How do you balance authenticity and professionalism in your employer branding content?

Balancing authenticity and professionalism in employer branding content is a must and cannot be ignored. Authenticity comes from being transparent, sharing real employee stories, and reflecting the genuine values and experiences of the workplace. To maintain professionalism, the tone should be aligned with the company’s brand values, ensuring that the messaging is clear, respectful, and polished. It’s about presenting a true, relatable image of the company while ensuring consistency and professionalism across all channels. Achieving this balance helps build trust and attract the right talent.

Candidates demand and deserve authenticity. When it comes to "knowing your audience" it's about meeting them where they are. What platforms do they spend their most time on (TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit?). It's a balance of showing up authentically, professionally, and consistently. Show people you care by highlighting real employees stories of people who look like, sound like and embody the culture fit of who you are trying to attract. This will create a symbiotic balance of right time, right place and right audience.

Balancing authenticity and professionalism is like finding the perfect harmony – you want to keep that consistent brand voice across different channels while spicing things up with the unique values and vibes that make your company special. Adding a dash of this uniqueness can keep your messages from feeling repetitive and dull. But remember, it's not just about talking the talk – your actions need to groove to the same beat. When your words jive with what you actually do, that's where trust starts to groove, showing you're the real deal. So, keep it real, keep it exciting, and let your branding do the talking and the walking with style.

Consistency shouldn't mean same content everywhere. More so, your authentic voice can take many shapes depending on who you are targeting. Is it a management profile or a STEM profile? Your company, like all companies, is a living entity, and the working experience is not the same everywhere. These two profiles value very different things and you should really engage with what they value, in a very honest and truthful way. Give some air time to your managers and to your employees. Be mindful that it's all about the candidates. Companies that focus too much on themselves tend to have a hard time appealing to their target audiences. You should have a strong value proposition that should be catered differently to different profiles.

BE CONSISTENT in your messages, this will make you gain the TRUST of your audience ?? It is vitally important to have consistency in the messages we transmit as a company, both internally and externally. Employees must feel that the messages they receive are the same as those that the external audience can perceive, that there is transparency in the content. It is important to differentiate the way of communication on different social networks, because communication is not done in the same way on TikTok as on LinkedIn, for example. But we must always maintain the essence and consistency in our messages.

Acc to a survey, Candidates trust Employees voice more than a Brand. Employee Advocacy becomes significant when it comes to bringing Employer Branding to Life. Employee Advocacy increases Brand reach by 561%. Employees Stories when propogated on Social Media act as Good Strategy for Talent Attraction and Talent Branding.

Consistency may be one of the hardest priorities to manage when it comes to content creation, strategy and activation - especially managing internal content vs external content and corporate vs candidate messaging. Brand consistency though is critical to ensure that the messaging candidates are receiving matches the real employee experience. Use EVP pillars and brand values as your North star to ensure alignment across channels and platforms. Your content should accurately represent the company's culture and values. Consistency, however, is not a one-time effort but an ongoing commitment. Maintaining a coherent brand voice and identity requires continual monitoring and adjustment.

Write as you would speak and feature real people in your employer branding content. Employees are your best advocates and can add a layer of authenticity to your corporate and “professional” content. With their voices, they can amplify and strengthen your narrative, increasing your reach and impact. The more voices are represented and heard, the more people on the outside will relate to your message ??

Being HUMAN and TRANSPARENT will make you CONNECT with your AUDIENCE ?? Expressing your emotions and stories doesn't diminish your professionalism. On the contrary, they bring authenticity to your company. When we communicate we must connect with our audience and a very powerful way to do this is by putting a touch of naturalness and transparency. Employees' own stories are always the best content because the audience sees themselves reflected in them.

Advocacy is the KEY of being totally authentic while maintaining professionalism Invite your employees to share how they live your values everyday, why do they enjoy working for you, their career success stories with you, showcase your working culture… etc Let them be your advocates & content creators & show them how to do it professionally This way you maintained both authenticity and professionalism Nothing is more powerful than a humanized employer brand!

We're big on this at Cleo! We have a bunch of awesome people who are so much more than the role they do from 9-5. Sharing a small part of what they get up to outside of work (if they are comfortable doing so), helps to show that we celebrate different interests.

Employee advocacy is your secret weapon to amplify your message, add credibility, and humanize your content. Company shared by the corporate account should always consistently reflect the brand personality and voice, but relying on your employees to share that content in their own voice will make it more human. If your employees are engaged, empowered to speak up, and know how to articulate your story, your message will sound a lot more authentic.

By strategically showcasing the organization’s societal contributions and impactful initiatives, this reinforces its commitment to positive change. Empowering employees to act as brand ambassadors allows them to share authentic experiences that reflect the company’s culture and values. Additionally, highlighting career development opportunities and success stories demonstrates the organization’s dedication to fostering long-term employee success in the industry.

It can be a double edged sword to attempt to be relevant. Take #iwd for example. It's a great way to recognize women and their contributions in the workplace, but so many companies are featuring their women and their initiatives, so audiences can become fatigued and blank out on your content. It's not enough to just post at the right time with the right hashtags anymore - with thousands and thousands of posts around trending observances, your content has to be grab attention in the feed with your very first sentence. So make it count! My tip for this is use a raw, emotional line or opener in any content to get those 3 sec views and impressions.

Relevance is key to authentic employer branding content. When your content aligns with the current interests and needs of your audience, it resonates more deeply, showing your organization's genuine understanding of what matters. This relevance not only fosters authenticity but also demonstrates your commitment to addressing contemporary challenges and opportunities. By staying up-to-date and tailoring content to your audience's concerns, you create a more authentic employer brand and increase your appeal to candidates seeking a workplace that meets their expectations.

Many a time, relevance of the content shared to the candidate is not given enough importance. I have found it to be useful to apply a "so what?" test before sharing a piece of content. To elaborate, when a candidate see content from your organization, they shouldn't ask "so what?". For example, a candidate will not ask "so what?" when they see content regarding workplace flexibility or growth opportunities. Reason being, it is useful information for them. But, if they see content on what kind of elevators you use in the office, they will ask "so what?". It doesn't tell them anything regarding their career growth or why they should choose your organization.

To be relevant you need a strategy that supports the focus: Stay Relevant. Communicate with the right candidates, with the right message at the right time. Mixing informative, inspirational and being a thought leader is a great way to be relevant. If you want to know if you are relevant to your targeted audience: analyse your data & measure ex. your impressions, clicks and click through rate.

Share the creative responsibility with employees. Give them the freedom to come up with ideas - this co-production mindset will unearth some creative gems!

Creativity means using unique tools to deliver your message like: 1-Using storytelling techniques to convey your employer brand. 2-Sharing real experiences and anecdotes that showcase your company culture and values as this adds authenticity and engages your audience emotionally. 3-Highlighting the diverse perspectives and backgrounds within your organization as this demonstrates your commitment to fostering an inclusive workplace while maintaining professionalism. 4-Using visuals to make your content more engaging, and ensure that the visuals align with your brand and convey a professional image. 5-posting interactive quizzes, employee spotlights, or behind-the-scenes videos. This showcases creativity while staying professional.

Always remember, a corporate brand only controls the brand guidelines & compliance but you should be free to be creative, use attractive visuals & be more humane with your employer brand

In employer branding there’s still so much room for experimentation. The type of content and channels will depend on you audience, but you have a real opportunity to get creative and try new things, so get testing ?? Tweak your message, find new channels on which to share it, and rely on your employees to use their own voice when they share your story so you’re reinforcing your narrative in different ways.

Involve your people, there is nothing more soul-shattering than when I hear someone say 'I'm just not creative'. We all have creative bones in our bodies it's just about finding how best to express them. Some people do it through art, others through conversation some choose to sing and dance. Find the stories within your teams that resonate most both internally and externally and you'll find creativity is overflowing!

This point is getting more and more important. Posting "happy people" pictures after the office party is no longer enough. Candidates want to know more. They see through the pink glasses and appreciate real people's voices. Without a strategy and planning this can't be achieved. Without a strategy we are not really "doing EB" - this function is way more than posting on socials once a week. Strategy can improve time to hire, candidate experience and acceptance rate to name a few!

Agree. The goals of employer branding should be aligned with the company's vision, mission, values, culture, and development strategy. The employer branding plan should be a collaborative effort between marketing team and HR team, and it should be approved by the Founder/CEO to ensure that it is aligned with the company's overall goals, not just those of the HR department

The crux of being strategic, is ensuring you are delivering an employer brand that your leaders and stakeholders can see the fruits of your actions. Fundamentally, this is measurement. Examples: - evolution in brand perception versus your EVP (Universum data, external assessments) - evolution of internal perceptions versus your EVP - competitor performance & market share (Universum again really here) - digital engagement, changes in social media performance, LinkedIn engagement etc. - career site performance - what are people engaging with. - apply to hire ratios (are the right people understand your brand, and their alignment with it, and making intelligent apply decisions) Have fun with measurement, its thoroughly rewarding.

From my perspective, employer branding can lead us to set clear goals, define our target audience, crafting key messages, and planning content distribution. Plus, regular monitoring and optimization ensure alignment with branding objectives for a compelling employer brand image.

I agree with all of the above, but I think the one huge thing that is missing from this is to start with trust. Your people *are* professional, they are authentic, they are real and they are your best advocates. Trusting and enabling them to tell their own story, with layers of the above points around strategy and relevance is huge. Being too prescriptive and not trusting your people to tell their own story can undermine the rest of your efforts entirely.