Blog tells stories sourced through employee-generated social media accounts

The #WeAreCisco talent brand from Cisco Systems has become one of the best examples of using employee-generated content in the social media field to attract recruits. The Snapchat account is well known for its daily employee takeovers. The “Life at Cisco” blog grew out of these accounts, an extension of the Talent Brand team’s goal of creating a connection between employees and the external world of top talent. Now it’s taken first place in the “Blog” category of Ragan’s 2018 Employee Communications Awards.

The blog employs long-form storytelling about how employees live and work at Cisco and what makes the company a great place to work. According to Cisco, “This is where our employees share how a project they worked on impacted the world, and what Cisco means to them beyond 140 characters or one great image.”

The content is sourced from the various social media posts where employees share the #WeAreCisco hashtag. After identifying potential stories from these social media accounts, the team reaches out to employees to get permission to share the photo and story.

The blog receives some 9,000 views per month, with people spending 3–4 minutes on the site, suggesting the team is achieving its “personal connection” goal. It even featured a blog post from a new employee who wrote about wanting to work at Cisco because she read all the blog posts about working at Cisco.

Congratulations to Cisco’s Carmen Collins and Casie Shimansky.