One of the most common social media difficulties we hear clients are facing is a lack of content, or a lack of time/resource to assist with content production. We’re always disappointed to hear this, as we believe it needn’t be this way.
Many of the most powerful social media posts haven’t used elaborate photoshoots, or professional video. Take the Guiness World Record holder for the most liked Instagram post of all time. It’s a simple stock image of an egg, posted strategically, with an interesting caption, and a distribution plan:
The most powerful social media content blends a calendar/cultural moment with an emotive opinion or perspective, and brings it to life in snappy, quick-to-understand creative.
To help overcome the content production barrier, we’ve pulled together 10 of our favourite, simple and quick ways to source and/or plan content for your Careers social channel.
- Calendar Dates
Research and make a note of when key calendar dates are coming up, like International Women’s Day on 8th March 2020.
- Internal Key Dates
A quick-win that can easily be overlooked, don’t forget your internal key dates. When was your company founded? When did key products launch? Are there any moments of consumer or industry fame - like a much-loved advertising campaign - that can be celebrated year after year?
Company milestones can all be celebrated on LinkedIn, and/or may lend themselves to a week’s worth of posts about the date.
Monday: Announce that it’s your company’s birthday week, and you’ll be celebrating with colleagues across the business.
Tuesday: History of the company - Why the company was founded, by who, and when.
Wednesday: Birthday message from a colleague with long tenure. Include a reflection from them on how the business has changed since they joined.
Thursday: Looking ahead - What’s on the horizon for the business over the coming year?
Friday: Photos from internal event - birthday cake, party hats, keynote speech from CEO.
- Listen to your colleagues
What are your colleagues talking about? The chances are, if your colleagues are talking about specific industry questions, trends or challenges, candidates probably are too.
For example, a simple chat on Workplace led to this social media and blog post.
- Listen to your reviews
There are likely to be some positive messages within Glassdoor or Indeed reviews that you can amplify with content.
Someone mentions loving your policy on flexibility. This could inspire a series of posts highlighting the value of flexibility, brought to life with quotes from colleagues about what benefits flexible working has afforded them. You could even quote the anonymous sources directly from Glassdoor/Indeed.
LinkedIn has a wealth of content tools. Use any of the following to source 3rd party content to share to your page, or to discover trending articles and videos you could use to inspire a company post (e.g. Our opinion on X, or People are talking about X, but have you thought about Y?).
Content suggestions: Use the “Content” section of your Company Page to view what’s trending across LinkedIn, your Company Page followers and/or employees on LinkedIn. You can even drill down to viewing trending content by industry, location, role, or seniority.
Community hashtags: Available via your main Company Page, add hashtags to monitor industry news and content. Following a hashtag also unlocks the functionality to use your company page to share or comment on any post made using these hashtags.
Trending employee content: A relatively new feature available via your Career (Life) Pages. Select up to 3x hashtags, and LinkedIn will showcase trending employee content from these hashtags on your Life Page.
- Google Alerts
Set up a Google Alert for your business’s name so you can be the first to hear breaking news and product announcements. Like LinkedIn tools, this could prompt a simple reshare of the news, or an original piece of content inspired by/relating to the news.
Reddit is a forum-based platform, used by communities to discuss and share their interests.
Subreddits like (https://www.reddit.com/r/Recruitment/) can be helpful social listening tools, providing an insight into key conversation topics. Your social media posts could be a great place to respond to questions being asked by community members.
- Google Analytics
What are people searching for when they land on your site? Is there an opportunity to provide this information on social instead (or as well)?
- Invite guests to contribute
Reach out to thought-leaders, employees and/or advocates of your company and invite them to produce content on a specific theme.
- Awards - Plan Ahead
Know you’ve been awarded a very prestigious accolade, but can’t mention it until the embargo’s been lifted? Use this time to plan complementary content that can ride the coattails of the big announcement.
For example, if you’re going to receive a “Best Place to Work” award, go and gather some feedback from colleagues on why they love working at your company. Use this feedback to make social media posts to go live before and after the award announcement.
There you have it. 10 go-to destinations for finding and planning social media content. Next time you’re struggling to find something to fill your content calendar, give one of these suggestions a go - and let us know how you get on. Happy posting!
