While the Talent Attraction community at large may be investing more than ever in their employer branding (EB) efforts, many have been tasked with building out an EB strategy on a shoestring budget. To those who may be bootstrapping their way to the top, take a deep breath because we’ve got your back. We have put together an action plan to help you on your EB journey.
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Know your “why”
Start with discovering your “why”. What attracts and retains your top talent and what is your organization’s promise to its people? This is your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). It’s also the foundation of your Employer Brand, so naturally, it’s where you want to start.
You can help discover this critical component to your people strategy by speaking with employees via interviews and focus groups. You can also use surveys to collect this information.
It’s also critical to layer upon your EVP where your organization is going over the next few years and to determine who your critical talent populations are. From there you can build talent personas to deepen your understanding of these populations and what channels they may be utilizing to consume content.
Be consistent
Once you are aware of your EVP, critical talent populations, and have built talent personas, it’s time to determine key messages and your visual identity. Consistency is a critical element to any brand.
Imagine walking into McDonald’s to order a Big Mac. You can easily identify its building from others due to steady use of images and colour, which is essentially its visual identity. You are aware of what McDonald’s stands for due to how they consistently communicate with their customers. You are not expecting a $50 steak and are thrilled with your Big Mac as it delivered on its promise of consistency thus further building brand trust. This is the power of consistency and how you build a brand.
Understanding who you are, consistently communicating your messages to the world, and honouring your brand throughout your employee lifecycle is critical in building brand trust.
Amplify your story
With your EVP in hand, key messages determined, storytelling tools such as your visual identity mapped out, it’s time to share your epic story with the world.
Check out these low-cost ideas to help get you started:
Build content on social media
Consider visual storytelling tools such as Instagram and Facebook. They are free to use and create dynamic and authentic content for your prospective talent to get to know your brand.
Keep in mind that unlike a consumer brand, many people “checking out” your profiles will not opt to follow you for fear of the ask to follow back. Many candidates wish to keep their social media profiles private but will investigate prospective employers prior to accepting a job or even applying. Round out the content available to candidates by offering them more to see and read than simply employer reviews.
Mobilize a social team
Empowering employees to share your story is highly effective. Select and train employees to be “social scouts” and look for great social moments to share on the feed. These scouts may be given direct feed access or serve as “content collectors” for the curator to have final say.
Additionally, organizations looking for increased employee advocacy may want to check out our new employee advocacy app. This branded app is included in all our managed social media programs or may be purchased as a stand-alone tool. We built this branded app to help organizations empower all their employees to become social ambassadors while the company remains in full control of what is published on the feed. It’s the perfect fusion of authenticity and employee engagement meeting brand consistency and control.
Use video
Create a YouTube playlist of great office moments or archive video on Instagram or Facebook. Our view is that highly produced video may look great, but we feel credibility is stronger with informal selfie style employee led video. Give a tour of the office, capture highlights of a great event, tour the neighbourhood, etc. The opportunities are endless.
Blog
Add a blog and write about hot industry topics by highlighting the quality of the talent you have at your company. Awesome people want to work and learn from awesome people. Blog your way into brand relevance.
Optimize for search
Not everyone is aware of SEO (search engine optimization). SEO helps search engines rank content and display the most relevant pieces to users. Great SEO means discoverability. From strong titles to keyword tags, be mindful of SEO with each and every piece of content you create.
Employer Branding on a budget is totally doable! It takes some skilling up, a whole lot of self awareness, and some major hustle but it so worth it in the end.
Looking for more help without the cost of a full-service employer branding engagement? We are excited to share with you how we are disrupting the Employer Branding agency model and making EB accessible to all! To learn more about The Employer Branding Co-Operative, our exciting program that helps organizations big and small afford an Employer Branding strategist on their team, give us a shout.