It’s no secret that in the competitive landscape of today’s job market, building a strong employer brand is essential for attracting and retaining top talent.
One of the most effective ways to do this is through crafting compelling employer brand content and sharing it online and on social media through organic and paid posts.
In this episode of the Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast, we’ll explore the art of content creation process in employer branding, including how to generate ideas, create authentic content, and effectively share it on social media.
If you are new to this podcast, my name is Susanna Rantanen, and I am a business coach specialising in people branding and talent marketing. I also work as a strategic employer branding consultant at our family business, Helsinki, Finland-based Employer Branding Agency Emine.
This podcast is for those who want to learn how to build employer brands that attract and retain the talents the business needs for success.
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The importance of employer brand content that hits the hearts
We’ve talked about this multiple times on this podcast, but let’s remind ourselves again: Your employer brand is based on the perceptions and experiences your current, former and potential employees have of your organization as an employer and a place to grow and develop their career.
The Magnetic Employer Brand encompasses your company’s culture and values but also your mission, purpose, customer promise and the way you help your employees create a better life for them. And not just while they are employed by your organization but also for their future and years to come.
A true employer brand touches their hearts and impacts them on an emotional level.
Without this emotional connection, it’s nearly impossible to truly convince and convert your target audience to position your organisation as their number one – or even two or three choices for employment. This emotional connection changes an ordinary employer image into a distinctive employer brand.
Without this emotional connection, it’s nearly impossible to truly convince and convert your target audience to position your organisation as their number one – or even two or three choices for employment. This emotional connection changes an ordinary employer image into a distinctive employer brand.
Susanna Rantanen
If you want your employer brand content to truly resonate and matter, you have to remember employer branding is never about your organizational needs but always about your current and future employees’ needs and aspirations.
This must resonate through your employer branding content. In every single piece of content that you post for employer branding. And that’s why you need a solid content creation process for employer branding. A content creation process that saves time and contributes to building your desired employer brand perceptions, each content at a time.
You want to learn how to create emotionally appealing employer brand content because it will stop people scrolling past your content and help your organisation stand out in the crowded job market.
And what comes to internal employer branding, content like this helps foster a sense of belonging among your current employees.
I know from experience that creating that output, the actual piece of content is oftentimes the least daunting task in the process of employer brand content creation.
Content creation process starts with a clear employer brand content strategy or blueprint
The most difficult part of the content creation process is having a great content idea. And not just any random idea but a content creation process consistently delivering great content ideas supporting your desired employer brand perceptions. The kind of content creation process that helps you solidify the employer brand with the expected impact on your talent attraction and retention.
The most difficult part of the content creation process is having a great content idea. And not just any random idea but a content creation process consistently delivering great content ideas supporting your desired employer brand perceptions.
Susanna Rantanen
Anyone who has ever worked in content creation and developed a solid content creation process knows this, and so do you.
So how to get out of that rabbit hole of not having any ideas to start with?
Here’s the solution: You will need a simple employer brand content strategy and a playbook (or blueprint) hosting your key content themes, content marketing goals and other specifics on visuals, tone of voice and what type of content is created for each of the expected employer brand content goals. Because they are not the same.
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If you need proper help with your employer brand content strategy, contact me.
Our Helsinki, Finland-based employer branding agency offers online services for this based on the Magnetic Employer Branding Method™️.
Simply contact me at susanna@emine.fi to book a free consultative online meeting to discuss if we are the right partner for you.
What does a content strategy or blueprint consist of?
You must have a content strategy slash blueprint for your employer brand content marketing to keep your content ideas within the box of expected employer brand perceptions. You never want to lose that important common theme that sets you apart. This is super critical in a rock-solid content creation process. And having that blueprint will help you more than you can imagine!
This blueprint for your employer brand content creation process doesn’t have to be more than a few slides of shared clarity for those creating employer brand content.
The most vital thing is that you have decided at least on:
- what your desired employer brand perceptions are,
- what are the key content themes for building and strengthening these desired perceptions,
- an agreement on how your content should look and sound like
- and how you measure success from your content
Let’s then move on to the content creation process of how to generate specific ideas for employer brand content.
A dynamic content creation process for employer branding
I’m big on simplifying things and building systems, which are called routines, by the way.
My creative brain works best when I can vision proper cogwheels inside my head!
If you are like me, creating a simple routine for ideating, creating and publishing your employer brand content will make the work much more effective.
When you have that blueprint available for you, hit any generative AI, such as ChatGPT, and ask the AI to generate you, for example, 10 social media post ideas on your chosen employer brand content theme.
To make sure those ideas generated match are relevant to your target audience, include a description of your target audience, then press enter.
An example of using generative AI in your employer brand content creation process
Here is an example of a content creation process starting with the help of AI.
My prompt was: “Create ten employer brand content ideas targeted at HR marketing professionals working in employer branding who struggle to generate employer brand content ideas.”
And these are the 10 ideas that were generated for me:
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“Here are ten employer brand content ideas specifically targeted at HR marketing professionals who are struggling to generate employer brand content ideas:
1. **Employee Spotlight Stories:** Showcase individual employees through written profiles, interviews, or videos to highlight their unique experiences, roles, and contributions to the company.
2. **Behind-the-Scenes Tours:** Offer a virtual or in-person tour of your office or production facility to give potential candidates a sneak peek into your workplace culture.
3. **”Day in the Life” Videos:** Create video content that follows a typical workday of different employees, providing insights into their daily tasks, challenges, and interactions.
4. **Employee Testimonials:** Share written or video testimonials from current employees discussing why they love working for your company and what makes it special.
5. **Company Values Exploration:** Write articles or create graphics that delve into your company’s core values, explaining how they are lived out in everyday work and decision-making.
6. **Culture Challenges and Solutions:** Discuss real challenges your company has faced in maintaining a positive culture and how you’ve addressed them, demonstrating your commitment to improvement.
7. **Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives:** Showcase your diversity and inclusion efforts, featuring stories of diverse employees and highlighting specific programs or initiatives.
8. **Recruitment Process Insights:** Explain your hiring process step by step, helping potential candidates understand what to expect and how you assess fit.
9. **Interactive Quizzes and Surveys:** Develop quizzes or surveys that help potential candidates assess their compatibility with your company culture or identify their ideal roles.
10. **Industry Insights and Thought Leadership:** Share thought-provoking articles, whitepapers, or webinars related to HR marketing, employer branding, and talent acquisition to position your team as experts in the field.
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Remember to tailor these ideas to your company’s unique culture and values and leverage various content formats (written, video, graphics) to engage a wider audience of HR marketing professionals interested in employer branding.
And if you want more, you simply hit the regenerate button for more.
Documenting and enhancing your employer brand content ideas into actual content and social media posts
Next, you need to document your ideas in one place because you will only create some of the ideas into content in one go.
I recommend opening a Trello Board where you store each content idea as a separate card for later.
When we create content at Emine or for our clients, we like to split the overall employer brand content creation process into separate steps:
- Starting first with generating and documenting ideas on a Trello Board.
- Then, moving forward with a few selected content ideas at a time.
- Deciding what types of content these ideas will become with options ranging from captions only to carousel posts or from short-form videos to long-form and from blog posts to podcast episodes. All depends on which social media we or our client has decided to focus on.
- Any content idea requiring data collection, such as an interview, we plan it forward writing the interview questions on the card and allocating the interview task to someone.
- In a case, where we already have the information available, we then copywrite the caption for post, and add any links and hashtags.
- This step is followed by creating visual content such as images or videos.
- And after all these steps, each piece of content is marked “ready for publication” on the chosen time.
It is more efficient to work systematically, step by step, with multiple content ideas instead of one idea at a time.
Allocating regular time for the content creation process
When working in employer brand content creation, it’s smart to allocate, for example, an hour a week or two hours every other week on each step of the process and move a bunch of ideas forward at the same time.
I have to mention, though, that if you start exploring AI for content ideation, you are probably compelled to test it also on content creation. That’s okay as long as you remember not to publish those AI drafts.
I advise you to finalize any AI drafts to match your blueprint and adhere to your tone of voice and culture. Not forgetting to make sure the information is actually true to your organisation.
AI content has a recognizable “AI tone” at this time. While AI can be super helpful and save you time on the ideation level, you must alter the AI outputs into the language and vocabulary that feels authentic to your organisation and employer brand.
Well-working general employer brand content ideas
Here are four well-working types of employer brand content for you to ideate and angle under your chosen employer brand themes.
- Employee Stories: Your employees are your best brand ambassadors. Share their stories, achievements, and experiences within your organization. Authentic testimonials and success stories resonate with both existing employees and job seekers.
- Behind-the-Scenes: Take your audience behind the scenes of your workplace. Show them what a day in the life of an employee looks like.
Highlight unique aspects of your office culture and environment, what it looks like working in your office and how people collaborate, speak and behave at the office. Imagine these like letting your audience watching you through like Big Brother. What will they see? - Company Values: Create content that showcases your company’s values in action. Share examples of what those values mean to your employees.
- Educational Content: Offer valuable insights and advice related to your industry or profession. This can position your company as a thought leader in your field.
5 tips to guarantee authentic employer brand content
- Stay True to Your Brand: Ensure that your content aligns with your organization’s values and culture. Authenticity is key to building trust.
- Use Real People: Whenever possible, feature real employees in your content rather than stock images. This humanizes your brand and adds credibility. Selfies actually work much better than photos taken by someone else.
- Tell a Story: Storytelling is a powerful way to connect with your audience emotionally. Craft narratives that resonate with your target demographic.
- Showcase Diversity: Highlight the diversity of your workforce in your content. This not only reflects inclusivity but also attracts a broader range of candidates.
- Engage Your Employees: Encourage employees to share their own content and experiences on their personal social media. Employee-generated content can be highly authentic and relatable. Don’t forget to tag them!
Sharing Employer Brand Content on Social Media
Now that you are ready to start publishing your content on social media, there are a few tips how to ace this.
- Choose the Right Platforms: Not all social media platforms are created equal. Tailor your content to the platforms that your target audience frequents.
LinkedIn, for example, is ideal for professional networking and job-related content, but Instagram and TikTok are better for evoking emotions and getting that commitment to employer brand. And don’t forget to use all the available features on your chosen platforms to maximise the impact and add versatility to your content.
Things like polls on LinkedIn work well, and Instagram Stories are really good when you want to send your audience to your content or website! - Consistency is Key: Maintain a consistent posting schedule. This keeps your brand in the minds of your audience and demonstrates your commitment to engagement.
- Use Visuals: Incorporate eye-catching visuals, such as images and videos, to make your content more shareable and engaging. But stick to your blueprint. What were your visuals supposed to be like and what they can’t be like?
- Encourage Engagement: Encourage likes, shares, and comments on your posts. Respond promptly to comments to foster a sense of community and interaction. Social media is NOT a one-way street. It is meant to be social and that’s why your comments are equally powerful content than the content you post!
- Analyze and Adapt: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your content. You want to know how many people your content reach and how many impressions your content gets on the average. Think about these as the volume. If no one sees your posts, no one is able to learn to love your employer brand!
Also, following engagement is important as if people are not responding and reacting at all, your content either wasn’t shown or didn’t stop them scrolling past.
Adjust your strategy based on what works best for your audience.
Make your content creation process dynamic
Crafting a powerful, magnetic and compelling employer brand content is a dynamic process that requires creativity, authenticity, and consistency.
By generating ideas that resonate with your audience, creating authentic content, and effectively sharing it on social media, helps your organisation to build a strong employer brand that attracts and retains top talent.
And this, my friend, ultimately contributes to your organisation’s success! You want that; you want to be recognised as the person who delivered actual value for the business and didn’t just spend company time creating random posts no one cared to engage with.
Remember, your employer brand is not just what you say about your company – it’s what your employees and candidates say about it, too. Let them voice it through your content!
Check out these additional episodes helping you with your content creation process and success
Content that works for your audience
Using curated content in employer branding and talent marketing
8 tips – Why and how to create high quality content
Instagram SEO for content creators
TikTok SEO for content creators
Creating marketing content your audience wants – the secret that makes sense
Using LinkedIn content to grow your reach and build your community
Ok, that’s all for this week, my friends!
Thank you for tuning in. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with your HR and employer branding colleagues.
Stay tuned for more insightful episodes on mastering the employer branding edge!
My name is Susanna Rantanen, and I’m your guide to building the modern and Magnetic Employer Brand!
Until next week!
Moi moi!
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