Employer Branding on Linkedin: Essential Guide [2024]

When a job seeker searches for a company they look for a workplace that is very attractive for them.  

They consider various factors other than pay package which include – location, work flexibility, benefits, growth opportunities, good company culture, notable clients, company reputation, and their potential co-workers.

When a job seeker comes across a company relatively unknown to them they will definitely do an online search, visit their social media channels, and ask someone who’ve worked for that organization.

According to Linkedin, 75% of job applicants consider a company’s reputation as a good employer before applying for a job.

As an employer, how will you attract top talent and also retain them in your organization?

There is a surefire way.

It is through employer branding on Linkedin.

What is Employer Branding?

Employer branding is way of promoting your company as a place to work among job seekers and current employees.

You need to build your reputation as one of the best places to work in your industry.  

It only works very well when your company has a strong employee value proposition.

You can also check out this video about employee value proposition in brief.

When you become better at building your reputation as an employer brand, the more likely you can attract top talent. Also, being a positive employer brand can help you in retaining top talent in your company.

Now you are thinking that employer branding is same as company branding.

No, they are not.

The former refers to your reputation as an employer to job candidates whereas the latter indicates your reputation as a company in general.

When your company is well known for your services or products that do not also mean your company is employee-friendly and attractive in the job market.  

Although both branding strategies are different, one can impact the other. A company with a strong brand presence can be considered as an attractive place to work.

If that company has a negative employer brand impression it might discourage other companies (or people) from becoming clients or customers.

Benefits of Being an Employer Brand

Here are the six major benefits you get when you are acknowledged as an employer brand.

• You can reduce hiring costs as job seekers proactively apply for positions in your company they know have a good working atmosphere.

• You can tie up with well-known recruiting/staffing agencies that can help in fulfill your hiring requirements in time.

• Candidates are more likely to accept your job offer if your company has positive employer reputation. This reduces your time spent on hiring.

• Employees stay at your company as they prefer positive working atmosphere and believe in growth opportunities. This will improve employee retention in your company.

• Professional platforms such as Linkedin and Glassdoor publish their own list of ‘Best Companies to Work For’ every year. This attracts mainstream media and thereby increases your company’s reputation.

• Being an employer brand indirectly helps in improving your overall company branding.

12 Ways You Can Build Your Employer Brand Using Linkedin

The best employer branding strategy is to promote your workplace through social media, especially through Linkedin.

That’s because most of its 750+ million users are full-time professionals, company executives, recruiters, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and college graduates.

Still there are companies not realizing the platform’s true potential when it comes to brand building.

Employer branding works well when both your HR and marketing teams work together. 🤝#Employer #Branding #Marketing #HumanResources

— Anandu S (@byAnanduS) April 3, 2021

Compared to other social media platforms, Linkedin has high organic reach and this is the perfect opportunity for promoting your company (until the organic reach drops to zero).

Here are 11 ways you can build employer branding on Linkedin.

1. Optimize Your Linkedin Company Page

When talking about employer branding ideas, first thing on your list should be optimizing your Linkedin company page.

You can start with creating and filling your Linkedin company page with all required information – whether it be company page logo, background image, ‘About’ section, office locations, Linkedin public URL, tagline, preferred language, etc.

Reviewing and updating your company profile can give a quick boost to your employer brand.

You can use the background image section to upload banners related to upcoming company events, celebrating anniversary, or mass recruitment drive.

For a dedicated page for employer branding campaigns, you can create a showcase page which is an affiliate page to your main Linkedin company page.

Don’t forget to add your website as “Contact Us” button (CTA) on your company page.

2. Posting Job Openings

Linkedin allows you to post job openings via your company page for free. You can insert “upload resume” or “apply via company site” option as your call-to-action button.

There is an paid listing option available if you want to place your job listing at the top of Linkedin’s job search results.

You can also share your job openings as a normal Linkedin post and request your employees to share so that it will reach to Linkedin feeds of job seekers.

Posting jobs on Linkedin is another way you can get more brand impressions that make job seekers follow your company page.

You can include this ‘tactic’ as a part of your employer branding campaign.

3. Share Updates on Employee Engagement Activities

People, especially job seekers wants to know what’s going inside your organization and how you treat your employees.   

You can share photos and videos of employee engagement activities happening inside your company. It can be of:

• Employee onboarding process
• Birthdays and work anniversaries
• Awards and recognitions
• Office and employee workspace
• Webinars
• Company and industry events participation
• Games, tournaments, and competitions
• Charity events, parties, and holiday trips

The list goes on…

When you appreciate the efforts of your employees and share it on a public platform (especially on Linkedin), it will encourage them to stay and contribute towards the company’s growth.  

4. Create Engaging and Shareable Content  

You cannot ignore content creation when you are running campaigns for building employer branding on Linkedin.

Create content that peaks the interest of your target audience, compells them to engage and share it.

You can talk about:

• Job-related tips
• New or emerging industry trends
• Case studies based on your successful projects
• Your company’s history
• Interviews with industry thought leaders
• Employee testimonials
• New developments and challenges in your area of expertise
• Your company’s future growth plans.
• Awareness against fake job offers and recruitment frauds, and more.

If you have an active blog that covers the above-mentioned topics, you can break each blog post into little pieces of content and you can share it on your company page.

When posting content, try different formats such as short videos, carousels, infographics, polls, images, and text-only content.

You can use graphic design tools like Canva, InVideo, Renderforest, and Adobe Express to create videos or images (from scratch or use pre-built templates).

To increase the engagement from your audience, you can add a question (as CTA) at the end of every Linkedin post.

You need to be consistent when it comes to posting content, and you can use storytelling to create an lasting impression on your audience.

5. Conduct Live Sessions

Conducting live sessions is another tactic you can include in your employer branding campaign on Linkedin.

It is another great way to directly interact with your audience.

You can conduct an live interview with a top expert in your industry or live Q&A session with your audience.

You can also conduct live webinar or conference events on topics that attracts your target audience (especially job seekers).

It is a powerful video marketing tool which provides real-time content that is interactive and more appealing to your audience.

Another great advantage is that you can break your live videos into little pieces of content. You can repurpose them into short videos and can be shared on Linkedin and other social media platforms.

Linkedin’s live streaming feature is currently in beta.

To have live streaming feature on your personal profile or your company page, you need to submit application for it.

6. Employee Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content created by users that are shared on social media platforms. It can be reviews, testimonials, comments, videos, blog posts, photos, etc.

Companies are now leveraging UGC as it produces far more engagement compared to content created by companies themselves.

Similarly, you can utilize content created by your employees to gain trust as a positive employer in the job market.

You can encourage employees to share their experience and on the latest happening in your company. You can track their posts by using specific hashtags they use in their social media posts.

For example, Google has shared a video of their developer advocate (screenshot image shown below) during work-from-home period.

Since employees of a company tends to have more number of followers than the company page, you can get help from them.

They will create branded posts or reshare your posts on their page to get more reachability.

You may find employees who are influencers and use them in promoting your company. You can also reach out to them for employer branding ideas.

Leveraging an employee’s unique insight can give your organization’s thought leadership and brand perception from time and time again.

7. Faster Reach with Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is a form of paid advertisement provided by Linkedin. It is available in 5 different ad formats – single image, video, carousel, single job, and event ads.

When you post a sponsored content it will appear on the Linkedin feed of the members of your target audience.

It is another way to boost your employer branding on Linkedin.

Make use of Single job ads format to post your hiring message in front of your targeted audience i.e. job applicants. It will reach them faster compared to a normal Linkedin post.

You can also experiment with various ad formats to amplify your content and promote your brand faster.

You have to make sure that the sponsored content is well-optimized for mobile and tablet devices.

8. Respond to Comments and Queries

When you are actively creating and sharing content on Linkedin, try to respond to comments that appear under your posts.

It will help in increasing the visibility of your post and profile views. It also means that your company is very responsive on the social media platform.

Same is the case with your Linkedin company page.

You can increase views and follower count of your company page when you respond to comments under the company posts.

This in turn attracts the attention of job seekers who will follow your page and keep tab on future hiring requirements.

When a company shares a job opening on Linkedin, it is natural that applicants try to get in touch with people concerned via chat or Inmail.

They can be your HR team or rest of the employees in your organization.

Make sure that their messages are not ignored and help with their queries.

9. Involve Your Employees in the Hiring Process

You can involve your employees in the hiring process thereby boosting your talent acquisition and reduce costs associated with it.

Your HR team can share information regarding job openings with your employees so that they aware of the hiring process.

The employees will share it with their Linkedin network and on other social media platforms.

Make sure that employees respond to queries they receive from job seekers via Linkedin or other platforms.

You can encourage the involvement of your employees in the hiring process by conducting employee referral programs.

You may find top talents through (Linkedin) referrals also.

Talking about referrals, do you know that you can convert your existing customers into brand advocates of your business? Check out this article to learn how to do it.

10. Monitor Brand Mentions and Hashtags

You need to monitor brand mentions and hashtags on Linkedin. It will help in building your reputation as well as maintain it in a positive way in the long run.

When people mention your company in their posts or comments, you need to make sure the content is relevant and respond to it, accordingly.

You will receive notification when people tag you (or your company) in their conversations. Or, you can use third party tools to monitor and track brand mentions on Linkedin and other social media platforms.

Tracking brand mentions also helps in improving your company website’s SEO.

Similarly, you can follow specific hashtags to find and engage with content that relates to your company or your niche.

You can even create your own hashtags to track relatable conversations on the platform.

11. Use Company Page Analytics

You can use Company Page Analytics to measure and analyze the results of your employer branding campaign on Linkedin.

When you access the Analytics tab of your Linkedin company page (as page admin), you will find following analytics.

• Visitor analytics
• Update analytics
• Follower analytics
• Employee advocacy analytics

If you want to know more about employee advocacy and how it helps in employer branding and overall branding of your company then check out this article.

Follower analytics provides data on how many followers you have, how many new ones you have acquired and their demographics.

Similarly, visitor analytics provides data on mobile and desktop visitor traffic to your page, new visitor traffic, and their demographics.

The update analytics provides the engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments, clicks) and views of your organic as well as sponsored Linkedin posts.

Employee advocacy analytics comes in handy if you are conducting an employee advocacy campaign for promoting your products/services or promoting yourself as an employer.

You can use the analytics data to improve your campaign and helps you in coming up and test new employer branding strategies.

12. Leverage (Short) Video Content

With the rise in popularity of video platforms like Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels, Linkedin is also pushing users to create more video content on its platform.

If you have actively creating short video content for your Tiktok or Instagram page then reuse the same videos for your Linkedin page.

Conclusion

Nowadays, companies irrespective of their size have started realizing the importance of being a top employer in their respective industries.

With more professionals becoming active on this social media platform, it will become helpful for companies to spot and attract top talent.

Let’s talk in the comments if you have anything to share regarding how to improve employer branding for your company.