As a busy HR executive, if you had told me two years ago that there would be tremendous value gleaned from me writing a weekly blog, I would have thanked you for the advice and that would have been the end of it. My thoughts would have been, “who has time to write a regular blog on top of the never ending list of initiatives and meetings that need to be done!” Today, I think differently about blogging. In fact, the more I discover about blogging and the benefits to individuals and organizations, I honestly regret not starting sooner.
Blogging is a rapidly growing form of communicating the employer brand. Companies with leading employer brands are using blogging on their career websites in a variety of ways:
- To promote their employer brand
- To feature/interview employee success stories
- To provide candidates with helpful tips
- To share/communicate good news stories
The benefits of blogging for you and your organization
Promotes your personal and employer brand
Blogging provides another means to humanize your company, particularly if it is done authentically and if the content you are sharing is valuable. In addition, blogging will help your company appear higher in search engine rankings–this will help to promote your employer brand and drive talent to your website, where you can tell your story.
Unfortunately, 65% of companies that have a blog, don’t update it on a regular basis. Therefore, if you start blogging at least on a weekly basis it will differentiate your company from the competition.
Builds skills
Blogging can develop many skills including collaboration, creativity, writing, leadership and marketing. The best employer blogs we have seen have several contributors. Blogging provides a great opportunity for not only leaders but for employees to develop core skills.
Develops long term relationships with candidates
Blogging allows you to provide fresh content on your website which will encourage people to visit on a frequent basis. To help build those relationships with candidates that may not be ready yet to join your organization, ensure to provide content in your blog that will be relevant and helpful to the talent you want to attract. Furthermore, when done authentically and consistently, blogging builds trust amongst your candidate/talent communities and employees.
Are you ready to start blogging? Please find below tips to help you create a valuable and impactful blog
Have a strategy
Your blog should be a component of your employer branding strategy and should therefore support your culture and overall business goals.
Engage the talent you want to attract
When you write your blog, seek ways to engage with the talent you want to attract. Provide opportunities for people to comment on your blog and ensure that you respond in a timely manner. In addition, a blog could be a good vehicle to launch a contest amongst your talent community or to announce new roles, career fairs, awards etc.
Get people involved
For your blog to be authentic and to truly reflect your employer brand, it should be a collaborative initiative across your entire company. Be creative, have a schedule and encourage employees or leaders from different departments to co-author blogs to develop collaboration; a critical skill required in today’s workforce.
Publish to your social networks
To broaden your reach, publish your blog on social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. This doesn’t take a lot of time and will drive more traffic to your career website as well as enhance your employer brand reputation.
As with any initiative you should measure the impact–however, know that blogging is inherently a longer term strategy. 81% of companies rate blogging as critical tool – is your company fully leveraging this communication channel?
Source: blog.shareaholic.com, JeffBullas.com