More and more companies are adopting Instagram for employer branding but discard it soon because they are not seeing much impact.
Probably the most common reason for the lack of impact is to misuse Instagram for random posting of ad hoc images.
In this blog post and the podcast-episode I share with you what you should do and should stop doing to generate actual impact on Instagram for employer branding and recruitment marketing.
The biggest reason why Instagram is not working for you
Instagram failure is going to happen most certainly if your company treats Instagram like it was just another website promoting your company news and updates.
Success on Instagram requires understanding how active Instagram users like to use the app. If you are not active on instagram yourself, this is going to be difficult.
To catch user attention and get that traction to your profile and posts growing, your profile needs to behave like it was a person, not a company logo.
What does a person do on Instagram who wishes to grow sustainably their follower base?
- They are mindful about the content they create and post to appeal regularly to their targeted audience.
- They engage with other users.
- They spend time on their feed, browse what other users have posted, they like posts and they comment those posts.
- Equally, they watch and engage with other users’ Stories.
- They have conversations with other users in their Instagram inbox which goes by the name direct messages or “DM’s”.
- They regularly look for new content to engage with and new people to follow.
Is this something your company profile on Instagram does? Your answer is mostly likely “no” and that’s why your company profile fails to deliver your talent marketing any value.
Did you think Instagram is used only by youngsters?
No longer. Ever since us oldies (but Goldies) found Instagram, the youngsters went elsewhere.
According to these Instagram statistics, there are already 1,2 billion active users on Instagram. I notice many employers still thinking Instagram is only for young people, but actually that is no longer quite the truth.
Between the age groups of below 25 years old, 25-34 years old and older than 34 years old, it is pretty much even division. One third of the active user base are below 25, one third between 25-34 and the remaining one third represent users older than 34 years old.
Your target audience is likely to fit in here, isn’t it?
Three Instagram strategies that will contribute towards your talent marketing success on Instagram
Instagram success on the other hand is likely to happen for companies when choosing one or more of the following strategies:
- Using Instagram and its many features to build and engage with your followers and showcase your company personality (culture).
- Educating and inspiring your growing follower-base about a knowledge-based topic or a theme tying together what your business represents and what your target audiences will work with then employed by your company.
- Helping and engaging your job applicants to your recruitment processes.
Listen to episode 39 “Understanding Instagram to ace employer branding on Soundcloud >>
Yes, you definitely need to target your Instagram profile for your talent marketing purpose and audience
I get asked this a lot: Can’t we have one Instagram profile for our company and post our jobs there as well?
Yes of course you can. You can do whatever you want on Instagram. However, if you want to make Instagram worth your talent marketing while, then you don’t.
Why it is a bad idea to create a general company profile on Instagram?
Success in any marketing comes from serving your target audience. “General” company profile sounds like no one is being served but your company.
Companies do this when it is easier for them. I can tell you what will be even more easier: Not do marketing at all.
For the purpose of actually using Instagram successfully for talent marketing, be specific.
Choose an audience you are going to focus on. Your clients are unlikely to find the same content useful as your external talent audience unless you are as niche as my agency is.
For example, we have one profile for the Finnish target audience of our service brand. This audience covers both our prospective customers as well as our employer branding audience. We publish only in Finnish on that profile.
Then we have a separate profile for our two podcasts. We use that podcast solely for sharing our podcast-episodes: Mondays in Finnish and Wednesdays in English.
And we have a third profile for modern employer branding for aspiring talent marketing professionals. This one is where I teach snippets of modern employer branding.
And, yes. Keeping up with it all takes time. Especially when you want to sustain quality and value for your audience. However, when you make it a strategic decision, you will resource that time and that’s how you get the success you are after.
Our time goes to something anyway. We like to, and my advice for you as well is to invest it in tasks that are going to generate you value back.
Is there any point with Instagram if our audience is less than 10 000 or 100 000 followers?
Probably the most common misunderstanding is in the number of followers. Too many people still believe you need at least 10 000 or 20 000 followers to get any value our of Instagram for talent marketing.
No, you don’t.
You can even generate sufficient income from Instagram with less than 1000 followers. If less than 1000 followers can result in a reasonable cashflow, don’t you think your company might also be able to get recruitment leads from Instagram?
Just because this hasn’t happened to you before does not mean it cannot.
For a consumer brand that needs to sell millions of products, less than 1000 brand followers are unlikely to achieve that.
If your company hires 1000 people a year, you need a bigger pool than less than 1000 followers, that’s for sure.
But what if each year your 1000 followers represented your top talent quality? Would you be interested in Instagram then?
Continue to listen to this episode below to learn what are the 6 things you need to get right to get on that success path on Instagram.
Listen to episode #72 of the Building of a Modern Employer Brand podcast
In this episode of the Building a Modern Employer Brand -podcast, I talk about Instagram as a social media platform for talent marketing. Talent marketing covers both recruitment marketing and employer branding.
- The key characteristics of Instagram in 2021 and forward.
- 6 basics to get right to empower your company Instagram for talent marketing.
Episode-length: 35:15 min
The Instagram accounts I mentioned I get a lot of inspiration and knowledge from for business related instagramming:
- https://www.instagram.com/elisedarma/
- https://www.instagram.com/creators/
- https://www.instagram.com/instagramforbusiness/
- https://www.instagram.com/vanessalau.co/
- https://www.instagram.com/theinstagramexpert/
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Click on the link and you will be directed to the Building of Modern Employer Brand -podcast. Click follow there and you will be notified weekly on a new episode!
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