Guest: Amitai Givertz, Blogversity.com
Topic: My First Year of Blogging: Lessons Learned
Participants: Maureen Sharib
Introduction: The Naked Recruiter
There wasn't much big news in the Recruitosphere this week but I want to address what I consider to be an unintended assault on recruiter blogging. What am I talking about? Well, Vin Dieselevey told a reporter that he blogs in the bathroom. And he's proud of it!
I'll quote the story. "He can often be found posting to his two recruiting blogs at 5:15 in the morning, from the laptop he takes into his bathroom." Now I've gotta ask you, is this the kind of publicity we need? They already call bloggers the pajama-hadeen, a bunch of nobodies typing away in their pajamas. And this guy's trying to tell everyone that we don't even wear pajamas. Or, if we do, they're down around our knees. You know what I'm saying? It just ain't right. And I want everyone to know that I am fully clothed all the time because I'm the Recruiting Animal and you're listening to The Recruiting Animal Show!
Introducing Ami G
Remember the Tower of Babel? Well, before everything got screwed up, everyone in the world spoke one language. And you know what language it was: English, of course. How could it be anything else? And, now, in the end times, everyone is learning to speak English again. And eventually they'll be speaking it in outer space because English is a great language. The greatest language. But English accents, they're another story.
Some people think that English accents are kind of classy. But it all depends on which English accent you're talking about. Have you ever watched Coronation Street? I'd shoot myself if I had to listen to those guys all day long. They sound awful. Don't they guvnah?
But why am I talking about English accents? Because I've got an English guy on the show today. The English Guy, Amitai Givertz. Also known as Ami G. Now, Ami doesn't have one of those classy English accents but I like it. And I like him too, so, let me tell you something about him. Here's the most important thing. He always writes long sentences and his blog postings are over-loaded with links. In fact, with all the links one posting is almost like a book.
Now, I don't think he reads all the links himself but he used to call me up and ask if I'd read them. Of course, I didn't. I don't have all day to read his blog. But, Ami does have his fans among the more long-winded recruiting bloggers. And, he probably thinks he's some kind of intellectual because of it.
But let me tell you what what Papa John Sumser told me when he was here in Toronto. He said that in the future people are going to be keeping track of all of their contacts all the time using software like Twitter. And they'll talk in a short text messages because they'll be carrying on so many conversations at once they won't have time for anything else.
And, you know, when he told me that I thought of my old pal Ami G and his mile long postings. Because according to Papa John, those long sentences might have been fine and well for Charles Dickens in the 19th century but soon anyone who uses them is headed for the dustbin of history. So now let's bring on the old dustbin himself, Ami G.
Ami, did you like the introduction? You can't talk in long sentences, okay?
Friendly Banter
Ami: Now, Animal, you're not going to yell at me are you?
Animal: No, of course not. You're a guest!
Ami: Good
Animal: I'll yell at somebody else.
Ami: I don't see why you have to yell at anybody at all.
Animal: Actually, you know, I've been getting complaints about that. People tell me I've gone soft. That I'm just producing ordinary interviews.
Ami: What's wrong with that?
Animal: Well, ordinary interviews aren't very interesting. But forget about that.
Ami's First Job
Animal: Let's talk about your career history.
Ami: Why? Are you recruiting?
Animal: I'm not recruiting you.
Ami: Then why are you asking?
Animal: So the people can get to know you.
Ami: Who? Other recruiters?
Animal: Yeah I guess so.
Ami: Well, my career started in 1983 and has been an uphill battle ever since.
Animal: What was your first job?
Ami: My very first job was as a clark in a bookmakers shop. I was the person behind the window taking bets. [This was in England]. I was very avid about the International Workers of the World in those days and felt a need to mobilize my workforce so we could rise up against the capitalist lackies who were keeping us in bondage. So I ordered five copies of the IWW manifesto and distributed them amongst my peers and the following day I was fired.
Animal: How did that happen?
Ami: He called me into the office and said "You're fired".
Animal: I mean how did the management find out?
Ami: I was very effective in communicating the value of labour and everybody went into the office asked for a raise.
Ami's Initial Strategy
Ami: Listen, can I make a suggestion? Since this is the anniversary of my blogging career, let's go to my old site and go through my archive and chat about my favourite posts.
Animal: Okay.
Ami: Well the first one I would pick would be one from June of last year called "Cheezhead: Mastermind or Millionaire?" I realized that I could draw attention to my blog by writing about well known people so I posed some questions to Joel. He said he would answer but one year later I'm still waiting for a reply.
And here's one that attacks ERE. You know I wanted to write for them but Todd Raphael rejected me. He said that they don't take articles from vendors. And Todd's refusal to let me contribute to ERE led me to start my own blog.
The next one is called "Sumser, Davis, Goldberg, Cheeseman: How thought leaders funk us out." In my early exploration of blogging I noticed everyone applauding them as thought leaders. I thought that the term itself is 1984-ish and it begs the question "What is a thought leader?".
Animal: What is a thought leader?
Ami: I don't want to go there. Do you think this is a good idea? Going through my archive? Because I'm thinking that a lot of the things are not relevant anymore.
Animal: What would you like to do instead?
Ami: I don't know. What would you like to do?
What I've Learned
Animal: Well lemme axe you dis. You seem like an oddball to me. You wanted to come in like a guy from Mars and study the Recruitosphere. Why? Other people just dive in.
Ami: I guess it's my analytical nature. I'm not clever and I'm not well educated and to be accepted in better company I have to study things long and hard so I can understand them.
Animal: So what have you learned?
Ami: The most profound lesson I learned is that by forcing ourselves to research and clarify your ideas you enter a process of discovery and self questioning and self development.
Animal (Snore) Anything else?
Ami: And I learned that when you meet someone in person the voice of their writing changes so much that you cant remember who they were before. Because before you meet the person you are a consumer of the content but after you become an appreciator of the person. After I meet them I feel like their writing is being said to me.
Animal: Can't that work in reverse as well? You struggle to create a persona online and then when people meet you they see that you're just an ordinary guy.
Ami: I don't think you have to worry about that. And I don't mean that unkindly.
Animal: Thanks.
Blogging vs LinkedIn
Ami: And here's something else. I was one of the early people on LinkedIn and I can tell you that in the one year that I've been blogging I have made many many more meaningful connections that I have in a number of years on Linkedin.
You know those old time barbershops where people used to just hang out and talk. The way we live today in this urban blight, it's taken away those physical venues. And the blogosphere has served us as a replacement. Ask me another question.
The Role of the Audience
Animal: Has your blogging changed during the year you've been blogging?
Ami: Yes. I've learned how to write for an audience. At first I was writing for myself, not to please others. So my sentences may have been too long or convoluted or the number of links might have been impossible.
Animal: When did you make the shift?
Ami: When I became a sponsored writer. A paid blogger. There is a huge difference blogging for your own amusement or for your own personal ends vs blogging as part of a corporate mandate to do something that can be measured in terms of greater engagement of your audience or greater revenues from your marketing efforts.
Animal: So what are the differences?
Ami: There are many but essentially here's the challenge. In order for a blog to be somewhat effective it has to be authentic. I can't have a degree of authenticity because there are no degrees of honesty. You have to be transparent or you corrupt the medium. But how do you write in that context when you don't want to compromise your authenticity even when you are communicating something that doesn't reflect what you personally think or feel.
Animal: It's being a hired gun. You're being a mouthpiece.
Ami: Here's the problem. If SimplyHired wants to hire someone to write for them, they will gravitate to someone respected in the field. So, they come to you because you do your own thing well. But once you become a spokesman, you can't do that anymore. Blogging in business as opposed to blogging as a personal endeavour is a very different thing. The blogging becomes a means to an end.
Animal: So what's the answer?
Ami: I don't know the answer because blogging in business is too new a medium. I don't think there are any best practice models.
Animal: You've spent a year studying blogging and that's all you've got?
Ami: Do you want me to lie?
Animal: But Ami, isn't that always a problem? Even when you write for yourself you are taking the tastes of your audience into consideration. At least if you want to get a lot of hits you do.
Ami: Why do we look at a metric as a validation of your blogging? If you blog for ten people who are enriched surely that's better than getting a thousand people to glance at your stuff and move on.
The Experimental Nature of Blogging
Animal: Listen, did you learn anything practical about blogging that will help you make money on a blog?
Ami: (sighs). No, not really. Can I give you an analogy? If you put an oil rig in a known field you will get oil very quickly. It will take much longer if you go into uncharted waters exploring for oil. So blogging is not unlike exploring. The rewards are significantly deferred in experimental fields. How much money do pharmaceutical firms put into a new drug before they can monetize it?
Animal: I hope your boss isn't listening to this.
Marketing via Blogging
Ami: I could stay in print advertising even though I know that its value might be depleted soon. But...
Animal: But you must have had a sense that there was something worthwhile in blogging.
Ami: Well, yes. Explorers have to have a sense of where they are going or they will get lost. The real thing that drew me to blogging was the idea that I could develop an alternative to the decline in the response rate of my usual email marketing. If you realize that you are drawing the last drop of oil from your well you need to find an alternate.
Animal: Did it prove to be one?
Ami: I don't believe that email as a marketing tool is on its last legs.
Animal: You had thought that.
Ami: Yeah. When you see something is sickening it's natural to wonder if it's terminal. But an illness forces you to study your situation and you can come back healthier than before. I'm at that interesting point of recovery and the sickness has been the spur.
Animal: Did blogging relate to that?
Ami: Absolutely. It has become an intrinsic part of it
Animal: So the key seems to me to be that you are using the email to direct people to a page on your site that has relevant postings from the blog down the side of the page.
Ami: No, no, no. That's just using the blog to upgrade a static site. What I'm talking about is how do you change the problems associated with how people feel about unsolicited commercial email to make them desire that email and complain when they don't get it.
This is the key. Traditionally we send an email designed to create an immediate call for action or indirect call for action. Buy one now or come to my site then buy one. The impact is on now and the shelf life is brief.
But what if you could send emails that had immediacy and a call to action but if they weren't acted upon could sit in your inbox waiting to germinate. An email that had no expiration date. That would be a wonderful thing.
Animal: Who's going to keep that email in their inbox?
Ami: If you find it interesting you'll save it so you can read it later
Animal: So how do you get people to find it interesting enough to save it and how does it relate to blogging?
Ami: Well, the first email I send may take them to an article by Jeff Hunter. The next one will link to Systematic HR. And the next to HRMDirect. That is going to disorient the reader to the point of stimulating them.
Animal: You cant figure out why this guy is sending you to all of these interesting sites.
Ami: And if every 5th email drives them to your site you have them coming back to your site with greater frequency than before. And you are supporting the blogging network.
And if I condition you to think my stuff is interesting and you don't have time to read it you will keep it. You will save a bunch of them and when you do a keyword search that is relevant to my business, you will run across it and suddenly I'm there at the right time at the right place. I know that sounds convoluted.
Animal: That's OK, I wasn't listening anyhow. No, seriously, you have a good idea. You are saying that the blogs showed you where the good stuff is that you can use to entertain your clients for free. So you become a filter blogger using email newsletters as your blog.
Ami: That sounds good.
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