It’s safe to say social media has made us increasingly more visual, yes? Thanks to the ease of scrolling on our smartphones, capturing the attention of your target audience requires an additional approach to stop them mid-scroll and notice your message.
In our last blog, we talked about the importance of written content and all the different touchpoints where you can reach candidates. And although this is still super important, the places you promote that content might require you to take it one step further than simply crafting engaging headlines and captions.
After all, if a scroll-happy person is zipping on by, they might not pause long enough to even see the headline meant to wow them in the first place. Right? So how can you make them want to learn more?
You gotta bring your employer brand to life. Visuals, audio, and events are some ways to get your candidates to take action.
Here are some examples:
Video
If you’re using social media to promote your recruitment marketing content and employer branding messaging, know that videos usually generate higher engagement. Showcasing your people and hearing their stories in their own words will humanize your employer brand.
By giving people a look behind-the-scenes, showing more about your office space, culture, and how your teams collaborate, it makes it easy for candidates to envision themselves working for you. That’s a huge hurdle to overcome, so definitely consider either getting it professionally done or doing a high-quality video with your phone.
Keep in mind most videos are now watched with sound off. This means you’ll want to make sure your videos have captions. Without them, most people move on from the video within the first few seconds, making your efforts worthless.
Podcasts/Audio
Not everyone has the ability (or desire) to watch a video or read long-form text. With many people on the go, things like podcasts and audiobooks have become increasingly popular. We’ve transformed into a world filled with multitaskers. People want to learn, be entertained, and discover all while managing their day-to-day like walking the dog, commuting, or washing dishes.
This is where podcasts (or something similar) can come into play. If you’re already writing blogs or producing videos, you can easily repurpose that content for audio too. This helps you create more content that can reach different audiences based on their preferences without the added work of creating something new.
Many people are also taking their podcasts/audio and transforming them into a video format to promote on social media (which we mentioned is usually better for engagement). You can use tools like Headliner App to help you do it. Bonus: they have a transcription option that allows you to create captions!
Photography
What good is writing a fancy caption or blog if you don’t have some visuals to back it up? Even if you don’t have the ability to hire a photographer or don’t have one in-house, you can take some pretty solid photos with your phone.
If you’re a DIYer, there are plenty of blogs, videos, and tutorials to teach you the basics of composition, lighting, and so on. There are also tons of free photo editing tools that can make your pictures pop, such as Lightroom for mobile.
Again, with people being more visual, building this skill or hiring someone can ensure your social media, website, and blog feature images that will look legit. Similarly to the video, adding photos regularly to your recruitment marketing strategy can help candidates get a behind-the-scenes look at your company and let them see if it’s a fit for them.
Events
What better way to connect with candidates than by actually talking to them? Recruitment marketing helps you get your employer branding messaging out there so you can get discovered, engage, and convert candidates, but it could limit the opportunity to build relationships.
Sure, candidates could comment on your social media posts or send you an email, but, truthfully, many won’t.
Events can start that conversation. Candidates might feel more comfortable asking questions about the work and company in this setting than putting it on a public site or cold emailing you.
Find the right events for your hiring goals and ensure the attendees are more aligned with your hiring needs. Then, if possible, make sure you have a mix of people working your table. This can include a recruiter (duh) and people who work specifically in the roles you’re hiring for. From our experience, having those additional people outside of the recruiting function has led to impactful and informative conversations.
There are so many options to promote your employer brand. Building a recruitment marketing strategy that is well-balanced will extend your reach. Of course, you don’t have to do everything we’re suggesting, but finding a handful of activities that work with your bandwidth, skills, and resources is a great start!
Need help creating or activating your recruitment marketing strategy? Harlow’s here for you. Learn more about our services here.
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