How to Create A Convincing Brand Part 1 of 3

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

The popularity of social media has accelerated the convergence between HR and Marketing, and attracted special attention on employment branding. Employment branding is all engaging candidates, looking at them as potential customers and transforming them into brand advocates. Employment branding is a new dimension of marketing and is the most advanced form of social recruiting.

Companies have started to flock anywhere and everywhere they see potential candidates and customers. Whether they are tweeting out open job listings, hosting virtual career fairs public networks creating compelling videos on Youtube, or pinning company branded material on Pinterest, recruiters are everywhere. No longer do they stay behind the veiled curtain and are inaccessible to the everyday candidate, but recruiters are now seen as the first line of defense (or marketers).

According to a report sponsored by Jobvite.com, over 51% of job seekers are using social media to land their next opportunity and like marketing you better be where the customer is or they won’t purchase your product or apply for your job. Human resource professionals no longer are responsible for process payroll or benefits: they are now in charge of attracting the best talent to their organization. To do so they must be able to share their story across different platforms. Here are some of the top places that recruiters and HR professionals should be in order to successfully brand their company:

Career Site: One of the top places a candidate will be visit on their search for a new job will be your company’s career site. This is considered the hub for sharing your company’s story and should be used to highlight employees, your company’s culture, and everything that makes your company stand out from your competition. However, you can't put everything on your career site: candidates can be lost. Offer them to enter your talent network and within your talent networks, create "circles" targeted as your various types of candidates.

Corporate Blogs: Blogs are one of the best places to share your message. My favorite employment branded blog is Nuts About Southwest where the marketing and public relationships department showcase everything big happening at Southwest while highlighting their employees. Using TalentCircles, you can create blog posts in each of your circles and, here again, offer your audience very targeted messaging.

Video: Well written employment videos will help your company truly relate, engage, and tell a story about the company culture and environment going beyond your standard careers page. Job postings with video icons are also viewed 12% more than postings without video. This should encourage your staff to get creative and start posting more videos to go along with open job requisitions. From a candidates perspective they’ll be able to see what is happening in your company and be enticed into joining your talent network and eventually work for you.

Employment branding is not one single message that you broadcast to everybody with catch phrases that company would be able to come up with. It's the art of showcasing what makes you different and more interesting!

Next week we will take a deeper look into the employment brand and the importance of candidate engagement through various touch points.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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