There’s no better source of brand credibility for your company and workplace than your current superstar employees – those who, with a little guidance to support their enthusiasm and creativity, can sing your praises across all the right channels and effectively engage others in your story.
Authenticity matters. Compelling images, video clips, and employee testimonials speak volumes about what it’s like to be on your team and grow with your organization. And candidates want to hear what your current employees have to say. Their accounts are more sincere and believable than anything generated from your senior management or corporate office.
Here are some ideas for empowering these brand ambassadors to get the good word out there as they generate social content on your behalf:
Create different channels for employees to share content.
You may want to use a hashtag such as #lifeatABCCompany and encourage employees to share it with their contacts and in their own social feeds.
- You also may want to consider a secondary channel for sourcing employee-generated content, just in case people don’t want to share from their personal accounts or aren’t active on social media. To do this, give employees an email address where they can send content for posting on their behalf. Then your team can post the content on the company page.
Offer training sessions for advocacy purposes.
Hone your employees’ social media skills so they feel comfortable and can fully participate in online conversations. As a result, their posts will be optimally effective.
- Your training curriculum might include an overview of social media, guidelines for its use, information on why people might want to become active on various platforms, and tips on how to create and share posts.
- Provide some essential do’s and don’ts, along with examples of strong content, but allow employees to be creative and from the heart with their posts.
Share employee-generated content on the right platforms.
Which social media options make the most sense based on your specific objectives? Where do your most desired candidates hang out online?
- Instagram’s stories feature is a great way for people to have their voices heard. Candidates often visit Instagram to pick up on various companies’ cultures. It’s also a strong platform for building brand awareness and keeping prospective hires engaged.
- People continue to be accustomed to LinkedIn – and it historically draws traffic to career sites. LinkedIn users are typically likely to take action based on what they find.
- In addition to the tried and true, include some new and different platforms in your social communication plan. The key is to target your media, as well as your message, to your specific desired audience.
Track performance and share the wins.
Closely track how employee-generated content is performing. Then share these metrics with internal audiences – aka company stakeholders – to garner continued support and encourage more content to be developed and circulated.
Whether it’s shoring up your social media approach, developing your career site, building your brand, or other tactics for successful recruitment marketing, Haley Marketing can help craft the strategy that will deliver the results you need, even in the face of today’s highly competitive talent marketplace. Contact us to chat and set up a free 30-minute focus call.