Content, The More You Have The Better!

Originally posted March 5, 2014 on Recruiter.com

Content is King in Recruitment Marketing

As recruitment and marketing start to share the responsibility of attracting talent and brand strategy, we’ve started to see more and more traditional marketing tactics in everyday recruiting. There is a reason that marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing. Social media sites and blogs reach 80 percent of all U.S. internet users and account for 23 percent of all the time spent online. Content marketing is king, and recruiters are quickly finding ways to leverage this marketing tactic in recruiting.

Blogs

A company blog is a huge opportunity to draw attention, display the company culture and convey the employer brand. Company sites with blogs result in 55 percent more visitors. That sounds great for recruiters since the career page is just a click away. Creating a blog requires a lot of resources, but they prove to be well worth the investment. Ninety percent of consumers find custom content useful and 78 percent believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. That, my friends, is what we call a great employer-branding tool.

In order to be effective for recruiting purposes, there are certain guidelines that a company blog should adhere to. Advertising and marketing pro at Simply Zesty, Lauren Fisher gives us some pointers oncreating a successful company blog.

1)    “Don’t Write About Yourself”

There is nothing that will turn a reader off faster than a sales-y, self-serving blog. Steer clear of writing about yourself or your business. The purpose isn’t to sell, the idea is to establish credibility, start a dialogue and inform. People will only click on something that they find useful or interesting. Inviting employees to contribute or be featured on the blog is an excellent way for candidates to get more personal insights.

2)    “Stay on Topic”

A good exercise to do when coming up with topics is to put yourself in the mind frame of your audience. Whether they are a candidate, customer or employee, what questions will they have? What is on their mind as it relates to your company? For instance, if 25 percent of your company works remotely part-time, you could write about how the organization makes that work and how everyone benefits.

3)    “Hyperlinking”

Link key phrases within each post to a related piece, either from an outside source, or from your own blog. These internal links help Google recognize you and improve your search engine ranking. Additionally, when other bloggers and authors find that you have linked back to them, they might return the favor, or reach out to you. When using another person or company as a resource, link their name to their Twitter account to increase the chances that they will see it. Continue Reading…

Maren Hogan

Maren Hogan is CEO of Red Branch and general Bad@$$

Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. Maren started Red Branch Media and, before she hired all the smiling faces you see below, she ran it on her own. In marketing for over 15 years, she has deep experience in strategic campaigns and a long-term, results-based operational approach.