Only a week and a half to go until our second RallyFwd Virtual Conference! We can’t wait to hear the great sessions on how to make the most of your Recruitment Marketing initiatives in the upcoming calendar year.
Since many of us work on small teams and need to stretch to cover a ton of areas, the focus of this RallyFwd is Small Effort, Big Impact in 2019. We hope you’ll tune in to hear from our great line-up of expert speakers!
To help give you a taste of what we’re in for, we’ve interviewed each of our speakers to get a preview of what they’ll be covering at RallyFwd plus a few exclusive quick tips for our blog readers.
Our focus today is on Instagram and mastering hashtags to engage with and spotlight your employees. Our expert is Kelly Burns, Recruitment Marketing Specialist at Yellowstone National Park Lodges.
Hi Kelly, can you tell us about your background and how you got into Recruitment Marketing?
My current role, working in Yellowstone, is my first step into the world of Employer Brand and Recruitment Marketing! However, this area is a natural fit for my years of marketing experience.
Before coming to Yellowstone, I worked as the Marketing Manager for Geronimo Trail Guest Ranch in New Mexico. Doing Recruitment Marketing in Yellowstone combines what I love most: creativity, storytelling, data analytics and national parks!
Amazing, can you describe what you’ll be talking about at RallyFwd?
My talk will be centered around employee-generated content. I will discuss how we brought the Yellowstone employee experience to life by using a hashtag.
By asking employees to share their experiences on Instagram, you can get valuable insight into the authentic experience of your employees. Not only that, but potential employees can also see what it would be like to join your team.
Why do you think this is an important topic for us to be talking about now in Recruitment Marketing?
Employee generated content is important because it holds you accountable as a Recruitment Marketer. In this crowd-sourced world, there is no longer a linear employee journey and companies are no longer in control of all the content an employee sees. If there is a disconnect between what you are marketing and what your employees are posting then it leads to a lack of trust.
Beyond that, employee generated content is a great way to build a relationship with your own employees as well as potential employees – and to get more great content to leverage for your different channels!
What are some challenges that might exist with using hashtags for social campaigns?
Awareness and usage. Not only do your employees have to be aware that you have a hashtag, but they also have to want to use it as well. It is also critical that they see the hashtag as accurately representing their employee experience.
How did you overcome these challenges during your hashtag campaign?
Since our hashtag campaign was launched mid-season (when our employees are scattered all around the Park), we decided to launch it as a competition to address both the awareness and usage challenges.
We offered a $100 monthly prize to incentivize employees to use the hashtag. We also made sure to curate a variety of photos (on the job, out exploring, doing recreation activities, etc.) on our Instagram page to show the full spectrum of the employee experience.
Any final tips for companies looking to improve their social media or hashtag approach in 2019?
Consistency is key to any social media strategy, including hashtags. You are building a relationship with your employees. If you are not consistent with posting, you lose trust with your employees. If they don’t feel valued and like their content is going to be shared, it will be very hard to get them to continue sharing content with you.
Want to hear more from Kelly? Register for RallyFwd to catch her full session, The Real Yellowstone: How an Instagram Hashtag is Bringing the Yellowstone Employee Experience to Life, on December 5!
