15 Jul 6 Steps to Build your Employer Brand with Social Media

Three out of four people will research your company’s reputation before considering to apply. You may be using various resources to screen candidates, but they too are sifting through social media sites to survey how you are as an employer. To be their employer of choice, it is crucial to build a positive brand experience when potential employees learn about your company online. Social media allows your organization to do this through creative and low-cost strategies for candidate attraction. Follow these 6 steps to amplify your employer brand through social media:

1. Focus on the platform that works best for your business

You should maintain an online presence through as many social media channels as you can. However, some channels may be more suitable for your brand than others.

Facebook: Facebook is best for reaching a larger audience. It is a good platform for two-way communication which helps in building relationships, showing the human side of your business and turning candidates into loyal followers and ambassadors.

Instagram: Instagram stands out as a platform that focuses on visuals, both image and video. Its best advantage is that it allows you to tell your brand’s story and culture through unique and engaging visual content.

Twitter: Twitter is the go-to platform if your business is about immediacy and if you want to reach out to followers with in-the-moment information. It is best for curated, original and easily digestible textual content, such as lists and quotations.

LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the largest professional social network where you can showcase your employer brand and build your corporate identity. It can help your talent build their own professional brand, gain knowledge, and engage with other talent through social conversations.

2. Craft your profiles

Design plays an important role in social media branding. You want your design and content to be consistent on all your channels so that your target talents instantly recognize your employer identity.

Optimize your company bio: It is crucial that you don’t miss out on the necessary information such as short company description and contact information. You need to communicate exactly who you are immediately.

Build your own professional brand: Representing your organization on social media is a must if you want to attract other professionals like yourself. Thoughtfully craft your online profile so others can understand what you and your company are about.

Carefully design posts: It can be very helpful to have templates especially if there are different people in the team doing your employer branding content. That way your fonts, colours, designs and voice will always be consistent.

3. Develop your voice

Every employer has a unique personality which should be reflected in your social media posts. This requires developing your social media voice: the way your brand communicates in every update you post regardless of the social media channel. To find your own voice consider these three elements:

Company culture: What is the culture like at your company? That is what your company stands for, is about and what makes it special.

Audience: Speaking in a way that your audience connects and relates with is very important. Know your target market and learn their lingo.

Authenticity: Whatever your social media voice develops into, make sure it is genuine to your brand. Studies show that honesty is the number one trait customers want from brands on social media.

4. Engage with your audience

You can start building awareness for your employer brand on social media by engaging and interacting with other users. This will give them a good reason to stick around and keep up-to-date with your company.

Respond and connect: It’s as simple as replying to tweets and commenting on Facebook and Instagram posts. Your audience wants to talk to real people and by reaching out to them you also strengthen your brand and attract new leads.

Share creative content: If you produce engaging content that your market enjoys e.g. informative articles, infographics and YouTube videos; your followers will grow organically and you’ll gain engagement as well.

5. Post consistently

It is critical to post content regularly if you want to maintain your audience. How often people interact with your brand on social media has an impact on how much they connect with it. With this, you’ll succeed in staying in their social media feeds and your brand will stick in your audience’s minds.

Frequency: The ideal posting frequency is 1 per day for Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, and 3 per day for Twitter.

Organization: You have to make sure that you’re publishing content efficiently rather than sporadically. One way to do this is by creating a content calendar. This will help you monitor your social media postings and plan your messages in advance. Using a social media management tool like Hootsuite will save you a lot of time for planning and scheduling your updates.

6. Track your performance

Lastly, you need to measure your social media performance with hard metrics. Most social media platforms now provide free analytics that can help you in building a better social media strategy and amplifying your employer branding efforts. Useful metrics include:

• Number of reactions
• Days of week/times of day that your audience are most active
• Number of clicks per post
• Demographics of your audience like age, gender, location, and interests

Practice these simple steps everyday, for just a few minutes and you will not only be able to amplify your employer brand but also pull in people who will be a better fit to your culture.

Find out more from our partners at TalentView, experts in helping grow employer digital presence.