Blogito, ergo sum. I blog, therefore I am. These are words to live by, especially if you are a recruiting blogger. It’s a high-stakes game, where agility matters just as much as the content you so thoughtfully researched, only to find out that someone already blogged about it yesterday. One day you’re in, and the next day you’re out. Auf’d. Gone into the abyss where bloggers go to die after their seemingly loyal fan base wakes up and realizes you truly don’t know what the heck you’re saying.
But these bloggers that I’m focusing on today know the formula for success. They’ve built their blogs around a name that’s become as familiar to some of us in the recruiting sector as toast and eggs are to breakfast. And we go back to them again and again like jilted lovers seeking more tawdry gossip, more stats, more tips, and more spiteful comments from people like ‘ihatemonster86″ and my favorite, ‘thisblogsucks22.’
A few of the bloggers I talked to recently fessed up to a recent spike in traffic, which could be attributed to one of several things: a)the suckfest that is the economy; b)timely, original content; c)a blog that is refreshed daily, if not more; d)a loyal group of readers who help spread the word; e)SEO: or the gift that keeps on giving. As a blogger, it’s your best friend.
Jason Davis, founder of recruiters’ network RecruitingBlogs.com, pointed me to a recent blog post by RBC fan and contributor John Sumser, who performed some analysis on Compete to dig deeper into the site’s forward momentum.
“Over the course of the past year, the number of unique visitors to [RBC] each month has grown by over 500 percent,” Sumser said in his post. “The total number of monthly visits has exploded at a rate of nearly 1,000 percent.”
Sumser said that when you compare RBC with the dominant members of the industry, HR.com and ERE.net, attention paid to RBC is significantly greater. “That means that the industry as a whole spends more of its time here than anywhere else, than the other two combined. . . you’d be tempted to predict that we’ll overtake the industry leaders by this time next year.”
Davis said that RBC, now around 13K members strong, has burgeoned because it was designed to be viral, and ever since he began the network, things just moved to the next level in terms of new recruiters joining, content generation, and traffic.
“I think RecruitingBlogs.com is starting to look like something very real and something that should be watched and taken seriously. It’s not going to go away anytime soon,” Davis said. “I feel the awareness of RBC just seems to be spreading a little, and I think it has to do with with the architecture of the site as well as all of the people involved. . . it is a community, and I respect the community because I get instant feedback from so many people about the things I want to try. It makes everyone involved feel like a real contributor.”
Todd Raphael, Editor-in-Chief of ERE.net, said that the numbers Sumser computed aren’t factual and that his site remains the leader in traffic.
“The numbers are of course wrong,” Raphael said. “Not to get on my soapbox, but a lot of what I read in the media is factually incorrect. Just totally false.”
He continued to say that ERE remains successful because it doesn’t focus on driving traffic to the site and sometimes simply inserts links into a newsletter that will propel the reader elsewhere.
“Today’s newsletter is such a great example. Check it out. It’s mainly self-contained information with not a lot of ‘read mores.’ I sacrificed traffic to save readers’ time. Of course, none of this is in any way to put down RBC – it has succeeded wildly at networking.”
Speaking of networking, one man has made a living out of teaching people how to network: Jim Stroud. He took his advice to the blogs and created The Recruiters Lounge to help recruiters and sourcers more efficiently manage their time and productivity levels and to advance their practical knowledge on things like sourcing on Facebook and Twitter.
“The success of my blog is something that truly confuses me,” Stroud said. “HR is not the sexiest topic around, but people tend to dig what I write about. When I create a post or publish something that someone else submitted, I use the standard of ‘blogworthy.’ What is blogworthy is difficult to explain, but here is a basic formula: it is one-part relevant information, one-part gut reaction to the information, and one-part of it is the mood I am in.”
Stroud’s blog was recently named the number one talent management blog in terms of its power by FistfulofTalent.
He said he hopes to keep the giggles coming along with the videos and podcasts as long as they retain significance and some degree of entertainment beyond their original post date.
“The Recruiters Lounge has been a labor of love for me. Hmmm . . . maybe the underlying reason for my blog’s success is love.”
Another blog that’s seen its share of success lately is Laurie Ruetimann’s PunkRockHR site.
“I think people come to my site to understand how to ‘game the system,” Ruetimann said. “They see HR as a hurdle on job search, and any information about HR to set them apart from the pack is considered important and beneficial. Readers want to be fully educated before they speak with a member of HR – they are doing reconnaissance work.”
Here at Cheezhead we don’t focus on numbers or traffic or silly things like that. We certainly don’t care to know how many unique visitors our site gets monthly. We’d rather spend our time praising industry leaders and providing educational blogs to Job Seeker Bill or HR Vendor Timmy. We don’t ask for our readers to contribute anything, unless it’s their own insightful opinion attached to a blog post. It’s your business, after all, how often and how long you’re on the site.
But as long as you’re here, why don’t you check out our blog?
Popularity: 12% [?]
November 14th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
RecruitingBlogs.com is a cool place – I like swinging by sometimes . . . however, I’ve gotten so busy with running the firm and producing for Clients that I don’t have as much time to ‘network’ (er, ‘blog’) as I used to.
However, you have to love statistics. I think John knows that if you start off with 1 visit today, and then have 1000 by next month . . . then this is 1000% percent growth. But as Alec Baldwin says in his famous GlenGarry Glen Ross speech, “Let’s talk about something important . . . Put that coffee down — Coffee is for closers only.”
What John is describing is actually a bubble – nothing more, nothing less. Meteoric expansion cannot be maintained in perpetuity. Frankly, nobody cares (outside of advertisers desperate for eyeballs) how much you grow over year 1 – it’s sustainability that matters. It’s easy to get to the top . . . but staying there is where the real challenge begins. It’s how you handle the plateau; it’s how you handle that bubble before you realize that today’s new will eventually be tomorrow’s old.
John is, in essence, popping the bubble of his very own argument when he states, “you’d be tempted to predict that we’ll overtake the industry leaders by this time next year.” Why? Because of the simple “we’ll”. It indicates a bias that stands high probability to skew the numbers (no pun intended). Some might also say that the statement itself sounds of elitism moreso than competitiveness (at least Shakespeare would . . . and much more eloquently than I.) At the same time, I like John’s desire to win – that’s what it takes. Like John, I also know that 2nd prize is good for nothing more than a set of steak knives.
Now, despite John’s statistically biased analysis, the following is where I’ll give the Big Dog, Jason Davis some serious credit:
Virality is possible through user-generated content, and I’m not talking a discussion board. Part of the lure of RBC is that you don’t have to be grandfathered in with the same groups of people writing the same articles about the same old topics. JD knows that he can build a Sistine Chapel by offering everyone that swings by RBC their very own paintbrush. And if you’re a great painter, others will find you and embrace you on their own accord . . . which is way different than other sites that force-feed the same writers and the same topics in a continuous rotation like the radio.
Traditional Media isn’t dying – it’s dead. Create a nation of iReporters and you’ll grow like a weed on Gatorade.
“I’m here from downtown . . . I’m here from Mitch & Murray . . . and I’m on a mission of mercy.”