Over the past years, Instagram has taken the world by storm. With a wide range of employees and employers creating a social media presence, establishing an engaging brand image for recruiting top talent has never been more important.

We've gathered some of our favorite strategies to engage potential employees on Instagram and build your brand as an amazing company to work for.

Celebrate Successes and Milestones

Being recognized for achievements amongst your team, or in an interdepartmental meeting feels amazing. Having that success published on Instagram takes that feeling to the next level. To a potential employee, it also creates a positive brand image for how your company celebrates success. Seeing employees, at all stages of their career, creates a face to which potential employees can relate.

This can be used when your company wins key contracts, gets sign-off for a particularly difficult project, or when an employee is praised for amazing customer or technical service.

Showcase Your Work Environment

Whether you have a modern designed office, your workforce is 100% remote, or anywhere in between, showing potential employers the space in which they will work removes ambiguity and establishes your working environment.

A new coffee machine installation, moving to a new spacious, natural light-filled building and dedicated work from home spaces, all make great post ideas. Keep the visuals light and engaging and really promote the type of environment potential employees will be working in.

Including anything that personalizes the workspace is a great addition. These posts are not just about creating a connection to the working space, but also personalizing that space for your next generation of employees.

Social Engagements  

Does your company run a culture week or month? Do you have Friday night drinks or weekly sports groups? Many companies in their employment listings cite ‘great work-life balance’ or ‘wellness benefits’ as a way to attract potential employers. We recommend going the extra step and actively showcasing this on social media. Identify areas that your company engages employees outside of the typical 9 to 5, and make it a moment to share.

Employee Development

91% of millennials place career and professional development as a high priority when choosing their next employer. Creating interactive posts on development opportunities, training courses, mentorship programs, and industry partnerships are important to show your company’s dedication to helping employees grow.

Employee Success Stories  

Have you just hired someone new, or promoted someone into a new role? These are great moments to capture and share on Instagram. Add a quote from the employee and help connect their success to previous professional development training they did at your company and you have created a fantastic employee story.

A Day in the Life of an Employee

If you are having difficulty filling a particular job position, why not passively promote that on social media? By creating a ‘Day in the life of’ post, you can build awareness as to what this type of employee does in your company, creating recognition and interest in the role. You can break up the experience into multiple posts throughout the day, producing a cohesive story to show the variety and depth of work this type of employee does. To us, seeing a position advertised in this way is far more appealing than reading a job description.

Employee Take-Over Day

Employee take-over day is essentially one day a month where an employee or team takes over the company’s Instagram account. This team can post about individual team members, meetings, work tasks, work environment, or what they love about working at your company. Anything that helps to promote your workplace as an amazing place to work is allowed.

Featured Employee of the Week

Creating a feature post, or series of posts about one employee is a great way of shining a light into unseen areas of your company. Building a robust and diverse range of employee profiles can promote the culture, acceptance, and diversity of your company while highlighting personal interests and professional successes.

Here are a few other tips to ensure your posts are valuable:

Post diversity - Combining different types of content, bright attractive images and interactive posts generates more interest than posts that have the same content type.

Create a story and continuity – All posts should be tied to a greater marketing purpose. Build readership through stories and engaging content, ensuring every post is ‘on brand’.

Language and tone – Keep your posts light and engaging, short sharp sentences to gain attention and likes.

Understand your brand – What attracts potential employers to your brand? What is stopping talent from choosing you as their top employment choice? Understand your brand to strengthen your image, and overcome the detractors.

Creating your company’s social media branding is an exciting and creative task that has the potential to attract your company’s next superstar employee.  Check out some of our other articles for industry tips, amazing apps, and creative ideas to take your social media engagement and recruiting strategy to the next level.