Employer branding on Instagram is not only seriously fun. It is also – in my opinion – your best option for employer branding out of all the available main social media.
Why so? Not everyone is on Instagram.
You are right. Not everyone is on Instagram. Everyone is not anywhere. But “everyone” is certainly signing up and logging in on Instagram faster than into any other social media right now.
But that’s not the reason why you should choose Instagram for your employer branding purposes.
Everyone is none of our target audience. But if your specific talent audiences are using Instagram on a daily basis, your business should definitely start thinking about adopting Instagram as your main employer brand outlet.
Why is it a great idea to do employer branding on Instagram?
There are a couple of reasons why I eagerly vote for Instagram as the best employer branding social media, when your target audience uses it daily.
I want to emphasize that your best social media choice will always and forever be the social media your target audience uses daily. If they are not using Instagram at all, then Instagram is your worst social media choice for employer branding.
- The visual format makes Instagram a rest for the users brain.
- Instagram forces us – in a nice way – to tell stories with images, not with words.
- Beautiful images evoke feelings. Employer branding is all about arousing emotions and emotional connections.
- There is so much more to Instagram than posting photos on the newsfeed. It is surprisingly versatile as a “tool”.
What most companies get wrong on Instagram (and what you should therefore avoid)?
Social media users are not fan of business profiles on any social media. This is because most businesses are terrible social media user. Even the most boring social media account stands a better chance of getting followers and occasional engagement than an average business profile on social media.
Why? Because most businesses use social media for the wrong reasons:
- To sell.
- To promote.
- Make announcements and publish press releases.
Most businesses are also terrible on Instagram because they totally ignore the expectations Instagram users have for the aesthetics of an Instagram account.
That’s a benchmark for you. That’s what we are facing as business users on Instagram. And that is why we must break away from the bad business habits on Instagram.
How to break away from the curse of bad Instagram business profiles?
Think of your business Instagram profile like it was someone’s personal profile. What would your business be like as an employer if it was a person?
Our culture and values create our persona and our behavior. Our tone of voice gives away how we caption on Instagram. Our dress code gives guidance for our visual appearance. And so on.
People are truly much more fun to follow than companies. So make your company be like a person on Instagram.
Learn tactics and tricks from your target audiences’ favourite Instagram influencers and accounts
I always say: Find out who are the favourite Instagram influencers of your target audience. Follow those influencers to learn how they use Instagram.
- What do they post?
- How do they use Stories?
- Do they use other features of Instagram, how?
- How do they use captions?
- What do they say on their bio?
- How do they use hashtags?
- What kind of imaginary do they post?
The thing here is that avid Instagram users have expectations for the profiles and content they want to view in order to stimulate their brain the way they desire. If you want your audience to find your content inspirational, you need to break away from the typical style of a business user on Instagram.
Use your Instagram employer brand profile to give your target talent audiences a taste of what it feels like to work in your company. Not only by posting photos from your office dogs, pizza lunches and people playing Monopoli together.
More about employer branding on Instagram in this episode of Building a Modern Employer brand -podcast
In this episode of Building a Modern Employer Brand -podcast, we’re going to talk about Instagram; the logic of Instagram, how to learn more about your followers and the people you’d like to follow you back.
Episode-length: 36:47 min
In this episode:
- Why your own use of Instagram can teach you so much about how to use Instagram as a business.
- Why our followers and the people we would like to follow us can teach us so much about how we should use Instagram as a business.
- Why every single post counts.
- Understanding there are many Instagram strategies to choose from. Posting photos is just one of them.
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