2. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 2
introductions
3. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 3
agenda
1. Welcome and Introductions
2. What is Content Marketing and Why is it important?
3. 5 Steps to Boosting your Talent Brand through Content Marketing
4. Content Case Study: Chani Kohn, Anne Inc.
5. Questions & Discussion
4. Who here is the…
Most Popular Most Endorsed
Earliest Adopter Most Connected
Janice
Tee
Victor
Loo
Kathleen
Teixeira
Sunny
Ramljak
5. 5,000
Estimated number of ad messages
a person living in a city sees today
(according to Yankelovich, market research firm)
7. 29.5
Hours of online video watched
per person per month in Canada
(compared to 20.6 in USA)
* The Canada Digital Future in Focus 2014 report
8. Content is being created, consumed and shared
at a speed and scale never seen before
NewsCred, 2014
9. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 9
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing technique
that involves creating and sharing valuable and
relevant content in order to drive profitable
customer action
(or in our case, to acquire employees!)
10. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 10
Refresher: What is Talent Brand?
Talent Brand is the highly social, totally public
version of your employer brand that incorporates
what talent thinks, feels, and shares about your
company as a place to work.
11. GREAT CONTENT
TELLS A STORY...
…a ,
transparent story of
what it’s like to work
at your company.
relevant
12. 5 Steps to Boosting
Your Talent Brand
Through Content
Content Marketing Guide for Talent
Acquisition Professionals
13. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content
13
Step 1: Plan
Step 2: Develop your content
Step 3: Share your content
Step 4: Amplify
Step 5: Measure and adjust
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Step 1: Plan
Define your audience and build a content calendar
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 14
15. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 15
Start by thinking about “who” you are trying to attract
and engage with your content
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Define your content audience(s)
Persona Professional Personal Behavioral
Professional
Value Prop
Mary Marketer
Title
Seniority
Experience
Skill
Education
Age
Gender
Interests
Lifestyle
What motivates them
How do they make
decisions, spend their
time
Compensation
Work/Life Balance
Internal Mobility
Challenging Work
Sarah Student
Evan Engineer
Characteristics
17. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 17
Next, you need
to get yourself
organized
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Developing a content plan
Developing an editorial plan is key.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Status
Update
We couldn’t be more
excited to announce
this... (insert APAC
bit.ly)
HOT JOB: Do you
love to be challenged
by your amazing
peers and clients
every day? Look no
further for the perfect
career move!
Developing apps
without being able to
test changes to your
code in real time is
painful. Check out
these tips on how to
alleviate the pain: link
Calling all Stanford
techies…We will be
on your campus next
week -- let’s talk about
summer internships.
Click this CheckIn link
to pre-register.
Friday fun: insert
image of team lunch
OR any catchy image
found online OR
interesting fun fact.
Content
Type
Press release Job post link Blog post Event registration Image
Target
Audience
Marketers UX designers Engineers Students Everybody
Publish
Where
LinkedIn, Facebook LinkedIn, Twitter LinkedIn, Twitter LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter
LinkedIn, Facebook,
Instagram, Pinterest
Content Themes: Thought Leadership Talent Brand Company/product news Event promotion Just for fun
19. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 19
Step 2: Develop your content
Curating and Creating
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 19
20. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 20
Curating versus creating contentStart by curating content from other sources –
internal and external
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Where to find great content?
22. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 22
At some point, it’ll be time for you to
your very own original content
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When creating great content keep these tips in mind
Be conversational
Keep it short
Be visual
Offer snackable tips
Include a call to action
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Images
A picture’s worth a thousand words, so sharing images that capture your company spirit
and values is a great way to showcase your talent brand.
Companies use
colorful images
to increase
engagement
with their
content
Tip: Posts with images generate 98% higher comment rate than posts without.
25. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 25
Presentations
No design resources, no problem. Presentations are an easy way to showcase
employee testimonials or your company culture.
Achievers’ “Top 10 Reasons to Join Achievers”
deck is a great example of leveraging images
and color to promote culture: they created a
presentation, posted it on SlideShare and then featured
it on their LinkedIn Career Page.
Four Seasons’ deck shows images of
employees in action, a visual of what it’s
like to be in role. Also posted to
SlideShare and featured on the LinkedIn
Career Page.
26. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 26
Infographics
Showcase interesting data or stats visually through infographics.
Salesforce.com
and AIMIA use
infographics to
promote their
company culture
and products
27. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 27
Videos
There’s nothing better than video to tell a story about your company and or showcase
“a day in the life” of your employees.
Tip: Links to YouTube videos can play directly in your social media feed and
generate 75% higher share rate.
28. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 28
Company Blogs
Blogs enable you to go more in depth around topics important to your company
and employees.
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Employee-generated content
There are no more impactful brand ambassadors for your company than your
employees. Encourage them to tell their stories through original content posts.
Tip: Share themes and ideas with your employees, make it a contest and honor
the winners.
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The perfect content mix
Thought leadership/industry news40%
Talent brand25%
Just for fun5%
Company/product news20%
Event promotion10%
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Step 3: Share your content
Where, when and how to publish
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 31
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5 tips for sharing content on social sites
Post at peak activity times
Post frequently
Lead with a catchy first line
Be responsive
Reciprocate
33. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 33
When, where and how often to post
Platform Peak activity Suggested frequency
7-9am
5-6pm
Start with 2-3 times/week.
Work up to once per day.
6-8am
1-4pm
Start with 2-3 times/week.
Work up to once per day.
1-3pm 2-5 times per day.
Tue and Wed,
24hrs/day
2-3 a month.
34. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 34
When, where and how often to post
Platform Peak activity Suggested frequency
12-1pm 2 a month or more if you
have the resources.
2-4pm
8pm-1am
A few times a week.
Daytime 2-3 times a week.
9-11am A few times a week to once
a day.
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Step 4: Amplify
How to increase engagement with your content
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 35
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Amplify your message through your employees
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Inform them about your talent branding efforts and how they play a key role in
helping attract great talent.
Ask your employees to share
Ask them to follow your company pages on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social
networks.
Encourage them to like, share and comment on the content you post. Send them
pre-scripted status updates so it’s easy for them to share.
Promote any relevant content they are already creating themselves.
Identify brand champions – recognize that not everyone will be as enthusiastic
as you.
Get leadership buy-in and get executives to promote your content. Make sure
they lead by example.
38. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 38
300M+
(+2 every sec)
SPONSORED
UPDATES REACH
THE ENTIRE
LINKEDIN NETWORK
COMPANY UPDATES
ONLY REACH YOUR
POOL OF FOLLOWERS
Sponsor your best content to extend reach
39. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 39
Intel appeals to Android developers on LinkedIn
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Step 5: Measure and adjust
How to know if your content marketing is working
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 40
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Key Metrics
Impressions: number of times this update
was seen
Clicks: number of times a member clicked
on the update
Interactions: of likes, shares or comments
received on this update
Engagement: interactions divided by
impressions
To Know: Average online engagement is between 0.3% - 0.8%.
How to know if your content is working
42. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 42
Experiment & Get Creative
156%
CTR
lift
43. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 43
Experiment & Get Creative
Test call to actions: Always have a clear call to
action
Test thumbnail images: Choose compelling,
attention grabbing images (colorful, includes
recognizable leaders)
Test your tone: Tap into an emotion, use humor.
What resonates with your audience?
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In Conclusion
Embrace Content Marketing
as a strategic way to attract talent
It’s an ongoing process –
try, learn, iterate, optimize
Be creative, authentic and have fun!
46. 5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 46
What have you learned?
What take-aways do you have?
What will you do differently today?
5 Steps to Boosting Your Talent Brand Through Content 46
Earliest Adopter (Janice Tee, D+H Limited)– The first person to sign up and create a profile on LinkedIn
Most Connected (Victor Loo, Bell) – The person with the most 1st degree connections
Most Popular (Kathleen Teizeira, Indigo) – The person whose profile was viewed the most in the past 30 days
Most Endorsed (Sunny Ramljak, IBI Group)– The person with the most total endorsements
1. Our behavior has changed. We’re more selective about what we pay attention to. Because of all the noise, only the most relevant, valuable and engaging messaging cuts through.
2. Our target audiences are reachable via platforms where content is consumed (everyone is!)
3. Marketers have been leveraging content to drive profitable customer action, why has is it taken so long for these practices to be embraced for talent acquisition?
shouldn’t be glossy, overly produced
Needs to be natural, authentic, subtle, informative, about educating not selling
Before you start sharing lots of great, compelling content, it’s important to think about exactly “who” you are trying to attract and/or engage with your content. Afterall, the kind of content of interest to someone in engineering is quite different from someone in sales or marketing –or finance for that matter.
Understanding who your content is for and what they most care about will help you focus your content program for maximum impact. Define candidate profiles.
Define the ‘drivers’ for taking/ leaving a company.
Turn them into ‘real’ people and connected them with names/ faces.
Build messaging to target these different candidate segments. (Technical/ Sales/ Product/ Marketing/ Operations)
Later you will define the best communication outlets and build content for them.
Next you need to get yourself organized, but not to worry, I’ll tell you how
Setting up profiles on social media sites isn’t the branding. The branding comes with a purposeful plan to engage your target audiences every day. Work on content often!
learn and develop daily on what content is relevant for your audiences.
Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Re-use content with mild tweaks.
Simple quotes from key leaders.
Google Alerts with company name.
Fun company facts
Use images, when possible!
The quickest and easiest way to get started with content marketing is to curate content from other sources. Think about content curation much like the curator of a museum. As the curator of content for your company, instead of choosing what goes on the walls, you’re choosing what gets posted on social sites like LinkedIn, others, that you believe will be of interest to the audiences you most want to engage.
Your marketing, communications and product teams are a great place to start. Also company blogs. Do your company have an engineering blog? That’s another great source for technically oriented content.
Content curation enables you to get started faster and leverage work others in your organization are already doing. No need to completely recreate the wheel.
Creating your own content gives you complete control, but is typically more of a “phase 2” with most of the clients we work with. Primarily because most of the TA teams we work with simply aren’t staffed with the people or with the skillsets to be able to create their own original content.
The good news there is that we’ll give you some suggestions today that anybody can do, using very simple tools like PPT.
It’s critical to consider the appropriate mix of content.
Based on an audit of what the most successful talent acquisition content teams are doing, we suggest :
Now that you have invested the time in creating a thoughtful content strategy and you have great content to share, it is equally important that you think critically about the right places to share your content. All that work will be for nothing if you don’t get your message in front of the right audience at the right time. If you can gain viral momentum, even better!
A few tips to consider when sharing content, we’ve already discussed the first one to post at peak activity times and a bit on frequency. Again, taking bandwidth into account it is best to post at least once per month but best in class organizations are posting 3-5 times a week. Posting something once a week is better than not posting at all so even if you have to get scrappy and pull in a “hot job” because you didn’t have time to curate any content, that’s ok! Just do it!
When you share your update you want to think about the type of introduction you would like to use. Short and catchy is best. Asking a question encourages comments (which increases the organic growth of your update) and when feeling uninspired, take an interesting quote from the article you are sharing to peak interest.
It is important to be “social” on social media so when you see that people are commenting on your post, especially if you’ve asked them to, reply! It makes your organization more personal and you will earn trust. Even if the comments are negative, acknowledge them and move on.
Finally, it is important to
Not all social platforms serve the same purpose. Thinking back to your personas – where are the people you are looking to attract going to be spending their time? When are the platforms you use most heavily trafficked? What about posting on the weekend?
On LinkedIn, we know that people tend to visit our site during their commute times or first thing in the morning. However, on Facebook, we often need a quick break from work so we login during the afternoon slump – makes sense right?
A theme you’ve heard already and a key takeaway from this conversation is this: play around with the timing of your posts and pay attention to the engagement. Is it higher in the morning? Then keep posting in the morning. I actually tested this myself with a piece of content recently and posted something around 10pm. It was the least engaged posting I’ve ever had on LinkedIn. Now, that’s just my personal updates but I would say it’s not going to be much different for an organization.
Now, just because we feature all of these platforms in the playbook doesn’t mean you have to post to all of them. You already know to take the persona into account but I would also encourage you think about your own bandwidth. It’s worse to start posting to a platform only to realize a few months later you hadn’t posted again than to not begin posting there in the first place. You can start small – possibly look at where you have the greatest following and start there.
When you post content, typically only your followers see it. If you want to amplify your message
to a wider audience, you can sponsor content. Here is how Intel approached the challenge of
reaching a wider audience on LinkedIn.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to watch your content closely and make sure your strategy is working. The great thing about content marketing is it is quick to readjust and doesn’t need
Consider your audience and have a plan. Think about what your audience will care about the most and create a content
calendar to stay organized.
It’s ok to start small. Even a post a week is better than nothing.
Have fun. Content marketing is all about experimenting. Show your company’s personality. Try something different. Photos and
videos are always a great place to start.
Remember you don’t have to do it alone. Your employees are a wonderful source of content and can also be a
tremendous asset for