SocialSkillz.com is THE social media job board, directory and online community resource. Where companies and individuals can learn from and find social media experts for all aspects of any sized social networking project – and where internet professionals can promote their expertise
and services.
Mission
“To create a centralized, authoritative social media resource for corporations, small businesses and individuals to learn from, interact with and procure industry experts and services, as well as to help foster and nurture the adoption of social media and online communities to bring positive change to the market economy.”
A Brief History
SocialSkillz.com is a division of a currently Canadian based corporation, GravySalad Inc.
Newly formed in 2010, GravySalad Inc. is the mother company of several divisions that focus on profitizing individual online niche markets through utilization of its multi-talented design, development and online marketing division, 3RING.com.
GravySalad Inc. co-founder Paul Marek is the driving creative force behind SocialSKillz.com and many other of these divisional projects.
Just Another Great Idea
SocialSkillz.com was simply Paul’s idea for a great domain name in early 2010. Immediately after the domain was inspired, the function of ‘social media job board’ was instantly apparent as a perfect fit for the domain. From this inspiration, Paul decided to investigate if he could register the domain SocialSkillz.com – but it was taken. Left a little downtrodden, he found that SocialSkillz.net was available, so he bought it, and quickly decided to add this idea to the ever-increasing pile of great ideas… and it was almost immediately forgotten.
Within a month or so of registering the .net version of the domain, the owner of the .com version of the domain contacted Paul asking if he was interested in purchasing the .com version. After a short and satisfactory negotiation, the purchase of SocialSkillz.com was finalized. At that moment, Paul knew this project had to be realized as soon as possible – that was June 2010.
From there, it was simply a matter of deciding what the job board should do, what it should look like, how it to market it effectively, and how to build it.
Actually building it and launching it on a next to zero budget was another story. Quickly things got out of hand as the vision for the site grew from simple ‘social media job board’ to ‘the authoritative social media and online community resource’. Help was needed to make it succeed.
The following is the story of what has happened, and how that process is unfolding.
What It Should Do:
Required Functions of the Social Media Job Board
Having experience building many dynamic websites using the WordPress platform, Paul investigated the possibility of building the inner workings of the site using various WordPress plugins that could easily accomplish much of the complicated functionalities specified for the project.
The site had to be able to:
- allow users to create and manage an account and profile
- allow users to post jobs, and edit them
- allow users to view listings of job posts
- allow users to search jobs by keyword, job type, category or post age
- allow users to apply for jobs immediately online
- allow users to post their resume, and edit it
- allow users with permission to view listings of resumes
- allow users to search resumes by keyword, job type, category or resume age
- allow users to view a directory of social media services, by category
- allow users to add their social media company profile to the directory, and edit it
- do all this with an integrated payment scheduling and processing system
How To Build It:
The Tools -> Social Media Software
To accomplish all of the above-mentioned functionality, there was a required melding of several different critical pieces of inter-relational software (plugins) that were used to create the overall functionality of the site.
WordPress
WordPress was used as the main platform for the site. It is primarily used as blogging software, but over the last few years has been developed by the open-source team to be the most easy to use AND powerful content management system available. It is the most widely used platform as well, with excellent documentation and support forums.
There were other choices such as drupal, but Paul’s experience was with WordPress’ easy install and simple method of using plugins to extend functionality. The learning curve for drupal made it unfeasible for the alpha and beta stages of the site – but will be considered should a more robust platform be required in the future.
WPJobBoard
WPJobBoard was the job board plugin of choice, even though it cost USD $97 (most plugins are free). Really… $97 for all the functionality it offers is MINIMAL – we would have paid lots more. Out of the box, WPJobBoard V3.1 was able to handle much of the required functionality of the job board and payment processing, but this version at purchase lacked the ability of the resume view, add and edit functionalities.
We communicated directly with the developer of the plugin, Greg Winiarski, and received outstanding, rapid customer service (located in Poland, he had excellent English, explained by “watching western cartoons as a child”!). We asked Greg to build us the custom functionality we required to incorporate the resume aspect of the site, and he immediately began to build the next version of the plugin – V3.2 that would enable users to add their resume, as well as allow authorized users to search and view resumes. He also expanded the abilities for posting a job. This was done in two weeks.
We can’t say enough about Greg’s abilities, customer service and costs. Our highest recommendations go out for him and his products.
WPtouch Pro
The ability to have your own iphone app is priceless. WPtouch Pro cost us only USD $29. It was very easy for us to customize the theme that was provided so we could make our mobile app look as much like our site as possible. Great online support and documentation are available at the site too.
DirectoryPress
Another paid plugin (USD $79), DirectoryPress allowed us to build the social media service directory portion of our site. This add-on was very difficult to deal with because it is actually a WordPress theme in-and-of-itself and NOT plugin, so it could not be installed over the theme that the rest of the job board was functioning on. In order to accomplish this requirement we installed another instance of WordPress in a sub-domain at http://directory.socialskillz.com, and themed it with our customized version of the base DirectoryPress theme (made to look and function as much as the main site as possible).
DirectoryPress required very advanced programming to do simple customizations (core file edits), and lacks some of the directory functionality we desired, but since it offered integrated payment processing and works with WordPress 3.0, we decided to sacrifice the customization time for overall functionality.
Other WordPress Plugins
We used several plugins to get the overall desired functionality of the site. They include;
- Avatars – A plugin to manage public and private avatars. Allows users to upload their own images for profile avatars.
- cformsII – A plugin that allowed us to easily create and manage forms such as our contact form.
- Disqus Comment System – Replaces the WordPress comment system with comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Allows users to sign in with other social media accounts such as twitter and facebook.
- Front-end Editor - Allows us to edit posts without going through the admin interface.
- Theme My Login – Allowed us to theme the WordPress login, registration and forgot password pages. It also helped to add the ‘account login box’ at the top right of each page, and helps redirect users to the page they were on when they log in.
- Widget Logic – Allows us to control which pages sidebar widgets are displayed on.
What It Should Look Like:
Design and Layout of the Social Media Job Board
Design
We wanted the look and feel to be somewhat familiar to inexperienced social media users, so we used some of the color and design aspects of Facebook. We also wanted to prominently feature the social bookmarking icons that ‘stick’ to the top of each page when you scroll.
Design had to be simplistic, be clear and concise, and be user friendly.
Layout
We’ve learned that the majority of internet users browse at 1024 or greater screen resolution, so we developed the layout to be a centered fixed-width just under that. We wanted the layout to be spacious, yet still clearly display many of the call-to-action items we have on each page. We settled with a two-column layout opting for maximized spaciousness vs. sidebar areas for secondary nav and ads.
How To Sell It…
The Master Marketing Plan: Social Media
(Surprise!)
Well, it’s obvious that we’d utilize social networking and social media tools to market this site.
Current Network
Use Facebook, twitter and YouTube to connect with our current network, many of whom are in the industry, with a handful that have vast networks of followers (2000+). Initial launch will promote limited-time free access to our services, later promotions will include creative contests, giveaways and community development events.
Press Releases
HEADLINE IDEAS:
“SocialSKillz.com Launches First Social Media Job Board and Service Directory”
“Corporate Social Media Recruiting Just Got Simpler”
The quality of the site, job postings, resumes and directory listings clearly speaks the newsworthiness of our launch. An excitement generating press release published in two of the major online PR repositories will easily generate coverage in national and international news based publications, both online and off. Focus of the press release will be “Corporate Social Media Recruiting Just Got Simpler”, highlighting linkbait items below.
Linkbait
GIVEAWAYS:
Launch
Free regular job posting until October.
50% off featured listing until October.
Free regular directory listing until October.
50% off regular job posting October to January.
50% off regular directory listing October to January.
Later
Tweet, FB, stumble, digg, whatever about us – list your company free for 3 months.
Tweet us – get a free job listing.
Tweet your resume on SocSki – chance to win $500.
Like us on FB – chance to win $500.
CONTESTS:
Like us, then Tweet!
Enter the “Like us, then Tweet SweepStakes”
Like us on FB, then / or tweet us on twitter for a chance to win a secret prize.
WHY A SECRET PRIZE?
We want you to ‘Like’ us on facebook, or ‘tweet’ about us on twitter ONLY IF you truly like us, or feel we deserve to be tweeted – not because of the prize. But have faith – this will be a GRAND PRIZE!!
Social Networks
FACEBOOK: We will promote and utilize the tools available through Facebook, including creating and managing a Fan Page, implementing various Facebook widgets on the site, utilizing Facebook ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ buttons and maintaining our own community incubated through Facebook.
TWITTER: We will create and maintain a twitter account, using it to announce promotions, jobs of the week, resume of the week, featured companies and services, as well as to utilize this microblogging tool to develop an extensive following by being edgey and humourous.
YOUTUBE:
We will produce a series of videos for YouTube and other video sharing sites that include; ‘How to use our site’, featured interviews, promo spots, news and humour.
Blog
We will utilize our blog to maintain contact and open relationships with our users, and to provide them with news, education and entertainment about the social media industry. We’ll announce upcoming events, new launches, new products, interviews, reviews, news and entertainment.
Paid Marketing
We decided to incur some minor costs in order to utilize the advertising networks on some of the various social networks.
Facebook, StumbleUpon, Google AdWords
Because of the ability to target such a specific demographic, we chose to spend (a minimal budget) on Facebook Ads and StumbleUpon Ads, each having their own advantages. And later to supplement the advertising with broader network reach from Google AdSense.
Still have questions?
Contact us
Visit our contact page for contact information or to send us a form.
