Employment3 Jul 2023
Crafting compelling Employer Branding content ideas
Uncertain times and economic upheavals can create a considerable demand on the job market. Today’s job seekers are looking for companies that care about their employees’ experiences and the employee benefits they can provide.
And they are more vocal about their employment experience than ever before. Just in Australia, Glassdoor has close to 50,000 reviews. Social commentary and reviews can both enhance and tarnish an Employer Brand identity, portraying either a positive, neutral or negative image in the eyes of prospective employees. The question is, as an employer, are you influencing it?
One of the most powerful ways to influence your Employer Brand reputation, is by crafting and deploying suitable branded content about your authentic employee experience.
“Employer brand content should be human, real, aligned to your value proposition and ideally where possible story-based.” Simon Druery - Employer Brand Strategist
Belong Creative has helped many companies successfully articulate their Employer Brand messages and portray an exciting, yet authentic picture of the work culture and employee benefits.
An excellent example of Employer Brand content creation is the 89 pieces that were created for Roche Pharmaceuticals. Based on their EVP, collateral included employee quote cards, long-form stories, video stories, workplace photography, iconography and website banners. Check out our case study here: https://belongcreative.com.au/projects/employment/roche
Employer branding content techniques and strategy
Employer Brand content helps organisations paint an authentic picture of the work experience in the eyes of prospective employees.
To ensure your communications are more effective, it’s ideal to have a strategy for your Employer Brand content, rather than just creating and deploying ad hoc. A content strategy should include;
1. A balanced split of key messages that reflect your EVP pillars
2. A balance of leader and team member content
3. Be reflective of your diverse people, roles and environments =
4. A content calendar for next 6-12 months based on your overall Employer Brand strategy (e.g. increase awareness, launch EVP, support brand advocates etc).
5. Work one month in advance to create content ready for following month
6. Review and measure 1 week before end of month to optimise deployment of following month
There are quite a few techniques companies can utilise to bring their Employer Brand content to life. Some of these techniques include:
1. Give employees permission and tools (like video creation or storytelling templates) so that they can become active participants in creating engaging content
2. Create shareable Employer Brand content (e.g. digital post images that reflect your EVP) for social media and empower employees to post regularly at key milestones
3. Make your career website more engaging with engaging Employer Brand content such as employee stories, photos, written and video testimonials, or even virtual tours
4. Use storytelling techniques to take your audience on an engaging or even emotional journey; leverage a great career progression example, or a work/life balance story that might pull at the heart strings
5. Use more authentic pictures and videos of employees as this will further engage your audience making your Employer Brand more relatable
How to craft and execute an Employer Brand content strategy
Employer Brand content comes to life best in the context of an employee story. As humans we love to tell, share and recall stories. It’s part of our DNA as mammals. But how do you know which employee story will create the engagement and what channels to use to engage the target audience?
To properly craft and execute an Employer Brand content strategy, there are various stages to go through:
The first step to creating Employer Brand content lies in defining the purpose of developing the content in the first place.
Be clear on what goals you want to achieve with the content. There is no single content that can help complete multiple marketing objectives. You may need a multi-pronged approach over time.
For example, if the objective is to generate candidate leads versus change candidate perceptions or increase Employer Brand awareness, then you will need specific content production to achieve these different goals.
After setting up your marketing objectives and the type of content that can help achieve them, it becomes important to then define the kind of marketing channels that the audience will engage with your content.
It’s important to create content that is suited to each specific marketing channel. For example Facebook content may be more playful, Insta more aesthetic and LinkedIn more about thought-leadership. Keep in mind these are not rules, but by understanding what sort of content works on each platform will make your content more engaging and therefore more effective in building your Employer Brand.
Also you will need to apply a different strategy to building brand awareness as opposed to promoting open jobs roles. Knowing where your future talent is ‘hanging out’ online can be a good opportunity to build awareness before then targeting job offers.
Your Employee Value Proposition will help inspire and guide you in formulating Employer Brand content that will more likely attract the right prospective employees. Look at your strategic pillars and align your employee stories to these. For example one pillar may be ‘growth’ - so build a plan to create and share stories that are growth-related, i.e. career growth, company growth, personal growth, relationship growth with customers or mentors.
After creating a compelling EVP as a foundation for your Employer Brand, it's time to plan the content that will help get the most engagement from your target audience.
Depending on the candidates’ stage in the recruitment funnel, determines the type of Employer Brand content required. For building awareness, video is easily digested and shared amongst digital networks. Consider more polished ‘evergreen’ or ‘hype’ videos that capture the essence of the employee experience. These can be promoted on your social media and be a hero piece of communication on your careers website.
In terms of consideration stage, you may wish more in-depth employee stories that are role-based. This makes your content more relatable to prospective candidates who can then see themselves ‘in the job’. Content at this stage could be written stories, punchy quotes and photos and even more video that is role or team specific.
More employers are utilising high-volume video to produce content at scale in an authentic way. Quick videos about what teams are challenged by and working on right now has a sense of immediacy. These type of videos are great both on socials but also as part of the decision making process for candidates. Imagine adding one of these videos to a traditional recruitment process email. It may just make all the difference.
So depending on whether the target audience is at the awareness stage, consideration stage, or decision stage of the ‘candidate to employee’ funnel, it can be very effective to produce suitable content to meet the different needs and requirements to support the journey.
Storytelling is always helpful as a form of brand content that engages the target audience. It is advisable to centre your story around employees to boost credibility and build trust.
And what can lead prospective employees to become more attached to the employee story is to associate with their challenges or problems and how the employer helped that employee come out of it.
Social media is a cost effective way to leverage your Employer Brand content, creating engagement and building brand awareness at scale.
The type of content and its writing style will vary according to the social media platform. For example, if you want to use LinkedIn for prospective employee engagement, then it's best to use articles, recent work samples, share best employee posts, and highlight how you support employees. Whereas on Facebook you may share photos, milestones and events that have a more personal and playful side to your employee experience.
Rather than being on all platforms, just start with just 1 or 2 and do it really well. Then branch out and experiment, always optimising as you learn. Technology like HubSpot can also help with deploying content across multiple social platforms to reduce administration time.
To know how your Employer Brand content performs, it's helpful to measure the key performance indicators such as visitors, views, likes, shares, comments etc. Which type of content is getting the most engagement and which is not and when is the best day and time of day to post. You now have a guide to help optimise your content creation.
Beyond your social platform analytics, you can also use Google Analytics to see how prospective employees engage with your various careers pages.
You may also review your traditional recruitment metrics to see if your quality of hire is improving over time.
Frequently asked questions
What are the three critical components of Employer Branding?
The three critical components of Employer Branding are employee brand advocates, social presence and careers page.
What should be included in Employer Branding?
To craft a strategic Employer Brand, first develop an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) built around authenticity, relatability and differentiation. Your EVP should include proof points, (uncovered through research), themes (or pillars) that inspire your messaging and help set you apart, as well as a narrative and talent tagline.
Next, make your employee brand advocates are empowered to use social media, so they can share employee stories and thus enhance the reach of your employer brand.
How can an organisation build a compelling Employer Brand?
To build a compelling Employer Brand, you need to follow the following steps:
1. Conduct an Employer Brand audit
2. Understand what your business goals are for your Employer Brand
3. Develop an effective, research-led EVP, as foundation for your Employer Brand
4. Empower your employees to become brand advocates and share employee stories
5. Measure the effectiveness of your content and optimise
