We all know traditional consumer advertising was perfected in 1991, with the advent of this seminal Sizzler commercial. But for the past few years, companies have been wandering into a new marketing frontier: promoting one’s employer brand through paid content on social media.
This journey has led many organizations to LinkedIn, where they’ve used sponsored content to highlight themselves and get top talent wanting to work for them. That’s been exciting for us, because we’ve been privy to some of the most creative forays into this field.
After analyzing some of the most successful sponsored content to date, we saw that some of the best ones are often rooted atop four main philosophies. They are:
1. Share a third-party piece that highlights your company’s culture
Your public relations team works really, really hard getting placements in influential outlets, so when one does write about your company, you have to take full advantage of it. Sharing those posts makes for great sponsored content because instead of you telling the world how great your company is, a trusted third-party is.
An example:
2. Challenge your target audience
Smart, driven people can’t resist a challenge, and those are the exact type of people most companies are looking to attract. Take advantage of that by challenging your target market through your sponsored content.
An example:
3. Use videos to go viral and get people talking about you.
If your sponsored content has a link to a YouTube video that can play right in a user’s feed (most can), it generates a 75 percent higher share rate on average, meaning a better chance of your content going viral. And that means thousands more people talking about you and your company.
An example:
4. A post that’s just helpful to the job seeker
It doesn’t always have to be about selling your company. There’s a lot of value in sponsoring content that is helpful to job seekers. If the public starts seeing your LinkedIn page as a valuable content producer, it’ll both build the popularity and likeability of your page.
An example:
Final Thought
Nailing your employer brand is critical today, with the war for talent fully global and the difference between a great person and a good person wider than ever. One of the chief ways companies have looked to promote themselves to employers is with sponsored content that's targeted directly to the people they want to reach, i.e. software engineers in Malaysia, salesmen in Sacramento, etc.
Because this type of marketing is relatively new, there are no set-in-stone best practices for companies to employ. That said, there are some emerging trends, and the company that starts to perfect those first is going to start reaping the benefits of top-tier talent.
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Topics: Employer brand
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