3 Ways to turn employees into employer brand advocates
When a candidate is considering a company, they head to LinkedIn and ask themselves: do I know anyone who works here? Employee stories are a powerful way to make sure that these candidates form a great impression of your workplace.
So how do you get employees to help share your content on their personal channels? Maybe your colleagues in HR or Communications occasionally share a blog, but you’d like to see more employees share content without being asked.
Here are a few tips to building your employer branding strategy with employees as your greatest advocates, no budget required.
1. Lead a social media workshop and let go of key messages
“Help us share on your social media!”
Ever added this line to a staff communication about some company news and gotten crickets? It’s not an effective call to action when many employees may not be sure why they would share. They may be thinking that it’s kind of awkward to share work stuff on their personal profiles, or maybe they just don’t use social media much at all.
To address this, offer a workshop for employees to encourage them to post about work on their own social media channels. Talk about how they can use each social media channel for their own personal branding, how your organization uses each channel and the differences between tone in channels.
With your employer branding hat on, you may be tempted to equip employees with your “key messages” to make their posts aligned with your brand. However, if you want employees to share authentically, then you have to let go a little. The goal is to create an environment where employees feel empowered to write in their own words, not to litter their feed with corporate speak.
Book a 45-minute optional workshop over lunch, open to all employees who are interested. Here’s what to cover:
How your organization uses social media and the differences in each channel.
What employees could consider posting (e.g. projects they’re proud of, job postings, re-share blogs).
Example posts with high engagement.
Stories of candidates who heard about your organization through an employee’s content.
From there, keep the momentum going. Re-share employee’s social media posts on your company accounts and highlight them internally in staff messaging channels or a weekly newsletter. If you have a referral program, this is a great opportunity to talk about it.
In a remote working world, get creative with how to show visuals of your workplace online. HubSpot is a great example, sharing videos from employees, screenshots of all-hands meetings, and home office setups with #HubSpotLife.
Hear more from HubSpot’s Hannah Fleishman, Sr. Manager Employer Brand on our podcast here.
2. Tell employee stories based on your employee value proposition (EVP)
We can’t talk about employer branding without first talking about your employee value proposition (EVP). Your EVP is a promise to your employees and candidates and should act as your guiding star when it comes to creating your content and messaging. However, as we’ve shared before, the best EVPs are the ones that are reinforced from that inside out. That means it should be infused throughout your employee experience.
If you’re in the regular habit of communicating and celebrating your EVP internally, it’s more natural for employees to communicate this externally too. After all, the most impactful stories about your people are going to come from your employees sharing how they experience your EVP in their everyday work.
In your internal communications, make this connection clear for employees. Give examples of projects or people who personify your EVP through employee profile stories and through recognition programs. For example, if learning and development is one of your EVP pillars, then showcase an employee who has taken advantage of some of your perks and benefits such as tuition assistance or access to LinkedIn Learning in your next employee newsletter! You can ask them to share how these benefits have had a positive impact on their career. From there, your next step is to make it easy for employees to share this content on their own social media channels by providing sample posts that they can edit to make their own.
3. Ask employees for content ideas specific to their work
People like to share things they’re proud of. One way to foster that pride is by inviting staff to be part of the process. In employer branding, we should celebrate work that’s specific to a certain field, even if a general audience may not understand it. Software developers are looking for different things in an employer than someone in marketing or HR. It’s always important to know your audience, and by including employees on teams outside HR or Marketing, you’re inviting them to be part of the process too.
Reach out to a few people at your company and start by getting to know them better. Don’t ask about culture or employer branding specifically — these are abstract terms, and not what most employees think about day-to-day.
Here are a few questions to start with:
What’s something awesome you did at work recently?
What do you like about your team?
What do you tell people when they ask what you do for work?
If you create an environment open to feedback where employees feel part of the process, engaged employees may not only be empowered to share your organization’s stories but come to you with ideas of their own.
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About The Employer Brand Shop
The Employer Brand Shop is a boutique recruitment marketing and employer brand agency located in Kitchener, Canada. Our team helps organizations around the world attract and engage talent using creative marketing strategies.