Digging Into RecruitingBlogs,com v1.12

The Stats and The Hot Spots

Last week, 102 New Blog Postings. This week, 111. Week over week growth = 8.8%
Last Week 11 video clips. This week 14. Week over week growth 27%
Last week, 10,000 members;This week 10,551. Week over week growth 5.5%
This week, 164 Groups
This week, 24 new Forum Conversations in Recruiting 101, 38 new conversations in Jobs For Recruiters, 2 Recruiters Looking for Jobs
New Logo
Looks like some kinks still need to be worked out in the Local Meetups world. Any ideas?

So, the community continues to explode. Mendoza arrives back from the Bullfights. The logo contest winner is announced this morning. And, looking at the stats, the growth is absolutely astonishing.

As you can see, the levels of participation are outstripping the actual growth in membership. That means that as time goes on, more and more people are participating in the community in novel and interesting ways. I believe that a community's viability is, in part a function of the correlation between membership growth (which is very important) and participation growth (which is the only thing that really matters);

Here on RBC, we're figuring out how to get much more interesting while adding new players all the time.

What works is being bold. That makes this an ideal setting to practice fundamental recruiting skills. Networking, risking looking foolish, not caring about what other people think...these are all attributes of great recruiting.

Take a look, people are being bold and courageous all over the place.

You gotta respect anyone with enough self-confidence to do this....or this. Part of what makes a recruiter great is this sort of freedom from fear.
David Manaster gets better all of the time. He may be the real social media expert in our industry.
It's Rabbit Month Recruiting Rabbit-- A Children's Recruiting Tale and Peter Weddle's new book, Recognizing Richard Rabbit
A RecruitingBlogs.com Rant Slouch is hot.This is a model of community governance by consensus. Wowee. PS, I always click on Slouch's video clips and get a soundtrack for the rant. He is all multimedia all the time.
Recruiters Must Reflect Company Culture The Animal is making this place a distribution node. Yippee.

Just a reminder. If you see something that you think merits attention, please let me know.

Comment by Slouch on July 17, 2008 at 11:59pm: Hey John, this is a great post. I like looking at RecruitingBlogs.com from your perspective. Thanks for doing this every week.

Comment by Susan Kang Nam on July 18, 2008 at 9:17am: Just read Jason's tweet and came here to read your blog for the first time ~ and great stats. I am in awe.. I agree with you that in recruiting.. or in anything in life.. what works "is" being bold.. risk looking foolish.. as I am a complete newbie.. and not caring entirely on what people may or may "not" say.. all contributes to great networking, sourcing and recruting. Thank you for this post~ look forward to your future blogs John. P.S. I must admit.. sense of humor too goes a long way ~ I definitely enjoyed few postings so far that really got me laughing.. and peeked my interest here at RBC further..

Comment by Amitai Givertz on July 18, 2008 at 9:35am: John, your post raises some niggling questions:

1) To blog posts and video clips:

-- Does posting anything regardless of where it came from or where it points automatically equate to value?

-- In your context of community, if the purpose of the post is blatantly self-serving does that count as "participation?"

-- How is 8.8% growth meaningful?

2) To 164 groups:

-- The largest group is Recruiters on LinkedIn with 977 members. That represents less than 1% of the total membership. At what percentage of the mebership joining would one say we have "group participation?"

-- Most groups have fewer than 20 members [60 have fewer than 10] and serve little purpose for "community building." If you average it across the entire membership each group has less than 0.01% participation. What can one conclude from that?

3) Forum conversations:

-- How many of the "conversations" actually have replies or conversations going on? Without question there are a few but overall what's the picture?

-- Same question for forums as with posting: If the purpose of the discussion is blatantly self-serving [i.e. placement on the homepage] can that be considered "community building?"

4) To your point:

I believe that a community's viability is, in part a function of the correlation between membership growth (which is very important) and participation growth (which is the only thing that really matters)
John, I agree with you and therein lies my fourfold concern:

a) It is hard to see the real correlation between growth and participation in your data or examples. You cite the number of videos added this week and make no mention of the fact that two people account for half of them!

b) That we really don't understand what the thresholds of participation are or could be, where to set the bar for participation [as a measure of success] or how to measure our tracking in any particular communal direction.

c) An analysis of community without adjusting for the core group's participation runs the significant danger of being skewed.

d) Subjective views expressed as objective facts [data] may be confusing, no?

So, what say you?

Comment by Amitai Givertz on July 18, 2008 at 12:59pm: @Rayanne 977 members is just under 10%, not 1%... big difference...
I was wrong, thanks for the correction.

Your perspectives, Maren's too, add a new way of looking at it. I wonder how in the final analysis you think that viewing the value of online community through a personal prism enfranchises the disenfranchised or if that is even important.

Comment by Steven Rothberg on July 18, 2008 at 2:10pm: I also was driven to this blog posting by Jason's posting to Twitter a/k/a tweet. The growth of RB is truly fantastic and yet another wonderful gift to the recruiting community by Jason. The traffic and participation stats can and should be analyzed but I think it is clear whether you look at them from John's, Ami's or anyone else's perspective that RB is strong and getting stronger. We can quibble about just how strong it is and just how fast it is growing but there's little doubt that there is real content and real community.

Comment by Susan Kang Nam on July 20, 2008 at 10:17am: Rayanne ~ you are too kind.. can't wait to talk to you more.. very soon. Also, I have to say.. overall.. in building "any" community.. all efforts and views are subjective.. however if it brings people together to explore similar interests.. that's most important. So many times what lacks is the developing of relationship in anything in life.. in general.. that gets to me (in businesses, friends and family relationship.. and how can I forget about among "some" recruiting professionals.. ). In my perspective, without that, nothing works. My 2cents input of the day!~

P.S. I enjoy seeing Maren's video because it gives another perspective on things related to the chats I participate via Susan Burn's cafe every Tuesday at 3pm. To me it's "real" and that's also one of many reasons why I participate and come back to RBC to learn, network and grow. As for the rest of the participation.. let it be organic.. it will grow even more.. and I can see 20,000 around the corner for Jason's recruitingblogs site. No doubt.