Insights from Julie Atherton, author and seasoned business consultant, ETHRWorldEMEA

The digital revolution has significantly transformed how businesses operate and interact, with social media emerging as an ongoing game-changer in both employer and employee branding.

A survey conducted in 2023 by Content Stadium, found that 98% of recruitment and employer branding specialists use social media for these purposes.

Additionally, 64% of organisations have dedicated social media strategies to attract applications, while 86% encourage employees to engage with recruitment-related content, showcasing the integration of social media in corporate branding and recruitment strategies.

Social media: How is it redefining corporate branding and recruitment drive?

Social media has revolutionised corporate branding and recruitment by providing companies with innovative ways to connect with talent and enhance their image. It enables employers to reach a global pool of candidates quickly and cost-effectively.

For instance, organisations can leverage social media websites to share employee success stories, showcase workplace achievements, and promote diversity and inclusion initiatives. In return, it helps organisations to create a relatable and aspirational brand that resonates with their potential candidates.

However, with the increasing number of social media platforms entering the market, ensuring the effective use of these channels in recruitment while maintaining a strong employee brand reputation remains an uphill battle for today’s organisations.

Recently, ETHRWorld EMEA interviewed Julie Atherton, author and seasoned business consultant to gain her insights on strategies HR managers must establish to effectively leverage digital channels for recruitment while safeguarding the company’s brand reputation.

According to Julie, HR managers should ensure they have the right systems and partners in place to enable them to utilise social media and other digital channels effectively to maximise recruitment potential and the employee brand reputation.

Here are the edited excerpts from the interview:

1. With the emerging social media trends, what are your thoughts about workforces adapting to them?

Social media marketing is a rapidly evolving environment with new channels emerging and the functionality of each channel continually being updated. In addition, AI is impacting every element of creative development and delivery with increasingly sophisticated tools and analytic options available.

To succeed in these areas, marketing teams need to ensure the core skills in strategy development, analytics, brand positioning, objective setting and measurement are learnt and applied.

However, for the successful application of a strategy, the number of social media channels should be limited to the most important, for team members to learn and deliver using the strongest and most effective tools the app includes. The broader, key skills will not change, but the application of current social media tools will need constant updating and so the number of channels used should be limited to allow time for expertise to be built.

In the case of AI, it has multiple social media applications and delivery teams need to network and test new applications to ensure they are using the most appropriate tools. Taking time to learn the tools is key, as is limiting the number used. Ideally, a team will select the best tools for text, image and video creation and optimise their usage. Updating to a new tool should only be undertaken once their effectiveness is tested.

As more AI is used it will be important for organisations to create transparency and ethical policies in this area to ensure employees and customers are clear on how a business is using AI in marketing.

2. Any suggestions you want to give businesses looking forward to building effective talent pools in the digitally savvy era?

To build an effective talent pool it is essential to invest in your teams’ personal development and training. Identifying a development pathway for each person is important, as is providing the support and direction to achieve it.

Too often key people leave and if there is no clear succession plan in place the business is vulnerable. Retention and competitive advantage can be significantly improved by ensuring ongoing opportunity identification and investing in relevant training in partnership with the individual.

3. In your opinion, how have HR roles transformed in this ever-changing digital era and what advice do you have for future talent acquisition managers?

In a digital environment, there is a huge amount of information available online about both organisations and individuals. HR managers need to monitor the opinion of their business on social media and review sites and work to ensure high levels of employee
engagement and positive sentiment.

In addition, when hiring, social media channels are a great resource for advertising roles and finding individuals. However, HR will also often be responsible for ensuring they have researched the online reputation and behaviour of important personnel to ensure they match the values of the organisation.

HR managers should ensure they have the right systems and partners in place to enable them to utilise social media and other digital channels effectively to maximise recruitment potential and the employee brand reputation, and reduce the risk of recruiting potentially brand-damaging personnel.