Most talent marketers have no idea how empowering and how much impact talent PR and communication could deliver for their business.
Let me repeat: PR and communication are extremely under-used opportunities in talent marketing and employer branding.
And they make the heart of modern employer brand.
“If a young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is – that’s advertising. If the young man tells his date she’s intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he’s saying the right things to the right person and that’s marketing. If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is – that’s PR.”
– S. H. Simmons
PR and communication in modern employer branding
PR is about getting someone else to say wonderful things about us instead of us promoting how wonderful we are.
That is the essence of PR. And that is what most of us in fact seek when we wonder how to get our employees to advocate our company as a workplace in their social media.
Every time I blog about, podcast about or talk about storytelling, my audience bends head over heels to my way to learn everything about itl.
Storytelling is communication.
Storytelling is not advertising. It’s not marketing either.
You can use storytelling in marketing, but stories are written first before they are acted on or marketed.
The Magnetic Employer Branding Method is very much based on storytelling your strategic company culture and your employee experiences.
Modern employer branding the way I teach it and develop it is foremost about words and messages. Everything else is just to make those word and messages pop out.
Download my free eBook about Business Storytelling to match talents with your mission >>
Why we should use PR and communication in employer branding?
Employer branding is about inducing and growing emotional connections between our target talent audiences and what represent as a place to work for them.
We use marketing and communication to build a brand for the product called a career experience in this specific place to work.
There is two main streams currently in the ways companies seem to approach employer branding:
- Product development
- Instead of marketing and communication, many employer branding managers seem to focus on product development. In HR language, we are talking about developing our leadership culture, company culture, value stack and employee experiences.
- While those are absolutely critical in the company’s overall ability to attract and retain their top talent, developing your “work place product” is not branding.
- Recruitment campaigns
- While recruitment campaigns are a must in recruitment marketing, it is not employer branding.
- Advertising campaigns will not build your employer brand, unless your employer brand budget is about a million bucks/euros/sterling a year.
- Recruitment advertising is selling with the engines on.
We use marketing and communication to build a brand for the product called a career experience in this specific place to work.
– Susanna Rantanen
If you want to create a long lasting demand for your business as a place to work, I recommend taking a different approach to employer branding. And this approach starts with getting your messages right and adopting regular routines for talent communication and PR.
TEST WHICH TALENT MARKETER YOU ARE >>
Why talent PR and communication skills are now more in demand than maybe ever?
Your employee advocacy programs require PR and communication.
Your recruitment success requires getting your message right and influencing your employer image with great candidate communication.
Your employer branding starts with getting your messages right. That’s communication, not marketing and definitely not advertising and campaigns.
-Susanna Rantanen
Your workplace needs effective internal communication now more than ever because so many of us are working remote.
Your social media activities deliver you much more impact when you focus on building your talent communities and build relations with your ideal active and passive job seeker audiences.
Your employer branding starts with getting your messages right. That’s communication, not marketing and definitely not advertising and campaigns.
Listen to episode 61 of Building a Modern Employer Brand -podcast
In this episode of Building a Modern Employer Brand, I introduce PR as an opportunity for modern employer branding. And to be frank, to me talent PR is the heart of modern employer branding.
Episode-length: 25:25 min
- What exactly is PR?
- Why does PR fit so well in modern employer branding?
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