Employer branding refers to the efforts undertaken by companies and organizations to promote themselves as an employer of choice. The goal of employer branding is to make the company stand out, highlight its strengths as an employer, and attract top talent. In today’s digital world, social media plays a hugely important role in employer branding strategies.
Companies use social media to build and project their employer brand in various ways. From showcasing company culture to promoting employee advocacy programs, social platforms allow organizations to shape talent attraction and recruitment marketing efforts. Here are some of the key ways companies leverage social media for employer branding.
Sharing Company Culture and Values
One of the most effective employer branding strategies on social media is to give potential candidates a peek into the company culture. Organizational culture and values play a major role in talent acquisition today. Top candidates want to know if their values align with the company before joining. Social media presents the perfect channels for brands to highlight their culture and values authentically.
Companies can share photos and videos from company events, employee testimonials, leadership town halls, community service activities, etc. to demonstrate their cultural priorities. For example, outdoor brand REI consistently shares its culture of adventure and sustainability through stunning photos of employees biking, hiking, and volunteering outdoors. This aligns perfectly with REI’s target talent market.
Other examples include, Whole Foods sharing its culture of community service and Zappos highlighting its fun and playful working environment. Instead of just stating company values, brands need to bring them to life with real stories and visuals.
Promoting Employee Advocacy
Employee advocacy, where a company’s own workforce becomes its brand ambassador, is a hugely impactful social media employer branding strategy today. When employees share positive experiences about their employer on social media, it comes across as far more authentic to potential talent.
According to LinkedIn, employee posts on the platform generate twice the engagement as company posts. To leverage this, leading brands actively encourage their employees to share company content and promote their employer brand on social media.
For example, companies may share suggested social media posts for employees to publish, offer training on best practices, and even incentivize employees for social advocacy. Software firm Adobe is well-known for its employee advocacy program where workers share Adobe content, events, job openings, etc. and help strengthen its employer brand.
Spotlighting Employee Stories
Today’s candidates want to hear authentic experiences from a company’s real employees. Employee-generated stories, testimonials and interviews can powerfully humanize the employer brand on social media.
For example, global bank HSBC created an employee Instagram takeover campaign #DayintheLife where workers across levels and locations took over the company handle for a day to share their first-person story. This gave followers a genuine glimpse into the employee experience at HSBC across the globe.
Similarly, Deloitte has an employee storytelling series called Humans of Deloitte featuring short interviews with workers across the organization. This adds a human voice and face to the brand and draws talent in an authentic way.
Showcasing Company Awards and Recognition
When a company receives external awards or recognition, especially for people practices, sharing it on social media can enhance the employer brand. It serves as credible third-party validation of the organization as a leading employer.
For instance, leading companies like Google, Hilton, Adobe, and more proudly announce their presence on coveted rankings like Forbes Best Employers, Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, Glassdoor Best Places to Work etc. on their social channels. This builds the employer value proposition.
Even lesser known regional and industry-specific awards are worth highlighting on social media as it positions the organization as an employer of choice in the talent market.
Promoting CSR and Community Initiatives
Today’s workforce and candidates care deeply about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and want to work for organizations that give back to the community. Promoting CSR and volunteer initiatives on social media allows companies to showcase their socially responsible employer brand.
For example, SAP’s social channels regularly feature posts about their Month of Service when employees volunteer globally. Adidas highlights volunteer events by employees to clean up beaches and public spaces. Such posts attract talent that cares about community impact.
Partnerships with Influencers and Campus Brand Ambassadors
Influencers on social media can be leveraged as partners to promote the employer brand, especially to reach Gen Z and millennial talent. Similarly, partnering with brand ambassadors on target campuses gives access to student communities.
For example, PwC UK recently collaborated with influencer and YouTuber Lucy Moon to create short videos highlighting PwC’s culture, work in the community, and stories from interns and new joiners. It enabled them to reach 500,000+ students and young professionals online.
Goldman Sachs partners with student brand ambassadors on campus who promote its employer brand and job opportunities to classmates through social media and offline interactions.
Paid Partnerships and Social Media Advertising
While organic social media is great, paid partnerships and ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn can expand the reach of employer branding campaigns significantly. Promoted posts, paid influencer content, sponsored stories, recruitment ads etc. allow brands to get their employer brand messaging in front of relevant audiences at scale.
For example, Unilever has run recruitment campaigns on Instagram to reach diverse young professionals. State Street has used LinkedIn’s targeting features to reach underrepresented minority talent in financial services. Paid promotions can complement organic social efforts.
Sponsored Talent Community and Hub Sites
Companies like McDonald’s, IKEA, and Nestle have launched sponsored Instagram hubs and talent community sites separate from their corporate pages just focused on branding as an employer. These hubs use employee stories, fun facts, photos/videos, and recruitment messaging to attract and engage prospective candidates.
The benefit is they provide a casual, authentic vibe for talent to learn about the employer brand away from the more corporate main pages. Hubs are often targeted at college students and recent graduates as well.
Using Talent Communities and Hashtags
Building talent communities and accompanying hashtags allows branding as an employer while engaging with valuable audiences. It also helps create a steady talent pipeline.
For example, #WellsFargoCareers offers career advice and highlights company culture. PwC uses #PwCFamily for employees to share stories and bond as a community. Such branded hashtags tap into social media audiences relevant for recruitment.
Interactive Social Media Contests
Social media contests, quizzes, polls and takeovers that encourage user-generated content are an interactive way to engage talent and promote the employer brand. For instance, Johnson & Johnson has run a Personal Branding Day contest prompting students to share career tips on Instagram for a chance to win a J&J mentorship.
Such contests allow brands to crowd-source content while also engaging students and talent communities. It highlights the company as an attractive, youthful employer brand.
Leveraging Social Media for On-campus Branding
Social media employer branding isn’t just digital – it can crossover with on-campus efforts as well. For example, Goldman Sachs linked an on-campus photobooth activation with a social media contest prompting students to share pictures and stories from the photobooth.
This enabled their physical event tobecome a viral social campaign as well. Such creative social/on-campus crossover ideas help amplify and extend employer branding in a memorable way.
Creating a Recruitment Video Channel
Video is an extremely powerful medium to bring the employer brand to life on social media and build an emotional connect with talent. Maintaining a YouTube careers channel with employer brand videos allows candidates to see the authentic company story.
For example, Home Depot’s career channel offers videos on its culture, community service work, intern and campus programs, manufacturing/supply chain operations, etc. helping candidates visualize the employer experience.
Even TikTok is being leveraged by companies for short culture and career highlight videos. Mini video documentaries can capture employment experiences in an impactful, human way today.
Employee Takeovers of Social Accounts
Having employees take over the company’s official social media accounts temporarily offers unscripted, authentic glimpses into the employer experience for candidates. Goldman Sachs used this tactic well by having employees globally take over their Instagram handle for weeks.
The unfiltered employee access provided followers a real insider’s perspective into the company’s culture and work through fun Instagram Stories. It humanized Goldman’s employer brand in an organic way.
Leveraging LinkedIn for Recruitment Messaging
With over 830 million members, LinkedIn is key for digital employer branding. Beyond posting job openings, companies leverage LinkedIn to share dynamic team updates, employee stories, awards, values-driven content, and feed recruitment messaging to the platform’s massive professional audience.
For example, for International Women’s Day, Cisco highlighted its initiative to increase female representation in its workforce. The post reached 400,000+ people, promoting its diversity-focused employer brand.
Using Social Listening and Analytics
Monitoring social media conversations, comments, mentions, reviews and more through social listening provides valuable data to keep refining the employer brand and recruitment messaging on social platforms. Sentiment analysis and metrics on engagement/reach of content help assess what resonates best.
Analytics also help track ROI from social media employer branding efforts – site traffic, acquisitions, conversions, quality of hire, cost per hire and more. The data enables continual optimization of social media strategy.
Engaging on Career Sites and Hiring Platforms
While external social media is important, engaging talent on the company’s career site and active talent platforms like LinkedIn Recruiter is also crucial. These owned platforms should have social elements embedded like employee testimonials, photos, videos, employee-generated content etc.
Chatbots and conversational AI on career sites create interactions mimicking social engagement. For example, L’Oréal’s recruitment chatbot provides a personalized conversational experience to candidates on its career site reflecting the culture.
Curating User-Generated Employer Brand Content
Companies can source compelling employer brand content directly from social followers, fans and talent communities by curating and re-sharing user-generated posts and stories. It comes across as authentic to wider audiences.
For example, HubSpot features new joiners announcing their job on LinkedIn. Accenture highlights Instagram posts by employees at community events. Such curated content directly engages audiences as it’s straight from them.
Sharing Peer-to-Peer Recommendations
Referrals and peer recommendations are a trusted source of career information for candidates. Smart companies leverage employees to provide authentic recommendations, career advice, resume tips etc. to their social networks, especially on LinkedIn.
It enables brands to tap into wider peer networks to promote the employer brand. For instance, Amex runs an employee program where workers post video mentoring and coaching for LinkedIn followers interested in learning more about the company.
Engagement from Leadership
Getting leadership like the CEO involved in social media employer branding adds tremendous value. Their posts personalize the company and showcase its mission. It makes candidates feel like leadership is approachable.
According to LinkedIn research, followers are 75% more likely to buy if the CEO is posting. Richard Branson’s approachable leadership presence on social media has become a core pillar of Virgin’s employer brand, for instance.
Conclusion
Employer branding is a strategic imperative for companies today to differentiate their employer reputation, attract top talent, and build the workforce of the future. And social media has become the critical channel for brands to influence talent’s perceptions and shape employer brand image.
From authentic culture sharing to compelling employee stories, companies have a wealth of options to position their employer value proposition on social platforms. The power of branding on social creates the emotional connect with prospective candidates at scale. For modern recruiting success, organizations certainly need to leverage the full suite of social media employer branding opportunities available to engage and recruit the emerging workforce.