Discovering and Promoting Your Own Authentic Employer Brand Image!
The world is heavily saturated with brands of all types, so finding your own, authentic image can be very difficult. However, making sure you stand out while also being true to yourself is vital for your future success.
Additionally, if your goal is to build a strong reputation with a positive company culture, the quality of your brand image will play a significant factor when considering your awareness, exposure and engagement levels with future customers/employees.
Along with quality, your brand message also needs to align with your values to ensure that you have a succinct representation that reflects your offering.
“When you think and operate in unique ways internally, you can produce the unique identity and image you desire externally.”
To create your brand image, start with your Employer Value Proposition
Prior to the creation of your brand, understanding what your employer value proposition is, and what you can offer your employees is a significant step to discover your USP and your differentiating factors. This phase is vital as you’ll have a greater understanding of what to include in your message and where you are positioned in the marketplace. For example, if you’re proud of your collaborative, positive workplace – transfer this into content to share across your platforms and let people get to know your brands personality.
Along with understanding your EVP, it’s recommended that you recognise the importance of presenting your branding on and offline to then implement within your marketing strategies. Click here to read around this subject further.
Now I’m sure you know what branding is, but for anyone who has little marketing knowledge, here’s a brief explanation:
Once you have gauged the importance of your branding and how to discover its personality, let’s get down to business… What factors do you need to think about when creating your brand?
When creating or regenerating a brand, there are many different factors you’ll need to take into consideration to ensure you’re putting your own stamp on it:
Be true to your employer brand image message
Creating something unique can feel like an impossible task in the current market as more and more brands enter the employer branding field, however, the key to forming your own brand basis is to be true to who you are as a company, what you believe in and your future goals.
One of the most important areas to focus on when starting to build a brand of any type is to define your brand values and the same is true to employer branding. Always start with the why, why you exist as a business and why someone should come to work for you and this should always be carried through every piece of content you create and every message. The why should define the culture of your business and this is where the unique element becomes more obvious. No two companies will have the same set of values and these values will attract candidates to your company by showing that you have an employer brand they can trust and form a sense of loyalty with.
Once you have defined the why and created a strong EVP, the real secret to being truly authentic is to weave an interesting story into your messages. What you are trying to do here is not only promote your message, but to create an emotional connection with your audience.
Assess your USP for your employer brand image and share it
Now that you have defined your employer brand USP’s, it’s time to share this across social channels to get your message out there. Before starting any social media campaign, we always recommend that serious effort is put into research regarding your target audience as once you start to think about any social media efforts as connecting with people as opposed to profiles, your message will be naturally more relevant. By creating more relevant content, you will gain traction and maximise your reach to help grow your following.
Getting the message right
Even the more serious brands are taking a lighter approach to their marketing messages. Think about the last time you scrolled through Facebook and which messages from brands resonated with you the most. No one is looking to be sold to on social media and the same applies to pushing your employer brand image.
People are looking for something interesting or something fun – which translates to something they are more likely to share. These people become your own extension to your marketing team. Helping spread your message across a larger audience. So, focus on creating content that will make your audience smile, which still staying true to your brand values. This is when the real magic happens.
Other things to consider when creating your employer brand marketing strategy that are equally as important include things like including visual elements whenever you can. Social media content with images is much more likely to get shared! Audiences are also keen to share things that are of some sort of educational value, weave this into your visuals and stories and you’ve got the hat trick for success.
Final thoughts
If you only remember one thing from this blog, then please let it be this – be human!
Or to put it another way – be real! Social media is called social for a reason. Keep this in mind when creating your content to promote your employer brand online.
Engage with your audience and promote a reaction. Create a strategy that helps facilitate natural conversations online. Respond to comments, thank people for sharing, treat the profiles as people and you should really see your followers increase. The end gain of all of this effort is that you will effectively recruit, engage and retain a strong team of the very best people for your business. What’s not to love about that?
