How Do You Communicate an Effective Employer Brand to the Millennial Generation?

Davide Scialpi, Senior Advisor, Employer Branding, Universum

Young people today have a sense of urgency when they search for information. That is where social media comes in. Social media sites offer an element of involvement instead of the static information of traditional Web sites. Millennials want to be involved, be able to comment and chat with others.

Many companies have not grasped what interaction on social media entails. They may think they’re active when all they do is have a page on Facebook. Many decisions regarding communication are made without first asking why. Why are we choosing to communicate this message?

Why are we choosing this communication channel? Why are we choosing this target group?

Research is an integral tool in planning an Employer Brand (EB) strategy using social media, but many companies do not realize this.

Companies often choose to get involved in social media because it is trendy, not because they grasp how to manage conversations with their members/users on the career pages of Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. It’s not enough to just post content and leave it as users engage immediately and start commenting or modifying the message, quickly making it their own.

There are a few simple steps to understanding social media. The first is to become a user.

When you understand how it works from a user perspective, then you’re able to use the forum for communicating your message. It’s about observing the communication and knowing when to engage and learning to see the consequences.

EB can take many things from social media marketing and can use them as best practices. The duty of running social media outlets should be shared between HR and the digital marketing and communications department. It can sometimes pose a problem regarding whose responsibility Facebook, Twitter or a blog is and that should be clearly defined from the start.

Social media is definitely the cheapest way to communicate a company’s message. It can be useful to increase EB awareness and brand awareness. The corporate brand pages are different from the career pages. This is because the career page can do a lot for the corporate brand awareness whereas a corporate brand page generally doesn’t do anything for the EB.

What does social media bring to EB that is new?

A company can break the wall that separates it from jobseekers. It can interact with jobseekers in the same place; the first thing that jobseekers see is the brand. The advantage comes from communicating the message without filters or time constraints. You have to dare to put your brand out there, instead of troubling with intermediaries as your core brand can become diluted that way. Your company knows what talent you are after better than a hiring agency.

Also, because the time spent on social media sites has tripled in the last two years and the number of people active on social networking sites has doubled in that same time, it is vital for employers to be present in these channels. When they are, they increase their ability to manage this interactive new business communication as well as increase their own EB awareness.

It can also help position them as an Ideal employer to work for by being a first mover.

Lastly, it’s about improving the visibility of products and services, because a jobseeker is also a consumer.

Having worked with everyone from WWF to Bocconi on employer branding and strategic management consulting, Davide Scialpi is now a senior advisor at Universum on employer branding related issues.

Posted by RecruitingTrends.com on February 21, 2011. Filed under Thought Leadership, Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry