This sums up why people ignore, and at worst, detest most marketing:
So, you say your group is hiring, eh?
We just launched a new way to feature your jobs on the top of search results, targeted to matching users, and across our job advertising network reaching more than 30 million people per month.
You can get started here: http://www.jobster.com/job/new
According to Jobster’s director of corporate communications, Christian Anderson, “That message went to employer profiles on Jobster.com who had their status set to ‘my group is hiring.’”
Although delivered en mass, the message was designed to look personalized from CEO Jason Goldberg. Recipients must log into Jobster in order to read the actual note. I’d argue this is an annoying way to pad site traffic – and Jobster’s not alone – but that’s another post.
What really bugs me is the reference to 30 million. I would guess most people browsing the above message – busy people as they are – automatically say, “Wow, 30 million. What a popular site!”
News flash: Jobster does not get 30 million visitors each month. In fact, if public metrics are to be believed, things are pretty stagnant at our industry’s Web 2.0 poster child.
So what’s the deal?
The number comes from Facebook. Because Jobster has an application on the popular social networking site, they apparently feel justified in claiming a network reaching 30 million. Their actual application is just north of 45,000 opt-ins. I’m no mathematician, but 46K is no 30M.
Using Jobster’s logic, any site utilizing Facebook apps could tout the same thing. This includes Indeed.com, Simply Hired, Get The Job, etc. Hell, Simply Hired, powering MySpace, could tout somewhere in the ballpark of 70 million. They power Linked In, too? Well, I just can’t count that high.
Fortunately for us, the others don’t mimic Jobster’s fuzzy math marketing.
Popularity: 3% [?]
August 14th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Hey Joel,
I’m sure you’re not trying to be malicious with this post, so I wanted to clarify a few things. First off, I really appreciate your emailing me yesterday and asking about Jobster’s ability to help employers feature their jobs across our network of 30 million people / month. As I alluded to in my email to you yesterday and confirmed when I sent you an advance copy of our press release yesterday afternoon, the 30 million has nothing to do with our presence on Facebook – we’re not even counting Facebook. This broad distribution is through our affiliate network – announced publicly today and sent to you yesterday.
The reach of 30 million — through our affiliate network — you heard about was an early number. We are actually launching with 45 million.
Now when employers post jobs to the Jobster career network, the jobs are distributed to more than 650 affiliate sites with more than 45 million visitors per month. Initial affiliate partners include:
• Edgeio – jobs partner for major blogs and job boards including: Techcrunch, Gizmodo and The Washington Post.
• Getit LLC – jobs partner for more than 350 niche job boards including: getcustomerservicejobs.com and nursingjobfinder.com.
• OLX – classifieds partner for social networks like Friendster and many others worldwide.
• JobThread – jobs partner for 300 high-traffic web sites and blogs.
• Impulse Corp – jobs partner for bored.com, findjobs.com, careerramblings.com.
• Cinnamon Entertainment Group – jobs partner for mobilewirelessjobs.com, jobfish.com and others.
Employers can elect to feature their jobs at the rate of $2 per candidate or for a flat fee of $25 for unlimited candidates.
You can read more about our affiliates announcements as well as our new SELF-SERVICE ads on the release I emailed you yesterday or on the Jobster blog http://jobster.blogs.com/blog_dot_jobster_dot_com/2007/08/jobster-launche.html
If that is still “fuzzy” please let me know and I will be pleased to further clarify.
Best regards,
Christian Anderson
Jobster
August 14th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Oh snap!
August 14th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Ouch.
August 15th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Joel – you should probably reply!
You’ve accused them of deceptive marketing practices, they have responded to your allegations, you should either apologize or elaborate if this matter is still fuzzy to you….
Do the right thing!
August 15th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Ya’ know what would be really cool? Jobster apologizes for touting a “100 percent exclusive” deal with Facebook that – oh my God! – wasn’t so exclusive a few months later. Real money was spent by real companies who put trust in such a claim. Think they feel burned?
If you want me to apologize for alleging the numbers were connected to Facebook when they apparently weren’t, fine. I’m sorry Mr. Jobster.
But I think you’re missing the point. And here it is: The 45 million or whatever number they’re promoting today is BULLSHIT. They know it. I know it. And if you dig a bit, you’ll know it too.
Take Techcrunch, for example, which is part of their 45 million network. How many people going to TC actually go to or plug into the career center? Ten percent? Five percent? One percent? Certainly not all of it, right? But do you think Jobster is touting ALL of TC’s traffic in that 45 million? You bet they are. And the same goes for all their “partners.”
As a result, consumers are buying into being in front of that big number and spending money with such expectations when the number is MUCH lower. And I believe that’s deceptive marketing.
No doubt Jobster may refute this claim with clever spin, trying the discredit me and cloud the issue. They’re experts at such tactics. Most readers won’t know what to make of it, be slightly entertained or turned-off, and move on with their lives.
At the end of the day, you as a consumer of information need to think. Figure it out on your own. Draw your own conclusions. This isn’t fantasy. Companies have agendas. Bloggers have loyalties. Money talks. People are people.
You, for better or worse, get to figure it all out.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:22 am
joel,
you do not need to apologize or respond to their comments. the gave more misinformation in their response. we are all supposed to be educated people here and as educated people we can come to our own conclusions. i don’t think you are required to apologize for talking about an issue and giving your opinion on it. after jobster replied we are able to read what their position is and compare that with yours. Here is the greatest part…..we get to render our own opinion after that.
i appreciate you wanting to please your viewers but there is no need to apologize.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:27 am
It’s all about marketing. “reaching more than 30 million people per month.” does not equal “having more than 30 million people visit per month.”
When we put a google ad out there, the ad get over 1.5 million display on google sites and its affiliates web sites every single day. That easily translates to 45 million “actual” display per month. I guess that “display” even better than “reach”. And we pay only $40 per day.
August 15th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
i was on the call for jobster/facebook today and jason clarified that it was facebook that had the 30 million reach. i think it’s probably safe to say that i’ll have a good enough reach by just creating my own facebook and finding the target “groups” that i want to subscribe to (and have subscribe to me) and directing them to our career website. but thanks for the info…knowledge is power. rock on.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Hey Helen, glad to have you join the Jobster webinar today. You’re right Facebook does have 31 million users. Tapping that audience will be key for employers trying to access the next generation of talent. Best of luck to you.
Joel, so we are crystal clear on this, Jobster did indeed have an exclusive relationship with Facebook.
Only recently did Jobster and Facebook mutually determine that we were best to transition from that exclusive relationship to the new apps platform.
On your questions on our affiliate network, actually the 45 million number is going up. We signed 4 more partners since our public launch yesterday. Reach is one way to measure an affiliate network – in fact, reach is the industry standard. That said, the goal is not to have a high reach. The goal is to provide our customers with access to valuable audiences. Our affiliates help us do that. Our application on Facebook helps us do that. Jobster.com helps us do that.
We are excited to bring our targeted and distributed approach as an alternative to traditional monolithic job sites.
Stay tuned. We’ll have more announcements on this front in the near future.
Best regards,
Christian Anderson
Jobster
August 15th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Thought I would weigh in here. We looked at putting the facebook into our job distribution network but decided against it as your jobs aren’t really seen by facebook users unless they choose to subscribe to your widget. I also joined jobster and then removed my profile because of the annoying emails I was getting from jobsters ceo as well as the fact of getting emails from employers including one from the LA police department asking if I wanted a job.
August 16th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Thought I’d give an insight into how reach is assessed in the UK job board market. The major boards take part in an independent process once a year called Noras (www.noras.co.uk).
As part of the process the participating boards run a survey on their site for a one month period and have their web traffic audited by an independent third party (ABC Electronic – http://www.abce.org.uk). The audit is based on web server log files, to ensure it’s actually focusing on ‘real traffic’ as opposed to ‘potential traffic’. Once all of the surveys and audits have been completed the Noras team have an online system that can be used to calculate the job board’s reach to a specific industry, demographic, etc.
It’s not without it’s faults, not least that Noras has a fairly low participation rate, but it’s generally accepted as the best tool for making comparisons between UK job boards. Even those job boards that do not take part in Noras typically have their web traffic audited, and if they get a new partnership that drives more traffic to the site they simply get re-audited.
The process makes any unaudited claims about reach or traffic second rate and they are therefore ‘taken with a pinch of salt’ by advertisers.
Is there something like this in the states?
August 16th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Cheezhead vindicated! Very nice. I don’t trust Jobster as far as I can throw them anyway. If you do the math, Facebook simply *has* to be part of the 45 million. Those partner sites Christian lists are nowhere near that big a number.
And another thing to think about regarding the exclusivity with Facebook: Christian says, “Only recently did Jobster and Facebook mutually determine that we were best to transition from that exclusive relationship to the new apps platform.”
However, both the Oodle deal (May 2007, http://blog.oodle.com/2007/05/07/classifieds-for-facebook-users/) and Facebook Marketplace occurred *before* the applications launch. Jobster’s deal with Facebook is something we’ll never fully have disclosed to us, but it’s all kinds of fishy. P-U!
August 16th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
This proves how small time this company is…. a rep from the org. responds to a blog post?! Rule #1, if you want to give the illusion you’re a player… don’t respond to public comments…. just move on. I think I learned that my first day of business school.
August 18th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Anonymous … do your comments mean that you are small-time non-player? Just curious.
How many years ago was it that you went to business school? Old school … ignore blogs. New school … leverage blogs.
Best wishes,
Bob Wilson
President, R.M. Wilson Consulting, Inc.