There are 930 million LinkedIn users. It’s the biggest professional network on the internet and is made up of people looking to develop their career, whether that’s by making connections, finding job opportunities or building a personal brand. It’s also a ready-made recruitment audience. And as you might expect, it’s full of recruiters trying to attract the best talent—which is why standing out on the platform is so important. Leveraging authentic employee voices is a way to do that and it can arm you with content for building an audience of candidates warmed-up to your employer brand that will give you the edge over competitors.

What is authentic content in recruitment?  

Authentic employee content gives employees a platform to express themselves and, in doing so, proves that your organisation is a great place to work. That’s important in today’s marketing environment—a study has shown how audiences have come to value this kind of messaging, with 78% trusting user reviews more than ads. Leveraging employee voices enables you to provide proof that your organisation is a great place to work and helps your messaging resonate with a larger potential audience.  

The process of creating authentic social media content often begins with interviewing employees—those who drive your business forward and best represent the kind of people you want to appeal to. We call these model employees ‘persona champions’ and spotlighting them in content is a way to connect with audiences similar to them.

You can ask your employees about what attracted them to their profession, any challenges that they have overcome to get where they are in their career, and what they like about work. Their responses can then be turned into content tailored to the preferences of your audience. Finding out what these are is a key part of the research stage of content projects for creative marketing agencies—it helps them to produce content about topics audiences care about in a format that they love to engage with.

Develop authentic employee content with Genius

‍

Why is authentic employee content important on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is where audiences that drive business reputations spend their time online. Tech and IT Services professionals, for example, are among the most avid users of the platform, accounting for 4.8% of all LinkedIn users, which makes building a reputation on the platform a priority for tech employers. And it’s worth bearing in mind that 75% of people use LinkedIn to search for jobs. But even if your target audience isn’t typically on LinkedIn (you’re a manufacturer looking to recruit factory workers, for instance), producing authentic employee content for the platform can attract engagement from HR professional or recruiters in your sector and drive your wider reputation and visibility.

Posting regular authentic employee content on LinkedIn can also help with SEO by growing your audience. A large following on LinkedIn, although not a direct ranking factor, can boost search performance by increasing traffic to your careers site when you post links to it. It also demonstrates what Google calls E-E-A-T, which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness and is a measure of how influential you are online. Consistently posting authentic content can help to cultivate your online influence and E-E-A-T and send positive signals to Google about your business, which can play into your overall online reputation and search performance.

Authentic employee content can also help with retention. Celebrating the achievements of employees on LinkedIn and shining a light on issues they care about helps to build stronger connections and keep them engaged. That’s important—according to research by Gallup, disengaged employees are 2.6 times more likely to look for a new employer. Here at Genius, we produced an employer podcast for the pub chain Greene King that leveraged DEI as part of their employer brand. We spoke to employees involved in inclusion groups about their life experiences and what the inclusion groups do. Content like this not only to makes stars of employees, but also promotes a workplace culture that is attractive and engaging for everyone.

Develop authentic employee content with Genius

‍

How can I leverage authentic employee voices on LinkedIn?

We know that authentic LinkedIn content about employees can be a powerful talent acquisition tool—but what forms can it take?

Mini-video podcasts: Video content is popular on social media. And podcast audiences are growing. A mini-video podcast is a way to harness the power of both. Skilled content creators can interview employees and uncover incredible stories that make for personal, unique and engaging content that stands out in feeds. Anywhere from two to 15 minutes long, an authentic employer podcast gives employees a space to talk about issues they care about, humanises your employer brand and can attract engagement from people in similar situations or their allies.

Articles: If an employee has achieved something spectacular inside or outside of work, a LinkedIn article is a great way to celebrate it publicly. Work with your content partner to produce an engaging piece with an attention-grabbing headline that will encourage sharing that will help you gain visibility with a wider audience.

Infographics: Image content gets up to 650% more engagement that plain text posts, so an infographic is an effective to present information about working for your organisation. A content team can work with your employees to gauge their tastes and produce infographics that will really hit home with the kind of people you want at your organisation.

LinkedIn carousels: This is the side-scrolling image content you’ll often find on LinkedIn. Carousels consist of eight to ten images which, when used effectively, can tell a micro-story about your company or employees that gets real traction on LinkedIn. Carousels are often among the best performing pieces of content in content marketing projects by Genius.

Video content: Uploading video content directly to LinkedIn can help boost your reach and build your audience. But you might also want to direct people to video content hosted on your careers site so that you can reap the SEO benefits of site traffic. You can do this by posting a link with a teaser clip or image of the video and crafting accompanying post copy to generate intrigue and click-throughs.  

Develop authentic employee content with Genius

‍