How Content Marketing Can Invigorate Your Employer Brand
3 Tools to Connect with Your Talent Communities
Are you making the most of your online talent communities? Do you wish you were better at communicating with them but not sure how to start?
In the race for top talent, organisations must stop taking their talent communities for granted and start building strong, meaningful relationships with them so when the time comes – they’re ripe for the picking.
This week I continue my blog series on the value of content marketing for your business, and explore how it will boost your employer brand within your talent communities.
It’s about an 8-minute read – but obviously worth it 😉
Neglecting Your Online Brand Affects Your Talent Pool Quality
Organisations that neglect their online brand deny themselves opportunities to develop and communicate their awesomeness with the world. A strong employer brand is crucial for the modern job seeker and how you present yourself online will affect the number and quality of your applications.
Younger job seekers, especially, will google a company’s reputation or seek referrals from friends and family before applying for a role, regardless of the pay or privileges offered. So, if you don’t have a reputation to begin with, you’ll find yourself lagging your competition and struggling to attract quality candidates to your roles.
How You Can Use Content Marketing to Enhance Your Employer Brand
If you’re an organisation that’s completed a recruitment process online (I’d like to think we’re all working in the 21st century on this one), you have access to many wonderful email addresses and candidate demographics.
Whether you recruit using your own CRM, or online platforms like Linked In or Live Hire, you have access to a hungry and active job-seeking talent pool. But, what are you doing with them?
Content marketing enables you to communicate a clear and consistent employer brand, personality, values, and purpose across all your marketing channels – email campaigns, blogs, and social media.
So, instead of wiping the slate after every recruitment campaign, use content marketing to develop your brand and employer value proposition with an already engaged audience – your talent community.
1. Start with engaging emails
You already have a large list of eager email recipients that most businesses would be envious of! Email subscribers are worth gold in today’s content-driven world – don’t waste them.
Invite candidates to join your talent community. Then, start sending them friendly, engaging, and helpful emails to connect with them, introduce your brand, and demonstrate your value.
Consider:
What information can you offer that your talent community will find helpful?
What stories, advice, titbits do you have going on that will engage them with your brand?
Share your story, mission, values, and corporate goals
Celebrate your people and diversity; their stories, their roles, their successes
Celebrate your successes; your social proof, industry awards and recognition
Shed light on your processes; why does your business operate in a certain way? Can you bust any myths that make your business and its people more human and engaging?
Share your advice for job seekers; why do you seek specific skill sets and traits? How do you recruit? How can your talent pool improve their applications, interviews, resumes, and communication style when applying for roles in your organisation?
When candidates have a better understanding of your business and the people you already have working for you, they figure out whether they’re a fit or not. Bonus - if what you offer ticks all their boxes, they’ll be even more determined to work for you. They'll tell their mum, neighbours, friends, and the family pet how amazing you are #aspirations.
You'll lay the foundation for a strong, long-term relationship with future employees and brand ambassadors #winning.
2. Craft insightful blogs and e-newsletters
Blogs and e-newsletters can be targeted to talent communities and internally for your employees. A weekly executive blog or e-newsletter written by the CEO, CFO, HR Manager, or other high-profile leader in your business builds their personality and the organisation’s brand.
Personal reflections and insights demonstrate your organisation’s culture and make your leaders more human and approachable. Internally and externally, it demonstrates authentic leadership and boosts employee engagement (like, #winwin).
Just make sure you’re promoting your blogs and e-newsletters with your intended audiences – it’s no use writing a blog if you don’t share it! Facebook, LinkedIn, or a monthly whip around for your talent pool subscribers will generate the engagement you need.
3. Share your stories on social media
There are so many channels for you to build and promote your brand – the trick is finding where your audience is hanging out! Because, you don’t want to waste time hanging out at the school disco when your peeps are all down at the milk bar.
So, let’s break down the demographics for a few.
LinkedIn. In terms of an existing talent community – LinkedIn is your best fit.
If you're an organisation that recruits through LinkedIn, do you continue communicating with your talent contacts – or, do you file them away in their job pool until the next suitable opening pops up?
Don’t waste this relationship – Establish a connection, boost their engagement, and keep them warm! So, when the day comes you need to recruit for this role again, you’ve got a frothy candidate who’s been biding their time waiting for you to dish something up.
When it comes to your company page – don’t just make this a boring job board! There’s so much more you can do than a random, soulless job post advising people you’re recruiting. Maintain your online presence with frequent posts, share your executive blogs, employee stories, and industry news and awards.
Show some personality (in a professional, no cat memes sense) so you don’t come out cold.
Demographic:
675+ million users worldwide.
303 million active monthly users.
Working professionals, predominantly 30-49 years-old.
Facebook. Still the platform with most number of users. It ranks second in terms of usage, after YouTube.
If there's one thing I'm used to hearing from businesses, it's, 'but, I'm not on Facebook I don't want to use it'. Ummm... but, everyone else is.
Facebook isn’t somewhere you can churn out scripted replies and soulless crap. It's a social site – it’s there for people to build relationships and forge connections. So, keep it real, keep it light, keep it helpful.
Post questions. Share photos or videos of your office, your staff, your projects, and your events. Give people a realistic preview of life in your organisation. And, if they ask you a question or they engage with you and comment on your page – respond. Immediately.
Don’t leave ‘em hangin’ or they’ll hang up.
Demographic:
Everyone.
YouTube / Vimeo. Oft overlooked – video platforms will be your best friend over the coming years as more content moves to video format.
YouTube is the world’s most popular video sharing site and most used platform.
On average, 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds! There is much evidence that proves people prefer to hear information in a 2-minute video than they do in text (especially the boomers). So, if you don’t have YouTube or Vimeo to share your stories… start. Now.
Demographic:
13 – 64 years old.
Slightly more men than women use YouTube regularly.
Instagram. Instagram has moved into more video sharing. A popular social platform due to its emphasis on the visual and storytelling, it enables organisations to share an authentic story. Plus, it’s uber personal because there’s usually high use of human faces.
Why does this matter?
If you’re sharing faces, you’ll get the hits, baby. Because, the psychology behind it is - we are all human. We are all social beings. We all crave connection.
Also, Instagram is a pretty niche audience and will be of no use to you if you’re targeting middle-aged men.
Demographic:
Predominantly females, 13 – 29 years old.
Snapchat & TikTok
Predominantly 13-29 years-old.
McDonald’s famously used Snapchat for a recruitment drive.
Where to start? Build Your Content Calendar
Now you have a better understanding of how these content marketing elements help you boost your employer brand – you need to build your content calendar.
Spend one day mapping out your key business events and key recurring dates (ex. Every Monday the CEO publishes their blog, International Women's Day), so you can start plotting in how your marketing strategy all fits together.
If your business needs a strategic approach to your employer branding communication - get in touch to book your free consult.
If you want to keep reading - check out these other posts from the series:
How Content Marketing Enhances Customer Relationships and Generate Sales
Are you ready to build a sparkling employer brand that lures top talent? Get in touch!