Have you ever forgotten to put eggs in your cake batter? If so, you know the cake turns into a dense, crumbly mess. Eggs – like flour and milk – are a critical ingredient to creating a deliciously light and fluffy cake. And if you leave anything out, the end result is disaster.
The best part of baking a cake is sharing your delicious confection with the celebrants and seeing the joy on their faces. When building your employment brand it’s equally important to follow a recipe to ensure that the end result will have the desired impact.
Why Do I Need an Employment Brand?
Building an effective employment brand is critical to attracting top talent. When properly implemented, a strategic employment brand will help you stand out among the competition, get more out of your human resources budget and ultimately enhance your bottom line. A successful employment brand should be visible, attractive and consistent across all touch points.
Brand focus: For a brand to be effective, it must be clear and attractive to target audience members. When you think of Disney, what comes to mind? Mickey Mouse? Cinderella’s castle? Disneyland? The Disney franchise has successfully maintained their happy-go-lucky image and appealed to millions of children through their use of bold primary colors, cheerful cartoon characters and magical themes. Even their typeface is whimsical. The entire brand image is designed to appeal to a specific audience.
As with a consumer brand, you must get inside the minds of your target talent to develop a consistent employer brand. What motivates quality candidates? What do they value? When you have those answers, you can begin to tailor your brand appropriately.
Brand visibility: Your employment brand should be visible to your target audience where they’re already spending their time. Most job seekers are searching online, so that’s the best place to start. Step one? Create a well-branded corporate careers page, and then you can move into the social space. While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are currently the leading social media platforms for recruitment, it’s important to find out where your target talent is. Maybe on one, maybe all three.
Other great options include starting a careers blog, creating a recruitment video and building an online community for your talent network. According to a recent Careerbuilder survey, only 13% of organizations that use social media to promote their company are doing so to strengthen their employment brand. Read: missed opportunity. By staying in front of your prospective employees, you’ll be top-of-mind when they decide to make a career change.
Brand continuity: For a brand to be effective, it must be consistent. You’ve caught their eye, you have their attention, now do it again… and again and again. Your employment brand message should be the same across all touch points. The impression a potential recruit gets when browsing your careers page should be the same when reading your most recent tweet. To create a lasting image in the minds of your potential candidates, you must deliver your brand message consistently and creatively across all touch points.
Have something to add? Share it with us in the comments!
Image: Meng He/Flickr
Author: Katy Zimmerman
As a self-proclaimed social media junkie, Katy has helped numerous companies extend their brands into the ever-evolving world of new media. With over a decade of experience in marketing and PR, she is currently a social media consultant and freelance writer. Katy is a cake decorating extraordinaire and a proud mother of two little boys. Connect at linkedin.com/in/katyzimmerman.
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