With our world becoming more digital every year, having a digital presence is essential for companies that want to attract top talent. Each company should put effort into creating their brand as an employer and ensuring it represents what the company actually is.
For example, If you look at Google, most people will tell you it is a search engine. But most people also know about Google’s reputation as an employer, and many people dream to work there just because of the office perks and benefits.
Google cares so much about creating the right brand that allowed filmmakers to shoot The Internship at their headquarters in Santa Clara, California. This was an effort to show how the giant tech company treats its employees. Your company doesn’t have to go that far. Here are some steps to follow to grow a digital presence and attract top talent.
Evaluate Where the Company Stands
The first step to build a digital presence is to know where the company stands regarding employer branding. You can start from the inside by doing surveys with your current employees. You can ask questions about how they like the company’s culture, what they think of the benefits, and if they are likely to recommend the company to a friend.
This will give you the first insight because, after all, your employees are the first source of information and the best advertisement. Second, you can do surveys of other groups outside the company, like stakeholders and targeted audiences, to know what people think of you as an employer.
With these two, you should be able to make a digital marketing strategy and plan how the company will build up its digital presence.
Define Your Audience
Part of the marketing strategy is defining your target audience. Implementing a marketing campaign on any platform without a targeted audience will only result in disaster. You have to know who you are trying to attract. How old are they? What platforms do these groups use most? What are they looking for?
The reality is that you will want to attract different groups, depending on the professional needs at a given time. But, it is crucial to at least target one or two groups at a time. If you try to reach them all, you will most likely fail. For example, maybe start targeting millennials, who are a very defined group when you are trying to fill an entry-level position.
Use Social Media
After clearly defining your audience, you can enter the world of social media platforms. There are a ton of different social media sites, and they change depending on the audience. However, the most popular are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. It would help if you used all of them to promote the company’s culture.
You can make sure to add social media profiles where the candidates can see it. They will enter the company’s profile and see the content of real employees enjoying their work environment. If you create constant exciting and beautiful content, candidates will probably start to feel FOMO.
You can share team events like company parties or happy hour Fridays. It also helps to encourage your employees to share on their social media about their work experiences. You can create an outline of dos and don’ts to guide employees on how and what to post.
If you hire a social media manager, you can create a profile that will make other company’s employees want to quit their job to work for you. They can also create template posts that employees can slightly modify and post on their profiles.
Monitor Review Sites
Besides social media, there are other platforms where employees can interact with your brand and that you can’t control. These are peer-review sites where employees can leave reviews about their experience in your company. Some of these websites are Glassdoor, Indeed, and The Muse.
Employees can give their honest opinion about the company’s culture, environment, perks, benefits, and salaries on these sites. Each site has different features, and some offer more information than others. They also rate employee satisfaction and work-life balance.
Generally, the company won’t have a say in what your employees say. Plus, some of these sites let people give their feedback anonymously. So, you should always monitor these to know what they are saying about the company. It is vital to have great reviews because they can have an impact on the company’s employer reputation.
Improve the Company’s Website
Most companies nowadays, if not all, have a webpage with some information about them and their products or services. A great website will have detailed info about the company’s mission, values, and team members. Maybe include some information about its history. This will give the candidate an insight into the company and the people behind it.
A good strategy is to include a page about careers, open positions, and information for potential candidates on the website. You can also have info like employee benefits and perks to encourage them to apply.
When a candidate first sees one of your job postings, the most likely next step will be to visit your website. And if the site is optimized and has the right information, it will convince them to apply. It will be even better if you include a form for candidates to apply directly to your platform.
Offer Development Opportunities
In Summary
The competition for top talent is vicious, and you should implement every strategy possible. Some things you can do is develop and grow your digital presence to increase your chances of attracting the best candidates. To do this, you can evaluate where the company stands, define your audience, use social media platforms, monitor review sites, and offer growth opportunities.
This article was contributed by our partners at Career Karma.
