“With employee videos, you simply let your employees be your communication funnel towards the talent market.”
Using video as your main source of content has been somewhat of a megatrend for a while now. Video makes our brain feel and engage so much more than – for example – imagery and text. We have all consumed marketing for quite some time now, but how we communicate through video hasn’t changed – until now.
When thinking of employer branding videos, you may start thinking of employees being actors – playing ping pong, giving each other a high five, or laughing at a scripted joke. Thanks to our knowledge these days, we know that none of that is real. As the candidate market looks right now – we don’t even think people will apply, because they know it’s fake.
During our sixth Employer Branding Talk (a lunch event where we invite prominent speakers within employer branding and recruitment – re-watch it here), we had the honour of having Benjamin Kesler up on stage – co-founder of Local Glimpse. Benjamin and his company creates authentic employer branding videos for scale-up and enterprise companies. He talked about how important it is to let people speak from the heart. Not by the script. He’s a short summary of his part of the event:
Local Glimpse:
Reality over fluffy words
– You shouldn’t force the employees to deliver a specific message. Instead, we think of the ideal inputs – what they might say, without forcing them to say anything, Benjamin says during the webinar. – I always try to dig deep. Because you want to get to the interesting answers and not the expected ones. Those interesting answers should be the creation of the video. Not the other way around.
Benjamin also claimed that you need an always-on mindset. Creating content frequently that you can push out to different kinds of talent pools.
– It’s important to produce targeted content and plan out which phase you should activate – like the awareness, or the activation phase. Maybe you have pushed out content about the company values, mission, and vision for the last six months, Benjamin continues. – Then it’s time to change the content and activate the talent by sending out specific roles that fit the assigned target group.
Benjamin predicts even more authentic communication when moving forward. Context realised content which targets the right type of candidate for the right role.
– If you communicate to a product person the same as you do to a sales person, they will probably not resonate in the same way. I believe video will become more contextualized, like content that leads you to a specific platform and specific talent. For example, a salesperson may be spending a lot of time in their car – maybe a podcast would be a great platform to communicate? Another example of creating targeted content is listening to the people during the job interviews. Do the research and gather the data.
Benjamin’s top 3 recommendations for employer branding video content:
- Look at the budget for the culture video, split it into 50, and make more small videos and post it every week.
- Listen and research your candidate. Ask them during the job interview what they want to know and use it as a source of content.
- Engage and train your TA team and hiring managers to be your employer brand ambassadors.
Life Inside:
Employee storytelling. Reinvented.
Our next guest on the stage was Niklas Busck – Head of Sales at Life Inside. Niklas agrees with Benjamin that the candidate market expects a clear and honest picture and that organisations need to find new ways to communicate their culture. If not? They will risk losing some great candidates.
– We saw a communication gap between the talent and the organization, Niklas begins. At Life Inside, we let the employees tell your brand’s story without scripts or fancy film cameras. It increases time on site, conversions, and brand experience. It’s easily managed video creation and shares employee videos right on your website, career site, job ads, and social media – all while you give your potential new colleagues an accurate view of your company. You simply let your employees be your communication funnel towards the talent market.
What kind of result do you see from using Life Inside, you may ask. The statistics are amazing, after only being launched for six months with over 40 companies using Life Inside’s usage generated videos.
– We have seen that time on sites improves by around 40%, the conversion rate goes up by 15-30% and the overall brand experience improves. Our clients have also said that their employees think it’s fun and stimulating to work and participate in this way, Niklas continues. – The internal engagement increases when hearing from the employees rather than standardised text about a culture that may not even be real.
Nicklas 3 recommendations on how to get started with Life Inside:
- Start with two to four videos. It will activate a video widget on your site, and make people understand how cool and effective it is.
- Bring recruiting and hiring managers to the platform so they can use it for the next role they are recruiting for.
- Scale up your video creation. Allow life inside to be the automatic content machine that you can use on social media as well.
AddPro:
Rebranding with the culture in mind
Lastly, we had Julia Nilsson, Nicklas Persson and Nicklas Henriksson from AddPro up on stage. AddPro is a leading cloud and integrator provider that has grown a lot in the last couple of years. But their growth is not necessarily what makes them so special. Instead, it’s their dedication to making their consumer brand and employer brand align and represent their values.
Nicklas Persson, CEO at AddPro, talked about how important it is to practice a transparent culture – both to their customers and within the company.
– Everything we do internally, we try to do externally. We live in a changing environment, so we need to be relevant, Nicklas begins. – Every hour, every minute. We have done good things, but that may not be relevant in today’s talent landscape. So, it was a big decision to rebrand – but we needed to, says Nicklas.
Nicklas Henriksson points out the importance of not only thinking about the customers when they rebranded.
– When the new cultural behaviour guide was released, we started to feel that we had good ground to take the next step. We have done a lot while hitting the ground running. We started to plan the new website but also thought about our target groups. Who are we building it for? Asks Nicklas. – We wanted to focus on new and existing customers. But also, potential and current employees. Everything is connected. An employee today may be a customer tomorrow. And a customer today can be an employee tomorrow.
AddPro has not only partnered up with Oddwork but also with Life inside. Julia Nilsson explained how they rolled out the message to organisations about creating employee videos.
– During the pandemic, we saw how important it is to have videos that stand out. The statistics show that people don’t apply because they don’t get a clear picture, Julia explains. – What better way to make our employees tell others how it is? The result has been fantastic, and we have got positive feedback from the candidates that it is a great way to get to know AddPro on a deeper level. People at AddPro are also very proud to contribute, which is the best proof we can get – because we live for our employees.
Julia’s 3 recommendations on how to use Life Inside the organization:
- Put together a team of ambassadors that create videos and lead by example.
- Make it easy to record a video – a battery of questions and offer help to film
the videos. - Reward the people who take the time. That they feel appreciated and special.
Want to know more about employer branding and which tools to use?
Contact us at kontakt@oddwork.se or attend Employer Branding Summit on May 10th. There are still seats available!
Connect with our speakers and guests on LinkedIn:
- Emma Häregård, Oddwork
- Charles Sinclair, Oddwork
- Niklas Busck, Life Inside
- Benjamin Kesler, Local Glimpse
- Julia Nilsson, Addpro
- Nicklas Persson, Addpro
- Nicklas Henriksson, Addpro