As talent brand leaders, when given the keys to run a strategy, the first reaction is to look at the traditional networks in terms of creating content. By doing that, one naturally looks at Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. More times than none, corporate marketing peers don’t feel that employer brand has a place on LinkedIn, and many talent branders in turn discount the platform to some extent. LinkedIn is simply considered to be a place to share jobs (paid and organically).

But what if talent brand took a different approach to LinkedIn?  

Recently, the Talent Brand Alliance [TBA] community connected to discuss LinkedIn. They decided to bring everyone together on one of their regular member calls to discuss why LinkedIn is very much a platform for employer brand, ownership, content strategy, and so much more. Here are some of the highlights from the call:

THE ONE THING THEY WISH PEOPLE KNEW ABOUT LINKEDIN

Employer Brand content performs around 4x better than consumer brand content

Marketing can tend to think EB is light, fluffy, and not a priority in the marketing space. If you find yourself needing to back this up at your company, look no further than analytics:

• Impressions, Clickthrough, and Engagement

It benefits marketing to have employer brand content, as it brings more visibility and increased clickthrough and engagement. Employees engaging with the company content provides street credibility that your brand simply cannot purchase.

MEMBER QUESTIONS

TBA's board member for community - Lindsey Sanford - lead this discussion and shared details from the team’s perspective.

Do you send traffic to targeted landing pages or your career page?

• Watch data and the work it entails to maintain those pages. At some companies, they find the Life pages aren’t valuable from a candidate flow perspective.
• There’s an algorithm difference in sharing external link content vs uploaded images and videos.

How do you maintain an international presence on LinkedIn?

• Look at platform capabilities to see how you can support functional needs by language.
• Some larger international organizations do geotargeted posts on the main page but also have showcase pages for big geographies.

How Do You Create Ambassadorship and Advocacy?

• Allow employees to have open access to social media on corporate systems.
• Your social media policy should focus on DO THIS, not DON’T DO THAT if you want action.

Lindsey uses Bambu, but she preps managers by putting them through storytelling training with a few questions and tips:

• What story do you want your employees to tell and share?
• Build their confidence to tell their story, help the hiring demand.
• Help humble people understand that they have a story worth telling.
• Other advocacy tools to check out are EveryoneSocial, DSMN8, Hootsuite Amplify, Dynamic Signal, Oktopost, and GaggleAmp.

How do I get employees to share content?

• Lindsey shares graphic templates in Canva for Recruiters/Hiring Managerss to customize and tailor to their position.
• Give guidance on what to say and how to say it – then let them post what they are comfortable with and tweak as needed.
• Determine where high volume needs are, then do a training specific to how/what & where the shares should happen.
• Then show how to share & reinforce your social media policy and any incentives for posting.
  

What are the top 5 things they should do:

• Keep your Linkedin profile up to date
• Build network connections actively, not just when you need something
• Share company content, both B2B, B2C & Culture related posts
• Share what makes you excited – people want to work for people who have a personality
• Teach them how to track engagement numbers on their Linkedin posts, and what good looks like. The biggest motivator for many of them is impact.

Fun Facts and Things to Keep in Mind:

Stories are 22x more memorable than facts

• Over 76% of candidates want to know about a Recruiter, HM or teammate before making a career move.
• LinkedIn can be tricky.
• Try experimenting with putting your link in the post or comments section.
• Note the visibility when resharing someone else’s or another page’s posts.
• Post with purpose.
• Be authentic in what you share.
• Don’t post to fill a calendar.
• Avoid posting and simply tagging a bunch of people.

No matter how one shapes it, LinkedIn is one of the top social networks for all professionals across the globe. Because of that, it needs to have a place in every company's EB strategy, not simply viewed as a place to post, pray, and lay dormant.

If done properly, EB leaders can help build credibility with hiring managers, nurture confident brand ambassadors, and make the most of the company’s and their own personal LinkedIn presence to effectively spread brand on a vital, and increasingly overlooked, channel.

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