedIn Today? appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Too many construction professionals are focusing on the economic woes. Stop. You know that happiness and success attract. After attending a joint networking event for the Arizona Builders Alliance(ABA), MCAA and SMPS at Audio Video Resources yesterday it was noticeable who the happy people were and just how many others were congregating around them. Lorraine at Caliente Construction was celebrating making it onto 4 short lists this week and having 2 bids awarded. Way to go! John Ulibarri had a discussion with Mark Minter on the value the ABA brings to the construction industry. Talking points with positive messages and the people around them were listening. Even my discussion with Dennis Tsonis of Lovitt and Touche had others watching us exchange contact info using the Bump app on our smartphones. That gesture of bumping is like a high five and feels like a celebration.

All this translates easily onto the internet. Just this morning at a Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce East Valley networking breakfast we had Tim Troy of TNT Shredding celebrating the arrival of his second truck – Tim tells me he’s getting it wrapped and will be posting pictures on Facebook soon. If you need paper shredded (I’ve been to many construction offices and know you need to make some room), give him a call. Desert View Aerial Photography captures construction celebrations daily. Here’s a top off shot for Haydon Building Corp with the American Flag and evergreen cheering on the last steel beam put in place.

Many social strategy sessions end up in discussions of what to blog, tweet or share on Facebook or LinkedIn about. The content should not always be about you but on people and business you know…things happening in your community that make a difference to your clients, suppliers and employees. If they elicit emotions and fond memories all the better. That’s why Cupcakes are in the title of this post!

Tell us about what you’re celebrating in the AEC industry and let’s get everyone in a great mood. Every contruction related celebration comment will be approved. Click on the comment button at the top of this post and/or share this with your friends.

The post Why Contractors and the AEC Industry Need Cupcakes appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

The Chapter Summit was great and packed tightly with discussions, feedback and education. Top challenges for chapters are how to get more butts in seats, increase participation, new member attraction and finding speakers with good topics. I’d be happy to offer my presentation to chapters across the country adding a spin into business development if you need a speaker. Sharing is a big thing in social networking so here’s access to my Leveraging LinkedIn and Social Media for CFMA chapters. I invite everyone to ask questions and/or connect with me on LinkedIn if you need a leg up on how to.

The keynote “connections” address with Marc Scharenbroich was a thunderous success in his approach to being authentic, a good listener and appreciative. His closing Boomba Hey CFMA is on YouTube or you can view it here. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7Q-_Gsh8GY] I’d recommend reading his book, Nice Bike to reinforce his message and his thank you extends the benefits … proceeds help military families.

For those wanting to know if there was a buzz during the conference may want to review the Twitter stream of #CFMA2011 as there were a few people chatting other than exhibitors. You do not need a Twitter account to view the activity. Just go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cfma2011.

As a techie, I also thoroughly enjoyed the presentation on Smartphones and immediately implemented a mobile app for my own business…it takes up to 14 days to be added to the Android Market so I’ll update this post once it’s live. If it is well received an iPhone version will be out before the end of June. I’ll keep you posted …thank you Jim Spellos for sharing Appsbar.com as a free solution! Jim also shared info on augmented reality using the layars app and for those firms or individuals that need to read signs in Spanish you should checkout the iPhone app “Word Lens” from Questvisual.com …it will blow your mind!

I made new friends and connected with controllers, CPAs, and exhibitors from across the country. We danced, sang, shared stories, broke bread and had deep discussions. Special thanks go to Sue Marion and Amy Hanagan for making my stay fun, Diedre Aldous for our Main Street Days activities, Dina O’Rourke for keeping the CFMA engine running, John Corocoran for involving me in Chapter Summit and the exhibitors for sponsoring keynotes, meals, entertainments, etc …as catching up with friends but once a year is made sweeter by your generosity. To everyone I met “Nice Bike”.

I’ve left a few holes for those in attendance to share their experiences, education and networking stories. Feel free to share these construction education gems and also share your own by adding comments and sharing this with others.

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You will still get great content every week on technology issues specific to the construction industry on this blog but the social media topics will mostly appear in Social + Websites. Hope you take the time to check it out and please share this with all your friends, connections and followers.

Here are the latest posts at Social + Websites that you might like:
LinkedIn Labs offers Swarm (Search) & InMaps for Visualization
Mobile Website Surfing: Will iPhone, Android or iPad Fill Your Pipeline?

The post Social Media Topics are Moving to “Social + Websites” appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Bing loves Facebook more than Google these days. If you haven’t noticed, Bing displays Facebook profile pictures in their search results using Facebook’s Instant Personalization Notifications so now you can we see all your connections to the right of the regular search results. This is great if you think your friends tastes match yours but you need to think about it from your business friend’s point of view – as a tool for branding you and your comapny – construction or otherwise.

Bing will display your Facebook friends “likes” as it pertains to your search.  This is wonderful for TV Shows, restaurants, movies and music thanks to Pandora, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes and Clicker. But there’s more to it. With Docs.com and Scribd businesses and entrepreneurs can extend their search reach and position themselves as experts with original content. What am I suggesting to the AEC industry? Architects, Engineers and Homebuilders that cater to the homeowner and are using Facebook need to get on board!

You may also want to think about whether you wish to opt out of certain applications. Here are good instructions from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on how to opt-out…yes it is one application at a time. Again Facebook makes it cumbersome to keep your privacy private.

Bing people searches will also provide recommendations for people you should friend in Facebook.  Will this increase visits to profiles? Absolutely! It will also expose you to more ads, but as a public speaker discussing social media topics I’m hoping it leads to more opportunities.

I’d appreciate it if you “like” this on Facebook. You may be interested in reading how Google loves LinkedIn.

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So the dilemma is do I want to test a beta version of Facebook’s Advanced Search app, that has been rated with low marks, when I must grant access to birthday, religious and political views? Perhaps I need to change the content on my political views and religion to “Not applicable” before proceeding. I noticed that more than 27,000 Facebook monthly users have jumped on and started using the beta version already.

Yesterday I met Karen Thomas, Director at Global Diversity Consulting, LLC at the American Subcontractors Association membership mixer in Phoenix. Diversity is more than skin deep and having just considering trying the Facebook’s advanced search app I just had to ask her what she thought about granting Facebook this permission. “There are two rules of thought. One, it’s Facebook’s product and we have to abide by their rules…after all it is free”. Karen continued, “Two, Granting access to the religion and political affiliations is either to increase fear or revenue. Free enterprise has no limits, we should monitor ourselves to not offend or use this information to support any bias.”

By now you no longer wonder why some businesses ban Facebook at work. By talking about this in a public setting, perhaps we can all become less fearful, or just more skeptical. What do you think? Let’s share our thoughts with the public and Facebook in the comments section. All perspectives are welcome (no expletives please).

The post Facebook is Scary appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Once you have that done, you can add your own LinkedIn column based upon your preferences.  From TweetDeck click on the add column button and select the LinkedIn icon.  You can decide what items to include like recommendations, connections, status updates, etc.  Here are your choices so you can be a smarter, more efficient listener:

Now that you are listening, have you tried out the Twitter options on LinkedIn?  I blogged about it a few weeks back.  Read it here if you missed it.  Now have you all considered using Twitter (or some other microblogging application) for your company press releases?

The post LinkedIn and TweetDeck Together at Last appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

But these are not the gems of the application.  What I really like is if your LinkedIn connections don’t have Twitter you can directly share the tweet message with them.  It doesn’t even have to be your own tweet.   Just click share and then pick your LinkedIn connection to compose a message.  It will default to the subject “Interesting Tweet Found in LinkedIn Tweets”  and put the tweet in the body of the message.

Now go try it out and tell me how you like it!

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