Hi Rally community! As you know, in today’s candidate-driven market, Recruitment Marketing content is one of the most worthwhile investments you can make as an employer.
Through constant, high-quality content that showcases your employer brand and stays current with topics your candidates and employees care about, you become the employer they go to first when they are ready to apply. Considering that job postings are increasing, while applications are decreasing this strategy is crucial.
To show what an effective content marketing strategy for recruiting looks like in today’s changing hiring landscape, we turned to Nestlé USA, the winner of the Best Content Marketing Program category at last year’s Rally Awards. Their strategy last year not only landed them first place, but also a record-high 321.4 million impressions and nearly 9.1 million engagements.
To learn the nuts and bolts behind this strategy, we spoke with Nestlé USA’s Emily Rutt, Manager of Social Media and Community Management, and Taylor Childs, Senior Producer of Communications, Design and Editorial. Together they credited 3 major steps behind their success:
- Staying on top of what candidates and employees care about
- Showing company values through authentic employee stories
- Repurposing content you create and find for maximum value
In reading more about each of these steps below, you can hopefully gain a sense of how to apply them at your own organization for more effective hiring through content.
Emily Rutt, Manager, Social Media & Community Management, Nestlé USA
Meet the experts
Emily Rutt, Manager, Social Media & Community Management
Emily is currently Manager, Social Media & Community Management at Nestlé USA. She is passionate about engaging in meaningful conversations, creating story-driven content and reaching new audiences across digital platforms.
Taylor Childs, Senior Producer, Communications, Design & Editorial
Taylor Childs, Senior Producer, Communications, Design & Editorial, Nestlé USA
Taylor is currently Senior Producer, Communications, Design and Editorial at Nestlé USA. She spends her time producing engaging stories about her colleagues’ unique experiences and expertise, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the amazing people behind her company.
With our experts introduced, here are the 3 steps they credit for Nestlé USA’s content marketing success!
1. Stay on top of what candidates and employees care about
The priorities of candidates and employees are always changing, with or without a pandemic. But as any employer will tell you, the rate of this change has increased rapidly in the past 2 years.
Emily and Taylor stay on top of this change through a variety of methods. For example, they’re constantly looking at social media trends, what other players in their field (both corporations and influencers) are doing, the performance of their content and newly published reports. They also go directly to the source through employee and candidate surveys.
This research is then discussed in regular brainstorming sessions, where the goal is to bounce around new ideas, come up with ways to bring new creative ideas to life and understand what’s resonating with Nestlé USA’s target audience.
Through audience and talent research, their team discovered that priorities had shifted to emphasize factors like:
- Sense of purpose in your job
- Flexibility and good benefits
- Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
In other words, these were the traits that both candidates and employees were seeking in an employer, and that needed to be more heavily prioritized in Nestlé USA’s Recruitment Marketing content going forward.
2. Show your company values through authentic employee stories
Today’s talent wants authenticity, which is why Nestlé USA centers most of their content marketing around employee stories — real, unscripted stories showing how Nestlé USA meets the needs of the priorities listed above.
The story of an employee named Kristin who combines her passion for travel and innovation to thrive in her role at Nestlé USA.
Along with adapting content and messaging based on audience research, they’ve also shifted the style in which they tell these authentic employee stories by utilizing different creative mediums.
One example of this is the video above, which features an animated story about Kristin, a Nestle employee who is unlocking innovation down the coffee aisle and helping you discover your perfect cup. This animation style is just one of the ways that Nestle is finding fresh, creative ways to bring human stories to life.
They also created a Nestlé USA BFF series, which features Nestlé USA employees in casual conversation with their best work friends, from in-person to online. The series also helped keep employees connected to each other and gave a look into the office culture through these authentic friendships.
Not only does the video series have one of their highest watch rates, but employees also actively volunteer to be featured and share the videos with their own networks!
An example of a Nestlé USA BFF episode featuring friends Antwon and Katie.
Rally note: For help with empowering employee storytellers and creating better employee generated content (EGC) at your organization, check out our ideabook here!
By making these types of pivots, as well as ramping up the use of animated videos, illustrations and still-image graphics, Nestlé USA has been able to continue delivering content that candidates and employees care about even in a more limited, remote setup.
3. Repurpose content you create and find
After putting so much effort into creating high-quality content, the Nestlé team loves being able to maximize opportunities to share. Part of this means repurposing content to perform optimally across their various channels.
For example, the attention span of people viewing content on LinkedIn compared to Instagram Stories is very different. Length, editing, formatting and other factors are taken into consideration to account for this and get the best audience reaction possible.
Proper content organization also plays a major role in getting the most out of content. For example, a part of an employee interview may not work for one video but be perfect for another in the future. The right organization system can make or break your ability to find and reuse content in scenarios like this.
Other than the content they create, there is also plenty of content that their team finds that is perfect for repurposing. One example of this is Glassdoor reviews featuring employees’ opinions on Nestlé USA’s benefits (such as wellbeing tools or parental leave), which Emily and Taylor turn into graphics and share as authentic employee perspectives.
Ready to take your career to the next level at Nestlé? We’re excited about an environment that empowers you to succeed. ⚡ Check out our latest opportunities here: https://t.co/1iDuOOxue9 pic.twitter.com/qamGGzhuFT
— Nestlé US (@NestleUSA) September 30, 2021
An example of a Glassdoor review turned into a GIF and shared on Twitter.
Similarly, Nestlé USA was named one of Fast Company’s best places to work for innovators, which provided another opportunity for authentic, shareable content. The key is to constantly be on the lookout for these types of repurposing opportunities.
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Candidates’ and employees’ priorities are continually changing and organizations must not only be aware of these shifts, but actively incorporate them into their talent attraction strategies. Nestlé USA has done exactly that by bringing engaging, meaningful stories to life that resonate with their audiences and establish them as an innovative, equitable, and supportive employer.
More than anything else, staying on top of talent trends and research, and demonstrating workplace culture through authentic employee stories and creative content allows Nestlé USA to do this. By taking inspiration from their approach, we hope that you too can see similar hiring and retention success through your Recruitment Marketing content.
