
Whether you’re a hotel or a hospital, finding talent is becoming a challenge. Source: Shutterstock
The missing manual to employer branding on social media
TALENT is in short supply, and hence, companies need to find ways to better engage the talent pool.
Known as employer branding, this is a task that human resources (HR) professionals have recently taken on, and some are doing an exceptional job of it.
To the untrained eye, a post on a company’s Facebook or LinkedIn profile about a new office they opened, announcing the start of a new employee, and talking about the team’s sporting activities might seem like an attempt to add in some variety.
In reality, however, it’s a careful strategy to let the right talent pool know what the company stands for and what it aspires to achieve.
Getting started with employer branding.
# 1 | Find interesting stories
Look within your business and find interesting stories about your staff. Spend time learning about what they like, things they choose on a daily basis, what they do, their journey to work and back, their lives, things they’ve learned, and more.
Create snippets for social media from what you learn to populate the content calendar. If you’re in an environment where the office setting is quite formal, maybe of people sharing their successes within your organization.
The idea is to create a repository of stories that are real, can resonate with real people, and help your business build a real connection with the talent pool.
# 2 | Build a bank of real pictures and videos
Collect pictures and videos. Whether at events that your company organizes, events your employees attend, off-sites, after-hours, and anything else that represents your team and people, create a bank of real pictures and videos.
Online, visual content works better than text, after all, a picture is worth a 1000-words, right?
Before getting started with your employer branding initiative, make sure you have some videos and photos on hand in order to be able to build some consistency in your message.
# 3 | Begin to foster the culture
The thing is, employer branding isn’t a one-man job. It’s something that’s part of the organization’s culture. So, employees need to learn to actively capture and share content about their activities during the day to help people understand what really matters to them.
An organizations’ employees are their best brand advocates — which is why making this part of the culture is key to bolstering the efforts made by the human resources team.
Great night out with @more_hybrid team last Friday, watching the @BristolBears dispatch Bath! Season tickets with #HybridCareers https://t.co/CfgBgwd1VV
— Gareth Hook (@gareth_hook) September 4, 2018
Kitted up and out on the road visiting @uniofglos getting a sneak peek of the new Business School – looking good so far! @more_hybrid are excited to be part of the new brand #SafetyFirst #outfitoftheday pic.twitter.com/L4QJP9rlh2
— Carolina Santos (@CarooolinaS) July 30, 2018
Employer branding on social media
Once you’ve gotten the basics set up, leveraging social media to actually post content and engage with the relevant talent pools is quite easy.
Here are the basics for organizations looking to build a unique set of followers — professionals who aspire to join the company, work alongside the talented executives that currently support the company, and help the business move closer to its goals:
# 1 | Showcase your workspace
When businesses showcase their workspace, the message that they send out that they’ve put thought into crafting the environment where their employees work, and that’s a very powerful and positive message for prospective employees.
The example below shows pictures of CBRE’s new workspace — and it’s exciting and energetic — but one way to make it better would be to include the people who will actually work there in the shorts.
Doing so generally puts the spotlight on the people as much as it does on the place, speaking volumes about the organization’s culture.
New start for @CBRE_Ireland tomorrow as we formally move to our new collaborative office space in Dublin #hotdesking #fitout pic.twitter.com/3Hqrkme1E9
— CBRE Ireland (@CBRE_Ireland) February 24, 2019
# 2 | Talk about the company’s culture
Your culture is what you make it, and to make it you need to communicate it.
It’s very difficult for an organization, especially a large one, to create a positive culture. It’s something that must be actively nurtured and created by the business and its leaders.
However, when what the organization stands for and what it really intends for its culture to be is put in words and posted on social media, it attracts the right kind of candidates, making the culture even stronger.
Mentorship is a big part of our company culture. That’s why we partner with organizations like @careervillage, where our people offer advice to students looking for an insurance or related career. #ICM pic.twitter.com/orpufaSJao
— AIG (@AIGinsurance) February 22, 2019
# 3 | Highlight the perks and benefits
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.
Organizations tend to do a lot more than just work. They go for events, off-sites, campaigns, and they participate in camps and outdoor activities to foster team-work.
In most cases, all of that isn’t captured and posted on social media — but it should. Obviously, when it becomes part of the organization’s culture to celebrate these special moments, it’ll come more naturally.
But until then, HR professionals must be keen on capturing and highlighting the various perks and benefits of working for the company.
What a year 2018 as been for Hybrid! #TBThursday #HybridCareers https://t.co/S4nmU7Zir9 pic.twitter.com/JPFOWXu04B
— Hybrid (@more_hybrid) January 4, 2019
# 4 | Share your successes
Employer branding is all about telling prospective employees why they should look for a job in the company. And it’s exactly why organizations must share their successes on social media.
Many teams prefer to stay in the shadows, but sharing what awards they won and the efforts they put into projects that won those awards is quite an important step in motivating new recruits to join the company.
Congratulations to Hadiputranto, Hadinoto and Partners (HHP Law Firm), and to our Taiwan and Thailand teams for winning "Best Deal" awards at the 2019 Finance Asia Awards at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong. Read more here. https://t.co/b8lXczTvy5 #transactionalpowerhouse pic.twitter.com/b5SwwJSJbH
— Baker McKenzie (@bakermckenzie) February 18, 2019
# 5 | Celebrate your employees
Your employees do a great deal for you, and recognizing them on public forums from time to time, is a great thing.
In some organizations, recognizing individual employees for their contribution, on social media, might not be possible, hence, appreciating the work that particular groups of employees do in an organization might be a good idea.
As the first Saudi Plant Manager, Turki saw a window of opportunities for positive change. He played a key role supporting diversity hiring across an array of blue collar jobs at Dammam plant. Find your place at PepsiCo Saudi Snack Foods https://t.co/ky7BXJG1kn #PepsiCoProud pic.twitter.com/BBotkgeDgX
— PepsiCo Jobs (@PepsiCoJOBS) December 18, 2018
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