A lot of recruiters are quick to be dismissive of blogs. Too often, blogs are viewed as a sort of corporate ‘Dear Diary’, or a place to simply post press releases or in-house news.
But while that may have been what blogging started out as, the power of the written word has moved well beyond this.
By not realising the potential of a strategic content plan, you are doing yourself, your business and potential talent a huge disservice. Why? Let me put it this way:
As a recruiter, you’ve probably tried everything. You’ve posted job ads, and tweaked the wording to get it justright. You’ve updated your LinkedIn profile – both personal and corporate – and invested a lot of time and money into social media strategies to reach talent on Twitter, Facebook and everything else in between. You’ve probably explored recruiting software, re-designed your website and landing pages, put a lot of work into SEO, as well as hired and fired a few recruiters and talent acquisition specialists, all in the pursuit of finding the right people for your business and/or your clients.
It’s a hard game, and the terms aren’t fair. A squeezed labour market makes your job even more difficult, and maybe you feel like you’re running out of options. How do you get the attention of the people you’re trying to reach in a sophisticated way?
This is where blogging can add value. I’m not saying it’s a silver bullet, but it’s an incredibly important aspect of connecting employers with talent. As an inbound marketing tool, blogging is about earning your customers – and their loyalty – by gaining their trust.
So, how do you get started in helping your business blog its way to success?
(You might also want to check out our article on how to write good blog posts!)
Understand your own objectives
With blogging you have to start at the beginning. What are your ultimate goals? What would be the best outcome from your recruitment strategy? If you start blogging without an idea of why you’re blogging, you’ll just end up going off-message and off-brand, and miss the opportunities altogether.
What talent do you want to attract?
As part of this initial goal-posting, you need to consider what kind of talent you’re trying to attract. If you recruit in-house across multiple departments, do you know what each business unit leader is looking for in an ideal candidate? For agencies, do you understand each of your client’s specific talent needs?
Now think from that perfect candidate’s point of view. What are they looking for in a job? What does their dream job look like? What might their career goals be and why would they want to work for you?
Aligning these thoughts should give you dozens of bullet points, which is a fantastic place to start.
Create a content calendar
See all those bullet points you just wrote down? Here’s where they come in handy. Create a calendar of editorial content by expanding on those points.
For example, if you’ve written down that you are looking for Singaporean engineers with international experience, that’s not one blog post idea – it’s 20. You could share insights on the hiring situation for engineers, highlight skills successful engineers develop, discuss how Singapore engineers can use LinkedIn to build their professional network, or how they can use LinkedIn to find a job. The list continues.
The beauty of blogging is that it allows you to cover the same topic and target the same people from multiple different angles, and appeal to the niche interests of your target audience, without getting repetitive.
The calendar aspect helps you decide what the headline will be, when to run it and who will write it.
Get social with it
Simply posting a blog to your company website isn’t enough. While you may have a small audience who go there directly, chances are you’re going to reach talent via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which amplifies your content to a much larger network.
It’s best to fit this into a strong social media strategy, which will include much more than just re-posting blogs, and it’s an important part of helping to convert blog readers into customers/talent. Be wary of the need for different voices on different platforms – the way you reach people on Twitter is incredibly different to how you reach people on LinkedIn.
Know how to measure success (and use a call to action!)
There’s a reason why we at Mutant encourage at least a six-month engagement for any content campaign – because it takes time to build a voice and a following. Content is not a quick fix, nor should it be. It is a planned, ongoing strategy for genuine engagement with a target audience.
But by measuring its effect over time, you’ll start to see some real results. Using analytics platforms, you can view who is reading your content, where they clicked on it, where they clicked afterwards, where they are based, and much, much more. By including a call to action (i.e. an “Apply Now” button at the bottom of a relevant blog post) you will encourage lead generations and turn sometimes readers into customers.
Blogging is a much more powerful tool than many give it credit for. Over time, providing potential and passive talent with quality content will not only put you at the front of their minds and show them you understand their needs and interests, but it will help educate them, too.
Get in touch with us at [email protected] if you’re interested in creating compelling, meaningful and targeted content for your business.