How to use blogging

Today I got a call from someone who asked: "I am responsible for building the employment brand of my company, and we are trying to understand how we can use blogging to do that. What are your ideas?"

The first thing I said was that blogging itself is not important. It is understanding the philosophy behind blogging and other emerging social media that is more important. The Cluetrain dictum that markets are conversations, and only by joining in these conversations will one be able to make your brand relevant to today's workforce.

The question is posed to this person on the phone is: "The question is not whether you need to embrace these conversations...the question is when?"

• Will you join the conversation after your competitors have?
• Will you join them after you are irrelevant?
• Will you join them after the innovators and early adopters have adopted someone else?
• Will you join the conversation when your brand is hardly recognised by tomorrow's decision makers?
• Will you join the conversation after setting up a committee and doing feasibility studies?

Sometimes I think most organizations are hopelessly clueless, and it gives me huge pleasure to see some who are joining the conversation boldly and shaping the conversations.

They get the philosophy behind blogging and social media.

In the end, blogging is just a tool.