How to Use Social Media for Employer Branding

Social media is not just about networking with friends; it has now become a serious platform for exploring business opportunities, shaping the global culture, and expressing political views.

The ability of social media to reach out to a vast number of people has provided employers with an opportunity to attract valuable talent. Recruiters today use the power of social media in their end to end recruitment process strategy to source and build talent pipelines.   

With social media gaining momentum in the fiercely aggressive employee market, the term employer branding is slowly and steadily growing in importance.

So, what is employer branding?

Simply put, employer branding is the process of promoting a company, or an organization, as an ideal employer to potential employees, which the company wants to hire and retain.

Through successful employer branding strategy, the company is able to attract, recruit and retain top talent in recruitment.

Social media and employer branding

Nowadays, social media and employer branding go hand in hand to give an excellent opportunity for businesses of all sizes to showcase their culture, their people and their brand to attract top talent.

Why it is important for your company to be present and active on social media?

The world of social media is transparent. Today, both employers and employees can find everything about each other through a Google search.

If you want to be visible to your target talent group, just having a company website isn’t enough. The new-age employees will dig deep to look up for information on the internet and will analyze your employer brand on the basis of what they see online. It is therefore critical for employers to keep their social media profile current and updated.

If the company profile is not updated, your potential employees will find your employer brand unreliable or uninteresting. That’s not good at all for any brand.

Therefore, it is important for companies to leverage social media to build your employer’s recruiting brand and improve your online presence.

Using social media for recruitment is also known as social recruiting or social media recruitment. Here are 4 ideas to strengthen your employer branding using social media.

1. Make use of visual content to promote your brand.

Content has taken different forms over time. Visual content is one of them. Use this form of content to publish your brand story and help people visualize how rewarding it would be to work with a company like yours.

Use photos, videos, share stories across various social media platforms to showcase your office culture, employees, teamwork, R&R, events, projects, etc.

2. Be where your candidates are.

The most popular social media networks are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. However, not all of these platforms may be beneficial for you.

You need to be present where your ideal candidates are. So, before you execute your social recruiting strategy, ask these questions:

Which social media platform does your ideal candidate prefer? Where do they spend most of their time?

Wherever they are, whatever they are doing, you need to be there.

3. Open the communication channel.

Being responsive to your audience is the key to engage them. It opens the communication channel and gives you an excellent opportunity to start a conversation.

Make sure you keep your conversation going; ask questions, respond to comments and likes, reply to questions in a personalized manner, and always be prompt in your communication.

4. Encourage employees to be your brand ambassador.

Your existing employees can boost your brand on social media like nobody else. Encourage them to share videos, photos of events, insights into the company culture, etc. on their social media channels.

Using a social media strategy for employer branding is a way of striking a conversation between you and your potential employees. If done right, social media can help you a build positive employer brand and attract top talent.

Good luck with employer branding on social media!

Author Bio: Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager for Jobsoid – Applicant Tracking System. She is responsible for leading the content and social media teams at work. Her expertise and experience in the field of HR enables her to create value-driven content for her readers – both on Jobsoid’s blog and other guest blogs where she publishes content regularly.