Employer branding is not just a task that concerns HR managers, but a real brand marketing activity that involves employees, who can take on an important role in corporate communication, becoming actually brand ambassadors.
What is employer branding and why it’s increasingly important for companies
Literally employer branding means making a company very attractive for different types of candidates, highlighting those qualities, tangible and intangible that define the identity of a company as a workplace and that differentiate it from similar companies or competitors, so as to make it “unique” in the mind of the worker.
Through the employer branding it is possible to highlight corporate values and what people are promised to find (and continue to find) within a company.
In recent years, this activity has taken on a wider and more relevant meaning as digital has changed the way we perceive the Brand.
It is becoming increasingly evident that the Brand is similar to a Person, identified through Values and Vision by the company employees.
Social media posts, job reviews and testimonials, networking conversations, are different ways that current, past, and even potential employees can affect the company’s reputation and the Brand. We can therefore say that today employees represent the Brand and have an important role in corporate communication. For these reasons, employer branding is not only an activity that concerns the HR department, but a brand marketing activity that also involves the CEO, managers and employees themselves who, consciously or not, can speak positively about their job and so become brand ambassadors.
Employer branding and Brand Ambassador
Involving employees in the brand storytelling, to represent the company as the set of employee stories and the way they work, has a significant impact on brand reputation.
They are, in fact, the most effective influencers, and are able to amplify the company messages in a credible way: not being paid testimonials but people who, voluntarily and more efficiently, decide to spread content and messages they believe, increasing the effectiveness of communication.
Brand ambassadors help to make the company attractive by sharing its values, telling its success stories and internal initiatives. This is because, while employer branding is an activity that allows an HR manager to attract the right people to achieve business goals, it is also a way to increase brand reputation.
LinkedIn Employer Branding Process by LoP Brand
Lop Brand has developed a training process for employees who want to become brand ambassadors for the company they work for.
The LinkedIn Employer Branding Process is a framework based on LinkedIn, the professional social media most suitable for corporate communication. This framework allows the company to adequately train employees who wish to become brand ambassadors.
This framework consists of five steps:
- Guidelines for preparing the personal profile
- Brand ambassador selection
- Brand ambassador training and coaching
- Audit of ambassador profiles
- KPI measurements and fine tuning
The benefits of employer branding for every company
Today employer branding is important for any type of company, whether it has job vacancies and is therefore looking for people to be included in its staff, or at the moment it does not need people to employ.
A company that shows and would share its values, that takes care about social media communication and on the institutional website, that chooses selected events to attend, is clearly focusing on its reputation and needs credible and reliable brand ambassadors.
Employer branding helps to increase visibility in reference markets and internally promotes the sense of belonging by stimulating identification with the company.
Let’s not forget that satisfied employees are the strongest speakers that a company has to increase its reputation, especially in the era of social media and user-generated feedback where companies don’t always have complete control of their reputation.
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