Bristol-based recruitment firm RSG Sanderson is relatively new to social media but they’ve cottoned on fast. As well as a variety of Twitter feeds and a well-established LinkedIn presence they now publish 10 separate blogs – yes, 10! Here is the reasoning behind that strategy.
An experiment in social media
RSG Sanderson is a long-established independent recruitment consultancy for IT and Business Change professionals here in the UK. In the last 12 months Sanderson’s senior team and consultants have taken a brave leap into the world of social media. Along with extensive LinkedIn and Twitter activity they have set up a veritable fleet of niche business blogs including:
- The Company Blog
- The Sanderson Business Change and Transformation blog
- 5 subject matter expert blogs covering Software Development, Testing, Project and Programme Management, Infrastructure and Service Management and Business Change respectively
- Intelligent Consulting blog
- Jonny’s Recruitment Hub blog
RSG Sanderson’s approach is pioneering. Whilst LinkedIn use is fairly widespread in the UK recruitment industry, blogging as a business development tactic is very much in its infancy. Most recruitment companies still prefer to blanket bomb beleaguered IT directors with cold calls or direct mail/email (to such an extent that I know of one IT development consultancy that has unplugged the office phone!).
10 blogs: 6 reasons
I asked Sanderson’s MD Nick Walrond to explain the thinking behind his prolific blogging strategy. In his own words:
- “Blogging and other forms of social media have enabled us to take our knowledge-based niche focus online. It’s an advancement of the core business strategy that Sanderson has held for the last 30 years. Our 100+ recruiters are organised into specialist teams, each focusing on a particular vertical market, building knowledge and networks of contractors and clients in their field. Each vertical market has very different interests so a one-size fits all approach to communication just won’t work. Each of our 10 blogs is aimed at a particular market and we aim to write content that is relevant to those customers’ particular set of needs.”
- “Blogging helps to prove that we are subject matter experts worth talking to. Most of our recruitment consultants have been working their niche markets for a long time. They’ve built up a lot of knowledge over the years which until now has been mainly in their heads. Blogging gives them the opportunity to share their expertise – to get it out there and make a difference.”
- “Blogging increases our credibility and helps to build trust amongst our networks. By publishing useful articles on our blogs we hope to prove that we know what we’re talking about – that we are passionate and knowledgeable experts in what we do.”
- “It’s personal: people like to do business with people. Our blogs and social media activity such as Twitter help to show the human side of our company, opening conversations and dialogue with our contractors and clients.”
- “Regular blog articles help us maintain contact with our networks in a way they find valuable. Our recruitment consultants are tasked with sending out relevant articles to their network. This helps to keep us in their field of vision so that when an opportunity comes up they remember us, without continually hounding them on the phone. Their feedback tells us that they far prefer this type of communication!”
- “Our blogging activity helps to give us a competitive advantage in a crowded market. We want to provide valuable support for our clients and candidates, helping to solve their resourcing problems. As well as developing existing relationships it helps us to add new clients and contractors to our networks and to bring in business.”
“It’s early days yet and we’re still feeling our way around the blogosphere. My challenge is to keep up the momentum as my consultants get busier in the recovering market. I want to develop our corporate website into a better hub for all this communication, to better integrate this type of social content with the rest of the site. I’d love to get our contractors and clients more involved in the blogs as guest bloggers and regular contributors too. You’ve got to play the long game with blogging – the value is building all the time.”
Learning from Sanderson
- Know your customers - understand your different ‘buyer personas’ and publish relevant content just for them
- Don’t keep your expert knowledge in your head, get it out there; use it to help you generate leads
- Start a business blog – at least one!
