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Tips for Digital Employer Outreach

for Texas Workforce Commission Public Information Officers

December 07, 2016

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Be a Magnet Get Found

Develop Relationships Measure and Learn

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Be a Magnet (so Employers will

Find You)

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Define Your Audience – Develop Content that Attracts

Spend some time building your target audience profiles – define your audience and tailor your message. • Create your audience value propositions

• Develop programs and content, and showcase successes

• Track and learn from results

Example: Hiring Red, White & You (HRWY!) profiles • General Awareness – casting a larger net

• Staff

• Employers

• Vets, Vet Groups

• Targeted Job Candidates

• Community Supporters

• VSO Summit Attendees

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Define Your Audience – Develop Content that Attracts

Build Personas to focus on each target audience. These are created with a combination of raw data and informed assumptions, representing slices of the individual groupings.

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Define Your Audience – Develop Content that Attracts

Build thought leadership content that directly speaks to your value and audience needs, and share relentlessly (more on that later). • Webcasts

• Webinars

• Blogs

• Briefs

• eBooks

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Seek Your Audience – Build a Following

Tap into networks and find new “leads” to connect with. Leverage your Board’s social connections.

• Use advanced search (keyword modifiers and Boolean search) to actively reach out and connect to those that fit your target audience criteria

• Customize the LinkedIn default text with your reason for wanting to connect with them around your shared interests

• Join groups

• Alumni

• Companies

• Industries

• Functional (by role)

• Community

• Associations/Organizations

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Seek Your Audience – Build a Following

Spend some time building your connections so that your posts will reach the right people • Share others' content. Hit “like” on others’ posts to have it share within your

stream (You do not need to comment on it unless you have something to add)

• Publicly respond to comments with a thank you (like) or positive note (In LI: Send a thank you InMail to connections for likes and shares)

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Get Found (Smart Content,

Smart Profiles)

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Creating Content – WHAT to share

Start by aligning your personas with your channels and timing. • Build guidelines for sharing,

eg: toolkits

Example: HRWY!

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Creating Content – WHAT to share

Creating an information center for audiences.

Example: HRWY! event page: • http://www.wrksolutions.com/for-individuals/career-exploration/veteran-

services/hrwy

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Creating Content – WHAT to share

Share rich content, like videos • Share link from YouTube or Vimeo

to your status updates

• Embed a video in a LinkedIn Publisher Post

• Share videos on organization page updates

And presentations or documents

• Post onto SlideShare before sharing in statuses

• You can also post to your summary to enhance profiles of your advocates/ambassadors

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Creating Content – Best practices when CREATING content to get it shared by others

Use strategic keywords • Think about which keywords others use to search for content

• Helps with social site searches of those who may not be aware of you or your programs yet

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Creating Content – Best practices when CREATING content to get it shared by others

Posts with visuals get more engagement • Embed videos for more engagement

• For images, square or horizontal images are best, and include branding

• 800x800 pixels is a perfect sharing size for most social channels

• 1024x512 is also a great horizontal size for twitter

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Creating Content – Best practices when CREATING content to get it shared by others

Mention other people and companies in order to give credit and gain awareness with them on their feed • Include mentions of other users by typing the “@“ symbol and then a few

letters to pull a lookup window and select the person’s name

• Mention other associations, local companies, etc.

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Creating Content – Best practices when CREATING content to get it shared by others

Use hashtags to help keep conversation threads and build followers and audience engagement. • Use the hashtags you want to “own” such as “#HiringRedWhiteandYou,

#HRWY, #HRWYHouston

• Use hashtags others are using to join in to greater conversations (eg: #entrepreneurs, #diversityatwork)

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Creating Content – LinkedIn Publisher Posts

LinkedIn Publisher works like a blogging platform

• Posts should be over 500 words (but longer is better, goal is 1,500)

• Add an enticing headline and graphic

• Hyperlink to other related content on your website; end with a call to action of some kind

• Keep your tone friendly and casual (Write like you talk. Blogs are meant to be conversational)

• Make your posts easy to scan; include bullet points when possible

• Invite readers to ask questions; we want to encourage dialogue

• Consider embedding a SlideShare or video

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WHERE to Share Content – Post Cross-Pollination

Cross-share posts between company and personal profile

• Share personal LinkedIn publishers posts (blogs) on the company page as status updates to reach a different audience and drive traffic

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WHERE to Share Content – LinkedIn Groups

Post your content into related LinkedIn groups

• A good rule of thumb would be to choose 1–2 groups for key audiences and engage with those by posting your own content and commenting on others. (Many people belong to more than one group, and if they see you posting the same content in multiple groups, you’ll be flagged as spam.)

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WHERE to Share Content – Boosted and Sponsored Posts

Sponsored content is a way to share with those you aren’t directly connected to—target specific audiences • Can be used for updates, blog posts or ads

• Based on targeting settings

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WHERE to Share Content – Boosted and Sponsored Posts

• Example targeting settings (eg: geography, company size, group affiliation, expertise, title, years experience, etc.)

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WHEN to Share Content – Best times to post

LinkedIn • To reach C-level, think first thing in the morning. Also, in general 10–11 EST

on Tuesdays are good for general business-related content. Avoid Mondays and Fridays when possible.

Twitter and Facebook • Lunchtime and afternoons are best as people check and engage during

downtimes.

23Source:HubSpot

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Creating Content – WHERE people are searching

Creating an information center for participants. Help those with similar interests find your content.

Example: HRWY! event page:

• http://www.wrksolutions.com/for-individuals/career-exploration/veteran-services/hrwy

• SEO: Using a designated page for event education and recap. Can build upon this page and support sections.

• keyword focus —> search visibility

• relevant, interesting and usable content

• Creating habits for past participants, eg: tools and resources on the same page

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Develop Relationships

(Embrace ongoing relationships; not

‘one-and-done’)

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Create Employer Relationships with Consistent Content and Channels

Stay top-of-mind and continuously deliver great content to build strong relationships. • Newsletters

• eNews

• eMagazines

• Communities

• Newsrooms

• Pressrooms

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Create Employer Relationships with Consistent Content and Channels

Create dialogues through feedback (and can be re-used as marketing content, and there is trust in third-party success stories) • Surveys

• Testimonials

Example: HRWY!

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Create Employer Relationships with Consistent Content and Channels

Stay top-of-mind and continuously deliver great content to build strong relationships • Use information from

surveys to createhelpful benchmarkingdata for employers

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Metrics & Reporting Tips

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WHAT to Measure – Social Metrics

REACH

• Impressions

• Followers

• Mentions

ENGAGEMENT • Likes

• Retweets/Shares

CALL-TO-ACTION

• Traffic from Social

For KPIs – on all of these you will want to create a baseline metric so that you can understand what improvement looks like based on today.

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WHAT to Measure – Email Metrics

Clickthrough Rate

• The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links contained in a given email.

Conversion Rate • The percentage of email recipients

who completed a desired action.

Bounce Rate • The percentage of your total

emails sent that could not be successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox.

Unsubscribes/List Growth Rate

• The rate at which your email list is shrinking/growing.

KPIs – on all of these you will want to create a baseline metric so that you can understand what improvement looks like based on today.

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Thank You

Sarah Salimi ssalimi@savagebrands.com

Robin Tooms rtooms@savagebrands.com

December 07, 2016