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At Meridia, a Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette company, we believe that brand is the heart and soul of an organization. Branding includes all forms of communication spread across all mediums. With the advent use of social media in the mainstream, authentic and attractive branding is now more crucial than ever. Your brand impacts customer attraction and loyalty to your products and services. Just as your employer brand impacts candidate attraction and employee loyalty to your organization. 

So let’s talk about employer branding. Your people are the core of your organization. Strategic HR means attracting, developing and retaining high-performing candidates to your organization. Your people drive your business—they are your competitive advantage.  So what does it take to attract these top talents to your organization? How do you become an employer of choice? How do you leverage social media to promote your employer brand?

Attracting Top Talent

Attracting those hard to find top talents are easier said than done. You go through a pile of résumés, undergo a rigorous screening process, and if you’re lucky you find a handful of individuals who have the skills for the job.  Magic happens when you find that person who not only has the job-fit, but who fits within your organization as well. Keeping your pipelines open and building relationships to these top talents through social media will put your organization ahead.

Employer of Choice

What does it take to be the employer of choice? Different organizations certainly have different values, just as individuals have a diversity of values and priorities. If strategic marketing adapts to targeted consumer demographics, strategic HR needs to adapt employer branding to targeted top performers. As such, the question becomes: what do top employees value?

Social Media and Your Brand

Let me be clear: social media is not an all-encompassing solution. Rather, it is a tool that can be leveraged to support your branding initiatives. The goal is to adapt your employer brand to reach out to high-performing candidates and become their employer of choice. Here are three ways to use social media to promote your employer brand:

1. Expand your employee pipeline. Be strategic and systematic in your approach so that targeted geographies, industries and professions are covered. Connect with these top performers and keep your ear on the ground.
    
2. Engage top performers and join in on the conversation. Social media is a multi-way communication where your level of engagement is a good indicator of your level of influence.
    
3. Be prepared to be transparent. This is a prerequisite: before embarking to promote your brand, ensure that it is a true representation of your organization. No amount of social media campaign can fix what is broken from the inside.
    

Social media is a powerful and cost-effective tool that can be leveraged to promote your employer brand. You can use it to communicate, illustrate, and solidify your vision and mission. You can use it to provide a preview of what it’s like to work for your organization, effectively starting the onboarding process even before an employee is hired.

However, as with any other great tools, it is important to know its limitations. Also ensure that your culture is positive and your current employees are empowered and engaged to promote your employer brand. Having a social media governance in place is also prudent…an altogether different topic in itself!