EmployeeScreen celebrated its 10th anniversary last August, making it a grandfather in the hotly contested market for employee screening services. The landscape is dotted with more than 1,000 companies, many of them specialized boutiques, according to Nick Fishman, chief marketing officer and executive vice president. EmployeeScreen has thrived in that environment in part due to a diversified set of social media programs that deliver education and insight that draws more than 3,000 visitors to its website each week.

It was almost an accident three years ago that EmployeeScreen began to develop its social media presence. An early experiment with search engine optimization yielded a huge lift in traffic, which emboldened EmployeeScreen to go further. Today, its EmployeeScreen University draws thousands of human resources professionals each month to a slate of articles and audio/ video podcasts, with about one in four visitors clicking through to EmployeeScreen’s main website. Its active blog helps sustain its position near the top of search engine results.

The success has enabled EmployeeScreen to reduce its dependence on advertising and to engage with prospects at a deeper level. It's also demonstrated a greater truth, says Fishman. “One small guy can make very big waves.”

This episode was guest hosted by Paul Gillin (@pgillin) of Paul Gillin Communications. Paul was founding editor-in-chief of TechTarget, one of the most successful technology media entities to emerge on the Internet. Before that, he was editor-in-chief and executive editor of the technology weekly Computerworld for 15 years.

Paul writes a regular column for BtoB magazine and contributes to various blogs and online publications. He’s also a Research Fellow and a member of the advisory board of the Society for New Communications Research.