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Lucy Nixon

Lucy Nixon

Social Media Recruitment – Best Practice at Microsoft

I recently invited Carl Jones, founder and MD of Technically Compatible, to write a post for us about social media recruiting. Technically Compatible offer online skills testing software for recruitment.
social-media-recruitment
Over to you Carl!

The permeation of social media into society has drastically altered the way individuals and companies interact with one another. There are now a myriad of channels at a brand’s disposal to get their message across. Recruitment in the digital age often has more in common with marketing best practice rather than recruiting. How do you make sure that your company stands out on social media? In this post we take a look at how Microsoft, as one of the biggest global players in the technical sector, is harnessing the power of getting social.

What’s clear from examining Microsoft’s strategy is that shifting the bulk of your recruitment experience online does not necessarily have to result in a less human, impersonal experience for the end user. In fact, the Redmond powerhouse has been careful to craft a careers experience that is all about you, the individual, however you choose to engage with the brand. In terms of their presence across social media, they have official channels on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Each channel subtly portrays insights into what life is like at Microsoft. Here we address their strategy for each in turn.

LinkedIn Strategy

What is particularly clever about their LinkedIn page is that it is integrated as part of a mini-website on the networking site. The second tab of the main Microsoft company page is dedicated to careers updates.

microsoft-li

This is an incredibly clever move by the company for two reasons. Firstly, it captures a much larger audience. To date the page has over 1.9 million followers. Furthermore, it stimulates a more passive interest in what opportunities are available, even if members have no intention of changing role. Over 75% of candidates are considered passive, i.e. not looking for a new opportunity, thus having access to this pool of talent cannot be undervalued. It also prevents the members’ employer from having a panic attack that they have started following ‘Microsoft Careers’ (if they are connected to one another of course).

Facebook and Twitter Strategy

In terms of the updates that Microsoft share across their primary recruitment-specific channels, Facebook and Twitter, the tone is most definitely conversational. On their Facebook page they use audience targeting very effectively, directing questions at subsets including students. One example asked what would be the number one question they would ask the Microsoft university recruiter given the chance.

Once a week they package together their new opportunities as a ‘Hot Jobs’ update on both Facebook and Twitter, which links to an online newsletter in a new tab, rather than overloading the feed with individual job postings. This is a handy separator between those who are interested in the employer’s brand and those who are actively seeking an opportunity.

With regards to their Twitter approach, Microsoft craft a range of updates which are all very current, related to events, technical news and new opportunities as at a point in time. Take these three snippets for example:

microsoft-twitter

What is evident is that their tweets address the reader in the first person. It may seem a simple strategy but it is often one that is missed.

On social media visual content is king. Earlier this this year Media Blog analysed over 2 million tweets sent over the course of a month by thousands of users. The results highlighted that photos can boost the number of retweets a post receives by 35%. People are not going to engage equally with every tweet you send but there are ways you can chivvy them along. The retweeted Microsoft Europe is a nice example of supplementing a short tweet with an image that gives extra context and visual interest to the message.

YouTube

Microsoft’s focus on visual imagery doesn’t begin and end with their Facebook and Twitter profiles. They have over 3,000 subscribers to their YouTube channel, with their site adopting similar design principles to their LinkedIn page. Providing segmented content via a number of different tabbed streams, such as ‘A Day in the Life’ and ‘Working and Microsoft UK’. They also use the front page to highlight their other YouTube channels, seamlessly allowing you to subscribe to other content without leaving the current page.

One of the popular misconceptions with video production is that it is expensive to produce. The majority of us now carry around video technology everywhere we go via our smartphones. A few simple add-ons such as a tripod, ambient light and some editing software and you can create professional videos that are proven to improve engagement by 28%.

Instagram Strategy

A further tool that can integrate short-form video content is Instagram. Microsoft were an early adopter of this channel, with their Life at Microsoft account currently amassing 1,690 followers and 101 posts. This channel allows brands to highlight their company culture in a more informal way to Twitter and Facebook, highlighting the less ‘photo-shopped’ take on day to day life.

General levels of engagement for Microsoft are excellent on this platform, with an average of 75 ’Likes’ per post, equating to an interaction percentage of 7.5%. This is considerably higher than their Twitter and Facebook interaction, which typically see circa 50 ‘Likes’ per post on Facebook out of a potential reach of over 392,000, and less than 10 RTs per tweet from their 48,000 Twitter followers. Company pages on Instagram are still in their infancy, but with the service recently launching sponsored updates in the UK, their prevalence is likely to increase significantly over the next few years.

Best practice in summary

As clichéd as it sounds, Microsoft’s online presentation really does have something for everyone. Their channels all connect with one another as one seamless experience. This adds a layer of authenticity as they have a consistent personable approach to their updates and most vitally they are building communities of advocates for their brand. They have also invested heavily in ensuring their careers website ties in with their social strategy. The site is in effect an extended social experience, with insights in their Talent Network and JobsBlog. This is their shop window once people convert from passive to active and it has to reflect the same values and style.

Additionally, they acknowledge that life at Microsoft is not going to be all things to all people. They recognise the importance of segmenting their audience’s needs with relevant content; be that by gender, location or stage in the career lifecycle. One instance of this is their work on diversity, which is interwoven with their main social presence as well as the provision of stand-alone channels to support this. They target their efforts on highlighting opportunities for women on Facebook, with a dedicated company page called Women at Microsoft, seen as a conscious effort to increase the diversity of their predominately white + male industry.

Microsoft is able to attract people across the world to follow its brand on social media because it links recruitment into its wider goals and objectives. Collaboration with marketing, business and product development teams ensures that the strategy is aligned with the company’s overall ambitions, instead of working as a separate entity. Microsoft operates in an incredibly fast-paced and competitive sector and their recruitment team has to employ a variety of tools to resonate with its audiences.

Modern recruitment is no longer defined by a location or a system. Social recruitment is all about marketing your employer offering to a wider audience. Companies need to provide potential candidates with relevant insight across multiple channels, to convert them from just browsing to buying in to your culture.

Thanks, Carl!

carl jonesCarl Jones is Founder and Managing Director of online IT skills testing company Technically Compatible. A business enthusiast, Carl has worked in the software industry for 10 years in a number of senior sales and management capacities. Before founding Technically Compatible, he was a board level executive of The Test Factory, helping achieve an 8 figure acquisition before moving on. Carl is a passionate entrepreneur with a keen interest in leveraging best of breed technology to launch disruptive businesses and has keynoted at several international conferences. Holding a Bachelors Degree from Newcastle Business School and an MBA candidate with Durham University, Carl believes in continual progress in himself as well as in his business.

Recruitment and Equality: Diversity and Inclusion

diversity-equalityIt is all too easy for statements about equality and diversity to become unread boilerplate on a corporate website. After all, not many can acceptably say that their company is institutionally discriminatory, or are going to say that they deliberately recruit only Oxbridge-educated white men.

So how can you avoid the boilerplate text, and demonstrate that – for your company – diversity really is important, and that you truly do try to treat everyone equally?

Companies take different approaches to try and communicate the importance of ‘diversity and inclusion’. Here are a few examples of how to add some interesting extra material on this subject…

  • Safety: Everybody’s voice should be heard

    In their Careers section, Weir Group have posted a video of their Finance Director discussing the importance of diversity for innovation, but also discussing the importance of diversity in the supply chain with one of their key customers, EDF.

    Interestingly, in this video, Janet Hogben, the Chief People Officer of EDF, talks about the importance of inclusion for a safety culture, so that everyone can feel they can speak up and be heard if they see a safety problem.

  • Health: Everybody needs to be considered

    Novartis also discuss diversity and inclusion in their Careers section, and offer a Diversity and Inclusion Report with interviews from senior management about how diversity and inclusion is embedded in the organisation’s values and behaviours.

    They also discuss how important inclusion is when developing medicines, to be sure that the medicines are suitable for all.

  • Zero-Intolerance: Build a dynamic team

    Yara explain their ‘zero-intolerance’ philosophy on this issue in their Careers section.

    It’s interesting to see that one aspect of their approach is to deliberately secure ‘complementary skills sets, taking key factors such as gender, nationality, age, education and experience into the mix to build dynamic teams’.

  • More than compliance: it’s in our DNA

    In their Careers section, Corning’s focus is on innovation. Refreshingly, they say that their diversity initiative began as a compliance-focused effort – but that now it has grown into a strategic advantage and a celebration of diversity and inclusion on a global scale.

    They include a leadership message, a diversity brochure, a one-pager (in multiple languages) and an annual diversity report.

  • Thought leadership: diversity breeds innovation

    Rather than being in the Careers section, Merck’s diversity pages are in a ‘Topics and Viewpoints’ section in the Media pages of the corporate website. The diversity page is based around research that shows that companies which attach a high degree of importance to diversity are demonstrably more innovative than those with a more homogenous workforce. It includes:

    • A video from a roundtable discussion with over 20 leading German companies emphasizing the importance of acceptance of diversity and corporate culture
    • A summary of the research conducted by the CTI
    • A press kit covering the study, and packed with useful documents

    Merck aim to foster diversity, and have given responsibility to a member of the Executive Board, as well as appointing a Chief Diversity Officer. The section on The Merck Way explains how diversity is integral to their values and culture.

  • Bring your experiences to the table

    On the main US diversity page, the Why IBM Works video is posted; we’ve talked about this one before, but it is always moving.

    They also offer a section on their diversity heritage, and (unusually) a tab of diversity news, as well as a copy of a diversity brochure and a letter from the IBM chairman and chief executive.

    Note that IBM have a YouTube channel devoted to IBM and diversity.

  • Recruiting, targets and Board level involvement

    In the Careers section of the BP corporate website, there is an explanation about how the BP executive team tracks progress against their diversity and inclusion targets quarterly, as well as results against their targets (for example, 74% of employees believe that managers seek out diverse views from their teams).

    “The more diverse we are, the more successful we’ll be”

    In the Sustainability section, BP describe their diversity and inclusion ambitions and progress, and explain that when recruiting they aim for a balanced selection panel, and try to ensure that their diversity ambitions are reflected when selecting qualified candidates for consideration.

  • Employee experience: including the taboo topics

    ScotiaBank offer an interesting PDF of their diversity history. They also include transcripts of various employee experiences, from immigrants to people with mental health illnesses. Sometimes mental health issues are not discussed, so it’s great to see this out in the open on a corporate website.

  • Employee surveys: what do they really think?

    EY survey their people every two years, and include questions on inclusiveness, respect, teamwork and career progression. They present the resulting statistics online.

So there are options beyond simply posting a boilerplate statement that you support equal rights and diversity, and showing what awards you’ve won. Which would work for you?

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BAD2014blockinfo-300x168This post is part of Blog Action Day, which this year is discussing inequality.

Previous contributions to Blog Action Day have been:
2013: Communicating Human Rights
2012: One Plus One Can Be Greater Than Two
2011: Lessons From Food Security: Telling Us What Matters
2010: Mixing Oil and Water
2009: Climate change and the corporate site
2008: Celebrating the FTSE 100: action on the breadline
2007: Enticing the green investor

Best Global Brands of 2014

global brand valueInterbrand has released its 15th annual ranking of the best global brands, and the 2014 list reflects a lot of brand value growth in all industries.

The ranking is developed based on Interbrand’s analysis of three things: the financial performance of the branded product and service, the role the brand plays in influencing consumer choice, and the strength the brand has to command premium prices or to secure earnings for the company.

Overall, the best global brands according to Interbrand’s ranking haven’t changed much since 2013. In fact, the top 6 brands are identical to the 2013 ranking.

The top 10 global brands of 2014 according to Interbrand are:

  1. Apple = $118.9 billion brand value
  2. Google = $107.4 billion brand value
  3. Coca-Cola = $81.6 billion brand value
  4. IBM = $72.2 billion brand value
  5. Microsoft = $61.2 billion brand value
  6. GE = $45.5 billion brand value
  7. Samsung = $45.5 billion brand value (2013 rank: 8)
  8. Toyota = $42.4 billion brand value (2013 rank: 10)
  9. McDonald’s = $42.3 billion brand value (2013 rank: 7)
  10. Mercedes-Benz = $34.4 billion brand value (2013 rank: 11)

It’s interesting to compare the Interbrand ranking to the 2014 ranking of the most valuable brands by BrandZ that was released in May. That analysis ranked Google first ($158 billion brand value) and Apple second ($148 billion). IBM came in 3rd ($108 billion) in that ranking while Microsoft ranked fourth ($90 billion) and IBM ranked fifth ($108 billion).

Back to the Interbrand ranking, here are some of the most interesting findings within the data:

  • 40% of the top 10 brands (and 40% of the top 20 brands) are in the technology industry.
  • Only 17% of the top 100 brands lost brand value between the 2013 and 2014 rankings.
  • The biggest loser in terms of lost brand value between the 2013 and 2014 rankings was Nintendo, which decreased its brand value by 33%.
  • The biggest winner in terms of gained brand value between the 2013 and 2014 rankings was Facebook, which increased its brand value by 86%.
  • There were five new brand entrants on the 2014 ranking: DHL (#81), Land Rover (#91), FedEx (#92), Huawei (#94), and Hugo Boss (#97).
  • The gap between the top ranked brand and the brand ranked 100 is enormous: #1 Apple’s brand value in 2014 is $118.9 billion while #100 Nintendo’s brand value in 2014 is $4.1 billion.
  • This was the first year that Interbrand tracked two global brands with values over $100 billion (Apple and Google).
  • 54% of the top 100 brands are from the United States.

Five brands on the 2014 list of the best global brands are from the United Kingdom. All five increased brand value between 2013 and 2014, and one is a new entrant to the 2014 ranking. The best global brand from the U.K. is HSBC (#33) with a brand value of $13.1 billion (up 8% over 2013). Burberry ranks at #73 with a brand value of $5.6 billion (up 8% over 2013), and Johnnie Walker ranks at #86 with a brand value of $4.8 billion (up 2% from 2013). Smirnoff ranks at #90 with a brand value of $4.6 billion (up 8% over 2013). Land Rover is the new U.K. entrant to the ranking at #91. Its 2014 brand value according to the Interbrand ranking is $4.5 billion.

You can follow the link at the beginning of this article to get all of the data from Interbrand’s 2014 ranking of the best global brands. What do you think? Any surprises on this year’s list? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Barun Patro

The Evolution of the Coca-Cola Brand

coca-cola signJust last week, I published an article here on the Corporate Eye blog about leveraging company culture for brand storytelling. A couple of days later, Fast Company published a perfect example of using brand history for storytelling that I want to share with you today.

In its 2-minute and 11-second video, the team at FastCo Studios tells the 128-year history of Coca-Cola using words and images.

It’s not just a great example of brand storytelling, it’s also a great example of visual storytelling through short-form, social content. The video is brief, laser-focused, fun, interesting, and highly shareable.

You can take a look at the video below.

What makes this video work so well? As a brand storytelling device, it includes two ingredients that brand marketers should take note of:

1. The Nostalgia Factor

The video includes some well known stories from the history of the Coca-Cola brand like the 77-day lifespan of New Coke and the iconic “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” commercials. The video is filled with nostalgia that will surely evoke emotional reactions from many viewers.

For those of us who are old enough, did you remember that Kim Carnes and Michael Jackson appeared in Coke commercials? Sure, we remember the Michael Jackson hair-on-fire Pepsi commercial, but how many people remember his Diet Coke commercial?

2. The Trivia Factor

At the same time, the video includes some lesser known facts that make viewers sit back and say, “I didn’t know that!” For example, did you know that the original Coca-Cola recipe, one of the most guarded trade secrets in the world, was originally developed by a pharmacist? Did you know that the pharmacist’s bookkeeper designed the Coca-Cola logo using his own handwriting? Did you know that Coke sales doubled during the 1920s prohibition in the United States? These aren’t boring facts like how many awards the company has won or who its executives are. These facts are actually interesting, and that’s why they work so well in this video.

As brand marketers, we have to step back from the companies behind the brands that we promote and look at the brand story from consumers’ perspectives. What parts of the brand story would actually be interesting to consumers? Effective brand storytelling needs to tell the stories that consumers want to hear, not the stories that the company wants to tell. While these two things could be the same, they are far more often not.

Image: anyjazz65 licensed CC BY-2.0

The Effect of Company Culture on Brand Image

company cultureWhich brand do you prefer as a consumer—Apple or Google? Which company would you rather work for as an employee—Apple or Google? Which company would you rather invest in as a shareholder—Apple or Google?

Are your answers to those questions the same or different? For many people, their answers will be different because we prioritize different factors when evaluating a brand as a consumer versus as an employee or investor.

As Google and Apple trade the top spot in the list of the most valuable global brands from year to year, both brands continue to enjoy positive brand reputations from most of their key stakeholders. However, all news hasn’t been good. Both companies have been in the news recently for having disproportionately high numbers of male executives, being intellectual property bullies, and compromising the security of consumers’ private information.

We can see what’s happening to these companies on the outside, and externally, they’re holding up just fine. But what is it like to work for these companies? Is the company culture at one company significantly better than the other?

Company culture can play a significant role in giving a business a competitive advantage in the marketplace, so evaluating the cultures of Google and Apple can give us a better perspective on how well these companies truly are positioned for the future.

Good.Co put together a culture analysis of the engineering teams at Apple vs. Google, and you might be surprised by some of the results. Considering how important the engineering teams are in terms of keeping both companies ahead of the innovation curve, it makes sense to compare and contrast the engineers and the cultures they work in each day.

According to the study, Apple engineers are more tolerant of stress than Google engineers. They also have greater social confidence, are more innovative, and more willing to take risks than Google engineers. On the other hand, Google engineers are more competitive, more collaborative, more empathetic, and more adaptable socially than Apple engineers.

Even more interesting is Good.Co’s analysis of the “group-level fit” of Apple and Google engineers. According to the analysis, Apple engineers are a better fit for Google’s company culture (66% fit to Google vs. 59% to Apple), and Google engineers are a better fit for Apple’s company culture (56% fit to Apple vs. 52% fit to Google).

Company culture can have a significant impact on business success. Imagine if one of these companies had a team of engineers who were a 100% fit for their company culture. Do you think the battle for first place in the annual list of the most valuable global brands would still be as close?

Are your employees the right fit for your company culture? How does your company culture affect your brand image for customers, employees, investors, and other key stakeholders? Invest the time and money into developing a company culture that effectively supports your brand promise or you’ll be missing a huge competitive advantage.

Image: DaVinciS