One of these days I am going to take a camera crew and just walk into a company and ask “tell me your story”. Every company, like every person has a story to tell. In the business of employer branding we want to tell a compelling story that reaches a targeted audience and answers the question “why should I leave my job and work here”? Thus the guerrilla style plan of busting in unannounced and recording or live streaming your employees responses!
So when you have a great story to tell, where do you share? What are the outlets for reaching a mass target audience? There are tons, but below are six that you can start today!
Job descriptions
Add links from your YouTube videos and share within the footer or create hyperlinks within the body. Keep the job descriptions to a minimum amount of words and let the video speak for itself; nobody has time to read your novel of repetitiveness, besides it is better to show than tell. Don’t have a YouTube careers channel? Get Google, create a channel and upload videos.
Employees
What do you think your hundreds or thousands of employees talk about every day with their friends and previous co-workers outside of the office? The answer is YOU! Give them something to talk about. By the way, they are talking over their social networks everyday (many times during work hours) so give them something to share….video links, clips from Vine, photos on the corporate Facebook page….provide digital collateral that does not suck and watch your employer brand grow (also known as Word of Mouth).
Duh!!! Of course people are looking for information on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn stream is bubbling over with links, stories, videos and those stupid “IQ” test about “the next number is…” The best time to strike on LinkedIn is 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Yep, that’s how employees are starting their days so why not give them a message or link of the day (or week)? Also, show and encourage them to place video links in their profile and share company information (like hot jobs) in their profiles. Send them the message and they will post it!
Pictures
When you see a picture who is the first person you look for….yourself? Tag your employees with in picture of company events (cool, fun stuff, not a boring meeting) and they will share. Create a sense of family with the people you see for 8+ hours per day. There are great places to share images including Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, G+ etc…. Oh, and it’s ok if employees share these during work hours, because they are going to anyway.
Blogs
Let your employees have a voice! Create a campaign around new hires or why someone left (insert big company name) to come work for your start-up. This is a great place to have employees write posts or create videos and share their experiences. Create a blog calendar were at least 3 times per week your employees have an opportunity to be the journalist. Host the employee blog on your corporate careers page within the directory and watch you SEO value increase without paying out the butt for it!
Vine
It’ real, it’s short and you can embed it! Create contests around employees sharing their thoughts on the company in short, creative clips. Maybe a real-time “what’s happening around the office now”. Take the best ones and embed them to your career site.
There are tons more of these idea and great places to tell your employer story! Watch closely because I very well may bust up into your organization with a camera and ask “why do you work here”? It will only be accessible to the 8 billion people in the world with access to the internet.