How to build your employer brand on a shoestring budget
Potential talent, your own employees, their referrals, your peers, your clients and their network – are all watching you. Each day you showcase your employer brand, you're shaping their opinions, influencing their decisions and adding value to their professional lives in some way.
And if the lack of a dedicated budget is stopping you from being perceived as the most desirable employer brand to work with we've got just the right tips to help you out:
- Amp up your profile
You may want to wait till you can afford to produce a deliciously viral video and while you're waiting, make sure you make your own online profile shine through. Potential talent will read your updates, make sure you include updates on the kind of people you would like to work with and introduce your company's employee value proposition.
- Motivate your current employees
Your current employees can be your best employer brand ambassadors. Encourage them to share with their network and generate referrals. You could share video interviews on social media or conduct regular employee satisfaction surveys. Build a robust internal feedback mechanism. Flaunt your best feedback and invest genuine efforts to improve on weaker areas. Don't underestimate the value of employee referrals.
- Be social
Make sure you build an active presence on social media. Encourage employees to generate interesting content that can be showcased. Social media is a great platform to showcase employee culture. Try giving potential talent a flavor of what it would be like to work in your company. The key to cracking social media as a platform to showcase your employer brand is consistent and engaging. Reach out to your followers, understand them and create opportunities for them to interact with you.
- Share your expertise
If you enjoy writing, produce content for your company blog, share your opinion on industry events and topics that might be of interest to people in your industry. You don't need to produce fancy looking content just focus all your energy, efforts and time in creating real value. Make sure you set aside fixed hours for content production and stay committed to it. Consider each content piece you share as a long-term investment in building your employer brand.
- Niche PR
A quick and dedicated online research can help you identify niche journalists and publications that are active in your industry. The digital age makes it remarkably simple to strike up an interesting conversation with niche journalists if you can't reach out to more mainstream publicists. You can collaborate with niche journalists to produce valuable content that can improve your visibility.
Check how Interstate batteries built a brand on shoestring budget.
If you don't find time or resources of any or all of the above you can always bank on yourself. Be your own employer brand – you may reach out to your own limited professional and social network and pack more power into word of mouth.