What is your company’s brand?

People love stories. Your employer brand is one of them, it tells a story about your company. Whether created on purpose or not, you do have an Employer Brand. Nevertheless, it may not be the one you want…

Nowadays, Employer branding is one of the most important facets of a company’s image. Personal brand shows who you really are, employer brand shows what your company’s identity is. It is your employer value proposition, i.e. what makes you different.

The employer brand is all about how employees feel at work. About the opinion you want candidates to have about you. Not only it helps to share your values and your corporate culture, but it also shows how working for you is like. How you treat your employees may also give a hint about how you treat your clients. So, you better take care of your employer brand from now on.

Improve your whole staff

A great employer brand is essential for your company’s staff. In order to succeed, you need to attract talent. Productive employees are key to a successful company in a competitive market. Employees that feel good at work see their motivation and engagement grow. They are thus more productive, improving your financial performance.

Any HR manager’s dream is to discover that rare gem that will boost the company thanks to their talent and dedication. The top talents are looking for the best company as they would look for the best phone to buy. Being the one they chose to apply for may only be possible if your employer brand is positive and attractive. Otherwise, those top candidates will go to companies whose image stand out from the crowd.

Define a clear branding strategy

You got it, controlling your employer brand is definitely a must. Keep in mind that you cannot totally control it though. Indeed, you can only try to make candidates think something. Their opinion may depend on things you have no power over. For instance, reviews on Glassdoor, how media talk about you or a different manner of thinking.

There are several ways to build a strong employer brand:

• Highlight the reasons why working for you is enjoyable. What benefits you provide your employees with.
• Show testimonials from your employees. Convince candidates that they won’t regret joining your team.
• Be clear with your job offers as applicants’ time is valuable.
• Use social media as much as possible to show your office, your staff and how great it is to work for your company.
• Encourage your own employees to share their point of view. Both on your management and corporate culture.

The more accurate you are when looking for talented employees, the best applicants you’ll have. Therefore, you both filter out the best candidates upstream. That saves yourself precious time and you make them more comfortable. Win-win.

Marketing and HR teams working hand in hand

Your marketing team can take care of most of these elements. Even so, corporate branding is as much about Human Resources than Marketing. Your image is directly impacting the next steps of the hiring process. Thus, Employer Branding strategy should be a priority in your budget.

The fact that most people nowadays look for jobs and companies’ information on the Internet from their mobile is an invaluable clue. Especially when you are aware of the power videos have on mobile browsing or online overall. Marketing videos are the most powerful type of content. It will make your employer branding reach the next stage. Users are a lot more receptive to videos than to anything else. The human eye catches movements a lot better than fixed elements. Animated visuals are also remembered much easier. According to Hubspot, the human brain processes visuals sixty thousand times faster than text.

Besides, Google loves videos. With embedded videos, your website has fifty times more chance to show up on a Google Search front page. In case that’s not enough yet, 90% of people reported that videos helped them make a purchase decision. As said previously, the exact same process is practicable for someone looking for a company to work for.

Use videos to better reach a bigger audience

As you’re aware of now, there is not a single reason to go without videos when it comes to employer branding. You can use them for pretty much anything relevant to your image. Share them on your social networks afterward too.

Show your employees in an authentic, unscripted way. Each one of them is special and has a story to tell about their stay with your company. Make them freely talk about how they feel working for your company. Make them answer a bunch of questions that identify them. Give viewers an idea of how your company could welcome them as well. Keep in mind that not everyone is at ease in front of a camera. Knowing that, don’t force yourselves to produce anything. It must feel natural and deliberate.

Show your corporate culture. Share your vision and objectives. Make your audience feel that they could very well take part in your company’s adventure as well. However you do it and whatever you show in your videos, try to think unconventionally. You have your own identity and thus must have your own ideas, insofar as possible.

Your videos should always meet a length requirement. Short enough to keep the viewers’ attention, long enough to provide quality content. Videos prove to be much better at keeping people attentive than still images. But we still have a rather short focusing capacity. Overall, the ideal duration is somewhere between thirty seconds and two minutes.

Get your employees involved

When it comes to your company branding, you alone are not the only one to be able to take action. What you think about your image and your management may be flawed, as you are most likely the one who designed it. Some people might wary about the lack of impartiality you could show when talking about your own company. The ones they are likely to trust are your employees themselves.

Their everyday life at the office is directly related to your corporate branding. They are thereby in the best position to talk about it. To improve your employer branding, you should definitely encourage employee-generated content. Share whatever great stuff they upload about your company or their professional lives. Encourage communication and don’t be afraid of them giving their point of view in public. If your management is fair and likable, they will return the sentiment a hundredfold.

Once again, employee generated content has a much stronger effect if shared in the form of videos. The next and last step is employer brand maintenance. You must refresh your content when it gets old. Maintain good relations with the users too, through comments and replies online.

Learn from others

Not convinced yet? Here are a few examples of great employer branding video campaigns that totally rocked.

• The emotional: Etsy (check Making paid parental leave work at Etsy)

Being sentimental may seem simplistic or even silly. Yet, when handled correctly, finding the sweet spot is one of the best ways to make people feel emotions. That enables you to use that powerful lever to make them love you.

• The inspirational: Jet (check Come Join Jet!)

Get people pumped up and engaged while they sit in the metro or at their table watching your website. Sounds impossible? It is not. Inspirational videos bring fresh air and usually stimulates viewers, encouraging them to act.

• The personified: Twitter (check “Meet our team” section on Twitter Careers’ page)

The story of your company may be interesting, but it is still vague, somewhat impersonal. People’ stories are much more able to catch viewers’ attention and to make them feel special. It is fundamental to give your company a human face.

• The hilarious: Betts Recruiting (check Sh*t Recruiters Say)

Off-beat humor works all the time (provided you’re not dealing with grumps). As they say, make her laugh and you are half-way there.

Build a strong employer brand. Keep it up to date. Convince the applicant. It is a long-term endeavor. It requires a lot of investment, both financial and in time. However, doing so is definitely worth the commitment. You’ll both improve your workforce and rethink your own employer brand.

You have it made.

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