How to use social media for employer branding

Here are some ideas that you can explore and use.

You may already be doing some of these. Ignore them and utilize the ones that appeal to you and are doable.

Content marketing can play a big role in executing on your employer branding strategy.

Content marketing is nothing but solving the customer problem (prospective employees) in this case – by using content.

But before we go out to bring traffic to employee focused section of a website – we should put our house in order.

If you are a global business create a locally focused video to feature on your local website.

Design your employer brand pages as landing pages. Designed to engage, connect and convert (means getting visitors to apply).

Once the core is fixed – ideas like social recruiting and other digital interventions can become more effective.

Think about potential questions that a prospective employee may have and answer those questions through a plain vanilla FAQ section or even better through a series of short videos – where existing employees or head of HR or head of business answer those questions.

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In terms of tactics,

Twitter cards can be used to showcase employer branding and taking them to Careers / Job site

One can use infographics to communicate what is needed for a particular job and what is in it for the applicants.

Instagram can be used to showcase life at a company. See this Instagram account by Crowdfire, a Mumbai based global software products company.

Also see how the company mentioned above Crowdfire (earlier JustUnfollow) uses Quora to build its employer brand

This is a top notch answer

http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-India-have-the-best-workplace-cultures

but others are good and relevant too.

http://www.quora.com/How-is-it-to-work-with-JustUnfollow-considering-they-havent-received-funding

http://www.quora.com/Which-startups-in-India-provide-Macbooks-to-new-hires-as-part-of-technology-budget

http://www.quora.com/Does-JustUnfollow-have-any-internship-opportunities

http://www.quora.com/Does-the-startup-JustUnfollow-offer-jobs-to-only-IT-professionals-and-those-with-a-degree-in-computer-science-or-related-areas

http://www.quora.com/Crowdfire-1/How-do-I-join-Crowdfire

http://www.quora.com/How-many-holidays-do-employees-of-Crowdfire-Just-Unfollow-get-Is-there-a-possible-or-available-option-to-work-from-home

http://www.quora.com/Crowdfire-1/Does-JustUnfollow-have-a-website-where-we-can-get-information-about-the-company-and-its-selection-procedure

http://www.quora.com/Can-an-engineering-graduate-get-a-job-at-JustUnfollow

http://www.quora.com/How-did-Priyanka-Sharma-get-hired-at-JustUnfollow

http://www.quora.com/Which-Indian-startups-are-hiring/answer/Siddharth-Menon

You can also create a team blog and document what goes on inside the company with the help of videos and pictures.

This content (video and text) can showcase the benefits of working at the company for which you are trying to build the employer brand.

Check out http://team.wingify.com/ as an example. This seemingly simple practice goes a long way in engaging with talent communities via social.

Engage employees by running inter-employee / team competitions

example: http://www.starbucks.co.uk/coffeehouse/barista-championship

Such an effort is communicated via an online landing page and promoted using social and emails.

You can run contests like “World’s greatest job” and engage your target community (for example developers) in large numbers.

Also check out this – https://instagram.com/starbuckspartners/

Accompanying blog: http://tobeapartner.tumblr.com/

This is when existing employees become advocates of a brand.

Hashtag driven campaigns on Instagram or Twitter –  http://iconosquare.com/tag/starbucksbarista (here the hashtag #starbucksbarista is used to build buzz. Such campaigns can also drive referrals.

This can be driven by referrals.

If your brand has some won awards like Great Places to Work – make it a point to showcase across social channels and digital media with a well thought out sharing plan for maximum impact.

Identify the best part of working with your company and then build online communities around that.

A localised careers page for India can be created

example: https://www.facebook.com/LorealCareersIndia

and then a well thought strategy for social media marketing can be used to engage those candidates who are active on social.

During past 3-4 years Glassdoor has become more important.

To stay relevant you need to tell an authentic employer brand story and value proposition.

This will help win the attention of specialized talent and will motivate them to follow, engage, and ultimately join (and stay) on their teams.

The focus should be on building longer-term relationships with the right candidates.

Here is what should be done in a nutshell –

Once you are ready with the arsenal to communicate your employer brand and value proposition – you should focus on following,

Content Strategy – creating and curating compelling content and messaging.

This will be done via job boards, landing pages, blogs, videos etc.

Digital Marketing across channels – search engine marketing, banner ads etc

Demand Generation and Nurturing – Segmenting candidates, nurturing campaigns, lead scoring, and ultimately converting at each point throughout the candidate experience journey. This is similar how online sales process work. This is done using a CRM or email marketing software.

Social Media – Sharing of content, engaging with candidates, in a transparent manner – all this is done via social media.

Check out how this company called Buffer shares the salary structure in an open forum – https://open.bufferapp.com/

You need not to go to this level – still some transparent sharing on social can happen.

This finishes with Analysis – to improve future efforts.

Hope you find value in this.

Good luck!