Job-a-matic

How to Feed Jobs to Twitter

[UPDATE 7/7/11: We have updated instructions for feeding jobs to Twitter]

Whether you have thousands of followers on Twitter or are just getting started, one simple way to increase your reach is to give users fresh and useful content.  And with the U.S. unemployment rate approaching 10%, new job listings can serve as great, targeted content for new and existing followers.

Thanks to our job board platform and TwitterFeed, it’s free and easy to add jobs to Twitter.  Here are step-by-step directions:

1. Create an account at TwitterFeed.
2. Setup your feed by clicking Connect your feed to your Twitter Account.  This will take you to Twitter.com, where you’ll need to either Register or authenticate your existing account by entering your Username and Password and clicking Allow.
3. Describe your feed in the Feed Name field (not public).
4. Add your Job-a-matic RSS feed to the RSS Feed URL field, typically http://<your-job-site>.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs-rss/.  If you don’t have many directly posted jobs, you can expand your RSS feed to include backfill jobs, by appending bf-y/ to your URL.  (Example: http://<your-job-site>.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs-rss/bf-y/).  You can fine-tune the backfill jobs appearing in your tweets using the “Backfill” tab in Job-a-matic.
5. Click Create Feed.

If you want more control over how your job tweets are displayed, you can use the additional options in Advanced Settings.  In particular, you might consider the following:

• Changing the Post Content to include the title only, to reflect Twitter’s 140 character limit.
• Use the Post Prefix option to add friendly, marketing copy to your tweets.  Job-a-matic publishers have had success using prefixes like “New Job Listing: ” or “Hiring a ”.
• Use the Post Suffix option to add hashtags to your tweet, so that the job gets found in Twitter search results.  Popular job-related hash tags include #jobs, #job and #hiring.

Please note that including jobs in your Twitter feed is an unpaid option for Job-a-matic publishers, and like any job listing, tweeted URLs will eventually expire. 

TwitterFeed has been experiencing reliability issues recently, so technical publishers might be interested in using the Twitter API for a more dependable and customizable solution. 

If you have any questions, you can follow and @reply to Simply Hired on Twitter.

Pages and Pages of Jobs!

It’s been long overdue, but it’s finally here: pagination for your Job-a-matic job search site! This means that rather than your job search site showing only that first page of results, the pages keep going and going and going…(much like the Energizer bunny) so that job seekers can actually view every job in the Simply Hired database that matches their results. To enable pagination, your Job-a-matic needs to be in “search mode,” which can be changed here: https://www.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/partner-dashboard-design

Why make the switch?

1. Increase Page Views
With job seekers viewing pages and pages of results on your job search site, the page views are really going to rack up. Just imagine how many pages your visitors will view on your Job-a-matic site once they have access to millions of job listings!

2. Increase Revenue
Recession got you down?  By changing to a “search mode” Job-a-matic, you can earn a larger monthly check, now that your visitors can click more jobs and the other 3rd party ads on your site. 

3. Create a Wonderful User Experience
Pagination will offer a much richer job search experience for visitors to your job site, because they will not only see the first few results that match their search, but thousands of jobs, depending on their search. You will be offering job seekers the same great content found on SimplyHired.com!

New Year, New Feature: Integrated Search

(Okay, I’m lying. Our intrepid engineers hustled to get this feature out before the "7" changed into an "8," and they beat the clock by 11 days!)

It’s a little box. But as we’re always being told, best things, small packages, et cetera. This box is small enough to fit right at the top of your Job-a-matic job board. And it contains over six million jobs.

Yes folks, you now have the option of allowing your users to search Simply Hired's vast database from within your job board.

Setup is simple. Log in to your Job-a-matic account and click on the configuration tab. See how the Colors tab has been updated to “Colors & Type?”

Basically, we now offer “Job-a-matic Classic” and “New Job-a-matic,” which, in case you are worried, is much, much tastier than New Coke. New Job-a-matic gives you the ability to create a full-on job search site, with access to Simply Hired’s entire database of job listings. So:

• You can add a search box to your job site
• You can allow your users to search for any jobs they want
• Your users will not be constrained by your back-fill keywords
• Your users see results displayed with your look and feel

What’s the catch? There really isn’t one. But here are a few things to know:

• We will automatically create filters. We do not present your categories as filters to the job seeker
• Your job categories are now only presented to the job poster, to help them classify their jobs.

As always, if you have any questions about how to make a Job-a-matic job board work for you, contact us using any of the friendly links on the right. Meanwhile, Happy New Year!

Holiday Help: Discount Codes & Packages

With the holidays approaching, you will notice a plethora of promotions (Free goat with purchase! Order today!) from retailers and online shopping sites. And you are probably thinking, "How can I join in on this fun?"

Thanks to your charming chums at Job-a-matic, now you can! On Thursday evening we released discount codes and packages for your Job-a-matic job board. You can access both of these neat features under the "Promote" tab in your dashboard.

Discount Codes

Discount codes (or "coupon codes") are a nifty way to promote your job board. You can use them to run a holiday special, reward your regular visitors, encourage folks to sign up for your email newsletter or offer a promotional discount. The codes are just like the ones you see used by online shopping sites: they allow you to set either a percentage or dollar discount off of your regular job listing price. You can even set quantity limits and expiration dates! *

Your visitor enters the code on the "Enter Payment" screen and hits "Apply." Presto! The page is updated to reflect the new amount.

Bulk Packages

Packages are for that special customer in your life (like your employer, or a major advertiser). If there is a client who is interested in buying en masse, you can set up a package for them. Packages could be "3 job postings for $100!" or "Unlimited posts in November for $300!" The customer pays you up-front, the first time they post a job. Subsequent posts are not charged, as long as they remember to enter their special package code.

Which Should I Use?

Discount codes are great when you want to send out a promotion to a large audience, or to an individual. You may even want to encourage the sharing of a code, and see it spread virally. Packages, however, are for when you want to set-up an individual pricing deal for a client. The code should only be shared with that client, and not publicly.

Need help? Contact us using the support links on the right. Cheery comrades await your questions.

* Goat promotions not supported.

Show Me the Money

Some folks may have logged into their Job-a-matic dashboard in the last few days and noticed a bump in their earnings. Some folks may have associated it with the Job-a-matic updates we made Thursday evening. Those folks would be right.

Exactly what did we update, you ask? Well, until now, your earnings report has only reflected your revenue from paid job listings. We've corrected this, so that you will also see revenue generated by clicks on backfill jobs.

But wait! There's more!

We've also added a new report. (See the nifty red arrows pointing to the new report?)

The "Back-fill Performance" Report shows you a daily breakdown of Impressions, Earnings and all sorts of good stuff. Objects in report are more lucrative than they appear! Check it out and see how your backfill jobs are performing. And guess what?  We actually have stored data going all the way back to whenever paid backfill was activated for your site. We've backfilled the backfill report. Are we clever or what?

Don't see any additional earnings? You haven't signed up for our sponsored jobs program! Just send an email to golive@jobamatic.com to get started.

As usual, if you have any questions, or if there is something wonky in the report, please contact us using any of the help links on the right.

Oh, and by the way, a belated Happy Blog Day! We hope you remembered to leave out some milk and cookies for the blog bunny.

Fondly,

Your Ambassadors of Kwan.

Get Paid Faster

That caught your eye, didn't it? Wednesday evening, we rolled out the first of a series of improvements to the way we pay you.

So, what's new in this update?

Online W-9 Form. Before we can pay you, we need to have your SSN or EIN on file. Up till now, that entailed downloading the W-9 from the government's website, printing it, filling it out and faxing it in. Now, through the magic of the interweb, we collect that information directly online via your dashboard (Account > Payment Settings > Tax Information).

Payouts through PayPal. We now have the ability to electronically transfer money directly to your PayPal account. All you have to do is select "PayPal" as your payment method, and enter your PayPal email address (Account > Payment Settings > Payment Method). If you don't have a PayPal account, visit https://www.paypal.com to sign-up. It is free! As an added incentive, if you elect to receive payouts by PayPal, instead of by check, we will reduce the monthly minimum from $500 to $100.

Online Mailing Address. If you decide you want to continue to receive good ol' fashion'd paper checks in the mail, select "Check" as your payment method in the dashboard (Account > Payment Settings > Payment Method). Fill out the form to tell us where we should send the check, and to whom it should be addressed.

Need some help? The forums and our support team are there to assist you. You will find the appropriate links in the sidebar of this blog.

Lunch 2.0 @ Simply Hired

It's that time again!

Simply Hired is honored to host the guys and gals from Lunch 2.0 and their loyal following. More details to follow, but great food, limited edition giveaways (maybe a new shirt?), and the opportunity to network. Everyone is welcome--bring your coworkers and friends!

Simply Hired was lucky enough to host one of the first Lunch 2.0 events, and now that both Lunch 2.0 and Simply Hired have grown, join us in our courtyard for free lunch and more!

When: Friday, June 29, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Where:  2513 Charleston Avenue, Mountain View, CA  (Google Maps)
RSVP: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/203440/

Product Tour, Benefits and Reviews

If you are reading this blog, you are probably already a member of the Job-a-matic family. But if you aren't, we wanted to take a moment to point out the new Job-a-matic site. We now provide a Product Tour, Features and Benefits & even a Raves and Reviews section to help convince you that we rock. In case you didn't already know.

Job-a-Matic FeedFlare

FeedBurner provides web-based tools for bloggers, podcasters, and commercial publishers to help them distribute their content, monetize their sites and engage their audiences. 

FeedBurner’s FeedFlare product allows you to build more interactivity into your content, such as:
•    Display of the number of comments
•    Submit a story to Digg or Del.icio.us
•    Show the number of blogs that link to their item
•    …and now, display the number of job listings on your job site!

We've partners with Feedburner to offer you a Job-a-matic FeedFlare, which can help you effortlessly drive traffic from your blog to your job board by promoting your jobs automatically at the bottom of every blog post in your RSS feed and website. Very 2.0 if we do say so ourselves.

Example Job-a-matic FeedFlare:

We strongly recommend our FeedFlare for anyone who wants to expand their reach and invigorate the interactive experience they provide to their audience.

FeedFlare Installation Instructions:

1. Login to your FeedBurner account.
2. Go to your My Feeds page.
3. Select your blog's feed.
4. Click on the Optimize tab towards the top of the page.
5. Click on the FeedFlare link on the left of the page.
6. Select the "View My Jobs" Official FeedFlare and type the domain name of your Job-a-matic site into the field:
   
   
7. If you don't already have FeedFlares active, get the HTML code and add it to your site template.  Learn more
8. Click the "Save/Activate" button at the bottom of the page and you're done!

Rinse and repeat for every feed you manage.

If you want to enhance the power of your Job-a-Matic job board with FeedBurner, but you need more technical assistance, give us a shout. We’re here for you.

Site Maintenance on May 1

Hey Folks. We need to make a few DB changes to keep up with the growing publisher network, as well as roll-out a few patches. As a result we will be taking the site down on Tuesday May 1, sometime between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM (PST). The site won't be down for the full hour... we just like to give ourselves lots of breathing space. We are a bit claustrophobic.