Welcome back to the ultimate guide to employer branding strategy! In the first part of this 10-step guide, we covered the foundation of your employer branding strategy: your company culture and employer value proposition, your target audienc, your talent competitors, and your campaign goals.
In this second part of the guide, we will go into more detail on how to carry out your employer branding strategy. Let’s get started!
6) Decide on Your Channels and Content
Remember how we discussed in the first part of this guide how to define your target audience? Great! Now take those candidate personas or profiles that you created and think where you can find them, that is, what communication channels should you use to reach your audience? While LinkedIn is a given for most companies, you can also include other social platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or a blog, depending on your target audience. In addition to online, consider also including offline channels, such as Meetups, campus collaborations, and recruitment events. Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew! It is better to start off with fewer channels and consistently use those, than to get involved with every possible communication outlet and then abandon them because you didn’t have time for all of it. And hey, if you do end up having the extra time, you can always add more channels.
In addition to deciding on your channels, this is a good moment to plan what type of content you want to share on each of them. As you plan the content, keep in mind your campaign goals that we determined in the first part of the guide. For example, if one of your goals is to brand your company as a great place to learn, you may want to consider organizing Meetups where your team members share their knowledge on specific work-related topics. Or if your goal is to receive applications for a certain position, you could plan social media content that encourages candidates to apply.
In this step, you may want to partner up with your marketing team to make sure that your employer branding strategy will seamlessly fit with your organization’s product or service branding efforts. Topics you should consider discussing with your marketing team include the consistency of brand voice, frequency of posting, and whether you will use the same social media profiles or rather keep it in separate accounts.
7) Get Your Careers Page and Glassdoor Right
Regardless of what other channels you may have picked for your employer branding strategy, there are two channels that can hardly be missing in your plan: your careers page on your website and your Glassdoor profile. Why? Because you can be sure that any aware candidate will be looking for more information on these two channels when they decide whether your company is the right place for them.
Your careers page should include not only an updated list of your current openings but also information on your culture. You should explain at least your core values, mission, vision, and employer value proposition. Consider also using more interactive content such as employee testimonial videos, “A Day in the Life of Our Software Developer” stories, and even quizzes that allow the potential candidates to evaluate how well they would fit in your culture. Think of your careers page as a window for your potential future talent to take a peek inside your walls. And make it interesting enough so they will knock on the door, too. 🙂
When it comes to Glassdoor, first of all, make sure that you have a profile and that you have the ownership of that profile (on Glassdoor, a company profile gets automatically created when somebody submits a review on your company). Once you have a profile, make it as complete as possible, including useful information on benefits and other insights that candidates may be looking for. Also, respond to the reviews that you receive. Yes, even the negative ones! No company is perfect but by responding you will show your audience that you are taking all the feedback into account and making improvements.
8) Find Your Brand Ambassadors
While you will most likely share the majority of your employer branding content under your company’s name, you can make your message even more powerful if you get your employees to spread the same message. This will create positive word-of-mouth. See, people are more likely to trust information when it comes from a peer, rather than a company.
Find the employees who would be keen on working as your brand ambassadors. They are typically people who really live your culture and are active on social media, going to events, and otherwise sharing their experiences. Ask them to spread the word and share your posts on social media, write blog posts on the company blog, or attend events or give presentations or workshops. You can also create a hashtag, such as #lifeatourcompany and encourage all of your employees to use it when they post pictures from team lunches or share job openings with their network. Long gone are the days when employers prohibited employees using social media during work hours!
9) Plan It Out
Just like any strategy, your employer branding strategy needs to be consistent and continuous in order to make an impact. If you only post on social media occasionally or organize a Meetup once and then forget about it, you are not very likely to really engage your audience.
In order to ensure the consistency, create a monthly calendar where you lay out all the things that you plan to do for your employer brand. Depending on the amount of content, events, and other activities you have, you may want to consider having a separate calendar for each channel. In addition to the actual content, also think how frequently you are going to use each communication outlet. Finally, if you plan to post lots of content on social media, you should consider setting up a content management tool that will allow you to schedule your posts beforehand. This doesn’t mean that you couldn’t post spontaneously, you absolutely can! But scheduling any content that you can ahead of time will save you a lot of time and effort.
10) Monitor, Measure, and Adjust
Wow! So your strategy is all put together and you are ready to launch, congratulations!
While you have done a HUGE chunk of work already, it doesn’t end at launching your campaign. Remember when we talked in the first part of this guide that the campaign goals that you choose need to be measurable? Well, now is the time to start measuring them. For example, if your goal was to grow your database of candidates to a certain number, record how many resumes you receive as a result of your efforts. If you see that you are not reaching the goals that you set to your strategy, consider first if they were reachable. If they were, make adjustments to your strategy. It is completely normal that you need to experiment and try a couple of times before you really nail it.
Finally, monitor the interactions with your audience on your social media channels. Just like the Glassdoor reviews, respond to your followers’ comments, even if they were not always positive. Things can get quickly out of control in the internet so the faster you respond and the more transparent you are, the better you will be able to handle those situations.
We are all done! Now you can get ready to start attracting and retaining exactly the right talent. And if you still have questions about creating your employer branding strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out!
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