Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Employment Branding Using Social Media

How does social media help when it comes to employment branding?

When job seekers want to find out more about your company, do you know what they do?

If you said they go to the company website then you’re a little bit right because a few might tap in the whole URL address into a search bar but the majority will GOOGLE your company name! And yes, you’re web site should come up in the search ( if it doesn’t tut tut!) but now anything being said about your company can appear. Google isn’t just a search engine anymore it’s a social search engine and relies on relevance. If relevant people are saying relevant things about your organisation then it will appear in the search rankings.

So what will a strong employment brand mean?

It will mean that your organisation is like a magnet, attracting top talent
It will mean no more pushing jobs
It will mean reduced recruiting costs
It will mean saving time
It will mean not being bombarded with unsuitable C.Vs
It will help you with retaining talent
It will mean a good message is being heard

What do people think of your organisation when they hear the name? Is your employment branding working for you or against you?

Would it receive the same reaction as Google, Apple, Innocence, a cool place to work?

Virgin, Zappos, Sheraton, Adobe, America Express, Starbucks, Microsoft, KPMG, all of these companies have talent scrambling to get in.

So why should top candidates work for your company?

Find out from your own employees why they love working for you, is it the flexible working hours, the great training, the fantastic career prospects, the creche facilities, the company ethics?

Survey your employees and start building case studies, if you get any negative feedback then use this opportunity to turn your employees into ambassadors. Every employee that talks about their experience whilst working at your company contributes to your employer brand.

“Employees have always owned the brand; they just haven’t had the tools to broadcast their opinions to large audiences as they do today.” Dr John Sullivan

Your employment brand is not owned by you it flows from your employees and is spread by them and with social media it will spread faster than you’ve ever known it.

You must let all your employees know that they are brand ambassadors and that they must represent the company brand when they’re at work and when they’re not at work.

When candidates source information about your company and come across positive comments from employees,it’s becomes apparent that they’ll be joining an organisation that they can trust.

A couple of tips that help with employment branding and to give candidates a better insight to the organisation are:

Have a culture Blog

Where employees can blog & vlog about their work activities, company social events, fund raising days, anything that is done in the name of the organisation.

Zappos does this brilliantly check them out Inside Zappos

Video Tour

Video is so powerful and your candidate will emotionally connect with your organisation if you do it well. Take them on a tour round the company, have different employees chatting, go to different departments, show how your employees unwind..you might have a TV room or have a gym. Show the environment, are you surrounded by lovely countryside or are you lucky enough to have a station across the road and a convenient bus stop.

JOIN Jobhop and spread the word.

Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

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