Social Media Strategies That Build a Strong Employer Brand

No aspect of life has remained untouched by social media. It was common to hear a couple of decades ago that social media was a ‘passing fad’. But you don’t need us to tell you how social media has profoundly shaped the way we behave and even the way we think.

What we can tell you about is social media strategy in order to help you build your employer brand.

Nobody needs a lesson on how to use social media, of course. But what comes in handy for your employer brand is consideration of certain aspects that will guide your social media strategy.

So you want to build/enhance your employer brand using social media.

What do you need to do? Let’s dive in.

Build a clear employer brand narrative

Random social media posts are aplenty. But if you want to develop a good employer brand, you need sustained social media presence that adheres to the workplace environment that your company offers the employees.

So think what you want to be known for as an employer. Consider these points:

• What does working here feel like?

• What values show up in day-to-day behaviour?

• What makes employees stay?

Answering these questions can be a solid start to an employer branding campaign.

Something that catches the eye of ONE person rather than generic posts

Let there be a connect in your posts which you feel will keep ‘one person’ hooked. People checking social media posts do so on their phones, and a ‘single person’ is looking at the content at any time. Social media users are of course in millions. But for effective employer branding, the tone of your social media posts should be directed at addressing one person. So it follows that generic usage like ‘Hi friends’ or ‘To all my followers’ should be discarded for effective employer branding.

Remember, you are speaking with just one person through your social media posts made with employer branding in mind.

Be specific, not generic wherever possible

This is an extension of the previous point. Your social media posts can showcase employee stories with narrative set through good editing. Even themes like ‘behind-the-scenes’ can be explored. For example, a short video of how your employees collaborated, preferably showing them actually performing that task, can send a positive message about work culture in your company. This is huge from an employer branding perspective.

Other themes are: team wins and learning moments, day-in-the-life stories, video quotes from employees (organic, not polished).

Using leaders as brand amplifiers

Top leadership of the company talking with the company’s social media followers is a way to subtly showcase how accessible they are in general.

The bosses can talk about team achievements, lessons learnt from a project (this showcases humility embedded in the work culture), company values in action, and so on.

Choosing the right platform

The very early social media users are now in their 30s or 40s. This is definitely not to deem someone as ‘old’, but the point is of building your social media with demographic in mind.

Various surveys have shown that Millennials, who were in their early teens when Facebook arrived on the scene, still check their Facebook updates. Younger generations like Gen Z and Gen Alpha are way more expressive on Instagram. Lately, Millennials have been thronging LinkedIn. YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) have similar but unique trends on their platforms.

For a great employer branding campaign for your company, you need to take into account similarities, differences and unique traits associated with each social media app and modify your content as per these variables.

Using employee-generated content

Despite all care taken by your company’s social media managers, a ‘professional’ touch may noticeably persist in your company’s social media posts. Encourage your employees to share work-related content they’ve made. More often than not, this can click due to its ‘raw’ nature.

Here’s how Let’z Talk can help you employ and execute these strategies and more

Let’z Talk is your employer branding partner. Our Workplace Well-being Diagnosis takes an overall view of the workplace culture in your company to suggest improvements (and capitalise on strengths) that are a win-win for the company and its employees. The diagnosis gives us (and more importantly, you) a perspective on which strategies are to be used to develop a workplace culture which, in time, will be organically aligned with social media content strategies.

Let’z Talk creates compelling social media campaigns for you underlining your brand-strength. It maintains consistent messaging across your company’s social media handles; consistent not just in content but also with respect to your short, mid and long-term goals.

We improve the internal communication within the organisation to create an authentic leadership voice and also a workplace environment where constructive suggestions are fearlessly voiced.

Let’z Talk works with you to develop a cohesive culture and employee experience in your company which is aligned with your organisational goals. Creating an environment reflecting your company values for everyone to experience; from onboarding to daily interactions; is a major factor in creating a workplace where employees thrive.

Want to build an employer brand people genuinely connect with? Reach out to Let’z Talk.

FAQs

• Why does social media matter for employer branding?

  Because that’s how you come across to your potential employees who do a thorough search while applying. Before or during application process, they are scrolling thorough your Instagram, LinkedIn and more to get a feel of the place.

• What’s the first step in building an employer brand online?

  Figure out how your employees actually feel while working in your organisation. Junk the fancy words, take efforts to know the workplace culture from your employees’ point of view. This is of immense importance to create a social media strategy.

• Should employer-branding posts sound personal?

  Yes. On social media, people don’t read posts as a crowd. At any given time, ‘one person is reading your post from one phone’. If your tone is personal. There’s a greater chance your employer branding effort through social media with resonate.

• What kind of posts feel real to job-seekers?

  Anything that is not overly polished. Naturally expressed emotions make best social media content. A short clip of a team celebrating a win, a quick ‘day in the life’ moment can engage a person better than a textbook-perfect post.

• How should company leaders add credibility on social media?

  When a top boss speaks openly, even casually, in a social media post, he/she connects with people. Applicants value real humans at the top, not robots or job titles.

• Which platforms should companies actually focus on?

  Where your future talent hangs out. Gen Z is on Instagram. Professionals and Millennials are all over LinkedIn and FB. Each platform has its ‘personality’. Keep this in mind while designing social media strategy for employer branding.