March 12, 2018

7 min read

This story originally appeared on Glassdoor

It’s not just your recruiters who get the talent to join — it’s your brand, too.

The recruiter has their work cut out for them, sure, but ultimately it’s your brand story that informs prospects of what kind of company you are. You need to convey the best aspects of your company via a cohesive brand narrative that communicates what your company stands for and why top talent should join you, and that means paying extra attention to your branding strategy.

 

Related: 7 Ways to Get Recruiters and Job Offers to Come to You

But that’s not always easy, especially if you’re more of a figures-and-graphs brand. So below, we explain how to develop the best brand story that will accurately portray your brand during recruitment. We’ll dive into some advanced techniques by the end, but first, let’s start with the basics.

What a brand story is and why you need one

Your brand story is the culmination of everything your brand says, does and looks like. From highly influential areas like site design to more minute areas like whether or not you use emojis, every brand choice contributes to your overall brand story. You also have direct outlets (About Page, Mission Statement, etc.) where you can explain word-for-word what your brand is about, choosing what to mention, highlight and gloss over about your brand.

Some common contributors to brand stories are:

• Brand name
• Logo
• Slogan
• Website design
• Website copy
• Brand voice
• Blog content
• Social media content
• Product/service quality
• Prices
• Customer service
• Associated charities
• Community outreach
• Sponsorships

 

Brand stories influence every aspect of a business: recruiting, sales, investing, you name it. It’s all around us and we usually don’t even notice it… but we do feel it. Think about it. What makes Apple feel cutting-edge? What makes Dior feel upscale? Why does the New York Times feel more trustworthy than the New York Post? The answers fall back on how each company developed (or failed to develop) their brand story.

Your recruits are going to weigh your brand story just as heavily as more substantial factors like salary, location, etc. You could offer the best package by the numbers of all the interested parties, but if your brand doesn’t appeal to recruits on a deeper level, they’ll opt for the one that does.

How to write an effective brand story for recruitment

When crafting an engaging brand narrative to attract top talent, the first thing you should do is write an appealing story about your brand on your career page. We recommend using an About Page format, because that’s a good “home base” for your brand story, as well as a grounded reference for all other avenues.

So what should a good brand story say? It’s actually simpler than it seems, as long as you follow a basic problem-solution approach. And because this is a business, you also want to mention how your brand reaches its solution — the process.

The first step, then, is identifying what problem your brand seeks to solve and how you solve it. Affordable eyewear company Warby Parker states on their site’s Story Page that their problem was “glasses are too expensive,” and that their solution was to “create an alternative” by “circumventing traditional channels, designing glasses in-house and engaging with customers directly.” Clean, clear and effective. Your story should spell out for candidates what your brand mission and values are.

Related: Answers to 15 of the Most Common Job Search Questions

Another thing Warby Parker does well is showing their human side. The page opens with an actual story from one of the founders about how he went to his first semester of grad school without glasses because he couldn’t afford them. Human moments like this go a long way in establishing deep connections with candidates and customers alike.

Show (don’t tell) your brand personality

There’s another component crucial to your brand story that can be a make-it-or-break-it for recruits: brand personality. You can’t outright say “we’re a hip and cool brand” any more than you can tell a stranger “I’m hip and cool” and have them believe you. If you’re truly hip and cool, you won’t need to say it; people will see it. Your brand personality should be baked into all the visual elements of your brand, including your logo design, brand color palette, brand typekit and more.

Reddit stays true to their brand story in their job ads.

 

For recruiting, certain areas reflect your brand personality better than others, so focus on these areas:

• Job post voice. Treat the job post itself as your brand introducing itself. The language of the post, whether jokingly playful or straight-to-the-point, speaks volumes about what kind of company you are. Mimic your other written voices like social media and blogs, as Reddit does with a cheeky “Come for the cats, stay for the empathy,” in the introduction of their post.
• Job post imagery. Text-only job posts miss a nice opportunity to showcase your brand personality. Choose the right photo and readers will make the right associations with your brand.
• Career page designs. The design for your career page — and the application form itself — don’t need to be dry. Give them the same treatment as the rest of your site, including visuals and tone.

Keep in mind, you want to maintain consistency across all mediums. Prospects will notice if your job post was fun and casual but your website is no-nonsense professionalism.

Advanced techniques for recruitment branding

Got the basics down? We’ll end with three advanced techniques to help your brand story go the extra mile.

Prioritize logo design

Your logo is the face of your brand. It’s not as superficial as it sounds; your logo design is actually a practical tool for communicating your brand’s value at a glance. The right imagery, colors and style can effectively shape others’ perception of your brand, so it’s best to consult a professional designer who understands the nuances of business visuals. 99designs’ Find a Designer tool allows you to filter through their community of professional designers to find one that best suits your needs, making it easy to connect with a designer. You could also run a contest, and choose from dozens of design options to get a logo design that suits your new brand.

More than just a story

As we suggested above, your brand story is more than just your About Page. To create a truly effective narrative, you need your actions to back up your words. Take the professional service company KPMG, who campaigned a new brand identity under the banner “Inspire confidence. Empower change.” Aside from spreading this publicly, they created an in-company app that allowed employees to create digital posters using their new slogan. The result was a huge success, with 42,000 contributions and 90 percent of employees stating they felt more company pride afterward. This is even bigger than it seems; happy employees share stories like these with their friends, who become interested in working there themselves. That opens up the possibility of referrals.

Related: 6 Personal Fears Holding You Back From Your Dream Career

Angle on employment to appeal to recruits

If recruiting is one of your main goals, angle your brand story on employment — in other words, talk more about what it’s like to work for you. Post employee stories and quotes on social media, showcase a fun video from the office or publicly praise the accomplishments of the individuals on your team. Not only does this boost morale and make your employees feel appreciated, it also communicates what it’s like to work with your brand to prospective recruits.

Closing thoughts

Imagine you’re at a dinner party and, through some innocent networking, find two people who want to offer you a job. One is well-kempt, well-dressed and speaks eloquently; the other loud, rowdy and not-at-all dressed for the occasion. Whom would you be more inclined to go with? Even if the rowdy recruiter offered a better package, your first inclination would likely still be the put-together person. That’s the difference your brand story makes on potential employees, so what are you waiting for?

(By Brea Weinreb of 99designs)

March 11, 2018

2 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

From YouTube videos to Instagram posts to the article you’re reading now, we live in a content-fueled world.

Ninety percent of digital data that exists today was created within the last two years, according to data compiled by MerlinOne, a digital asset management platform. In fact, 2.5 quintillion bytes of digital data are created every day — that’s equivalent to the storage capacity of 36 million iPads. And that’s thanks to advancements in technology and the rise of social media, digital advertising and online publishing.

Related: 10 Proven Ways to Make Millions on Social Media

An important milestone in digital content creation was in 1994 when Amazon was founded. Another important milestone was in 2007 when the first iPhone was released. This monumental event not only marked the beginning of the life-changing smartphone frenzy, but paved the way for more major digital content opportunities including social media and mobile apps. With Netflix’s streaming launch in 2007, the birth of Bitcoin in 2009 and the release of Google Drive collaboration software, the aughts set the stage for a digital content revolution.

Related: 25 Digital-Marketing and Social-Media Experts to Follow on Twitter

Fast-forward to today and more than half of the world’s population, 4 billion people, is connected to the internet. Technology and digital data has seeped into nearly every aspects of our daily lives including finance, news and music.

To learn more, check out MerlinOne’s infographic below. 

March 10, 2018

2 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

From entertainment to tech, women continue to face gender-based challenges in nearly every industry — and entrepreneurship is no different.

In a survey of more than 3,000 men and women entrepreneurs worldwide, 99designs uncovered the surprising number of challenges women entrepreneurs face in business compared to their male counterparts, with everything from raising capital to hiring employees.

Related: 4 Things Women Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Approaching Angel Investors and VCs

According to the research, surveyed male entrepreneurs were twice as likely to raise $100,000 or more of outside funding for their startups than female entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, these numbers stayed pretty consistent when this survey was conducted last year. When women can’t get enough funding to launch their businesses, it affects nearly every aspect of their startups, including hiring employees, renting office space and setting reasonable work hours.

Related: These Female Entrepreneurs Created a Fake Male Co-Founder to Work Around Sexism. How Well It Worked Is Incredibly Eye Opening.

Whether it’s due to a lack of funding or lack of employees, women entrepreneurs (68 percent) are more likely than male entrepreneurs (48 percent) to run businesses out of their homes. They are also more likely to register as sole proprietorships than men (49 percent of women vs. 31 percent of men).

In the study, the number of women and men starting businesses in various industries was for the most part equal, with the same number of women and men entrepreneurs going into areas such as business consulting, marketing and PR, retail and media and entertainment. The majority of surveyed men and women also agreed that not asking for help, getting out of their comfort zones and feeling guilt for working too often were some of the top challenges of starting a business.

Related: How to Succeed as a Female Leader Anywhere In the World

However, despite these commonalities, women are still discriminated against and gender inequality continues to persist in 2018. To learn more about women in business this year, check out the infographic below.

March 9, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Optimizing your website for keywords, building links and publishing great blog posts aren’t the only methods you can use to improve your website SEO. You can also leverage your Twitter account.

Did you know that Google and Twitter have a strong partnership? This partnership gives Google access to the Twitter stream, allowing the search engine to index tweets in its search results. This gives Twitter a key role in search engine optimization.

How can you use this to your advantage and use Twitter to improve your Google rankings? We’ll show you.

How Twitter improves SEO.

If you want to see how Twitter affects website and brand visibility on Google, go search for a brand name or a website on Google.

You’ll see the Twitter stream of that particular brand pop up on the main page of search results showing the latest tweets from that page.

You can also try searching for a hashtag on Google. Many people search hashtags on Google to discover content on social media. Guess which platform always comes on top when you search for a hashtag on Google?

The Google-Twitter partnership has given the micro-blogging platform an edge over other social networks. Needless to say, if you’re looking for new ways to improve your website SEO, Twitter is the platform where you should start your campaign.

The importance of social signals.

Even if your Twitter content is not indexed by Google, there are many other SEO benefits to using Twitter to promote your website. One of them is to build social signals toward your website and blog posts.

Related: 4 Keys to Marketing on Twitter

Contrary to popular belief, most SEO experts agree that the number of social shares referring to a link increases its value and influences higher ranking on Google. Simply put, the more shares you get on Twitter and Facebook, the more likely it will be to increase your website search rankings.

In addition, you can also use Twitter as a tool to boost SEO in many other ways. Here’s how.

1. Automatically share your blog posts.

Twitter now boasts more than 330 million monthly active users. You have a chance to reach this massive audience through your brand or business Twitter account. Not only that, you can also let Google know that you have an active website and blog by consistently tweeting links to your website to improve social signals.

Of course, when you’re managing a website and a blog, it can be tough to find the time to tweet about your website throughout the day. Thankfully, there are tools you can use to automate your Twitter sharing.

Related: 8 Plugins Every WordPress Website Needs

You can connect your blog to your Twitter account using WordPress plugins and tools to automatically send a tweet whenever you publish a new blog post. Some of those plugins and tools include JetPack for WordPress, Twitter Auto Publish, Dlvr.it and IFTTT.

2. Re-share your evergreen content.

Tweeting your blog post links once is not enough to generate social signals toward your website or let Google know that your links are worth ranking on the top of search results. So you need to consistently generate more shares for your blog posts and pages.

You can do that by scheduling tweets to be published every day throughout the month. There’s no need to hire a social media manager for that job. You can use a tool like Buffer instead.

With Buffer, you can schedule your blog posts and links to be published on Twitter and Facebook according to a time schedule that you create. You can pick the best times to share the evergreen content on your blog and schedule the links to be shared on Twitter through each week.

Related: What Buffer Can Teach Us About Customer Service

Just remember not to spam your followers. It’s OK to send the same tweet more than once, as long as you don’t do that within the same day. 

3. Leverage Twitter handle and profile bio.

The bio in your profile and the Twitter handle you use to create your account also play a strong role in improving website SEO.

People who are interested in following a brand or a product on social media often search for Twitter accounts on Google (eg: Uber Twitter). Google will use the brand name as a keyword to search Twitter to find similar accounts with the same Twitter handle. Make sure your account uses your brand name as the account username.

Properly optimizing your profile bio will also help get your Twitter to rank higher on Google. Including an effective summary of your brand or business with the right keyword hashtags will make your Twitter profile more discoverable as well.

Then, you can use a pinned tweet to drive leads to your landing page to turn those profile visitors into subscribers and grow your email list.

Be consistent and keep promoting.

Every marketing strategy requires an investment. So invest in it as much as you can to improve your website search rankings.

More shares mean more awareness for your brand and better for website SEO. Keep sharing your website and blog post links on Twitter consistently to achieve the best results.

March 8, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

I’m constantly endeavoring to simplify how to get what you want, both rapidly and accurately. In the process of doing so, I’ve discovered two simple ways to get what you want in life or business:  

1. You can ask for it.
2. You can attract it.

How do you ask? How do you attract? Well, there are four methods of asking for what you want, and four methods to attract it.

Related: Asking For Help Is Good For You and Your Business

Asking for help

1. You can ask in-person.  
2. Asking via email is another option.  
3. You can ask via phone, through voice or text.  
4. Finally, you can ask through social media.  

Statistically, you stand a better chance for success if you have some sort of strategic ask in almost everything that you do — in-person, on the phone, over email, or on social media. Think about it: If you make one additional ask per day and convert at around 10 percent, then you have three people each month providing you with benefits that you’d have missed otherwise. 

Related: Success Is Likelier When You Make People Happy They Helped You

It’s essential to make sure that your ask relates to some direct path to what you want, whether it is revenue, a business relationship or anything else of prime importance to you.

Ask and assist.

This strategy uses the Ben Franklin Effect: When people do you a favor, they are more likely to do another. When you meet someone you yourself might be able to assist, ask for their help and, at the same time (e.g. in the same conversation) offer yours. And make a point to be of service even if others might not be able to help you immediately.

The same goes for phone calls, emails or social media interactions. Being afraid to ask for what you want is a detriment to your success and prosperity. If you lack this skill, then you need to work on it! Asking for help is a form of radical humility, something that with practice will have amazing benefits for all involved.

Related: 5 Reasons Why ‘Asking’ Is an Essential Skill for Every Entrepreneur

Having specific asks

There was a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology about a female student posing as a panhandler. The unkempt, slovenly dressed girl went up to people on the street and asked for money. The purpose of the study was to show the importance of being specific with your ask. When she simply asked for “money,” the percentage of people who gave some to her was 22 percent. When she asked for a specific amount (e.g. “Can you spare 47 cents?”), the rate of generosity increased to 36 percent. The researchers called this the pique technique, where an unusual request helps to persuade someone to help.

Use this study to your advantage! Don’t just ask people for help — ask specifically for what you desire. (Note: this “specific” attraction strategy also works when you ask the universe for help, which I’ll cover next.)

Related: Your Mom Was Wrong. Sometimes It Does Hurt to Ask.

Attraction needs attention.

In order to attract what you want, you actually have to consciously and strategically think about what you want and focus in on it. Then, you need to take some sort of action using the same four strategies you use to ask for help in order to make it happen. You can’t get what you want sitting around on your couch. You need to put yourself out there and stimulate interest in person, via email, by phone and through social media.

Stimulating interest in person can be powerful, especially if you surround yourself with the right people and the right ideas. A study by Nielsen found that 83 percent of people trust referrals from others they know. If you have a product, service, content or any other value that you provide to others, let them know when you talk in person or over the phone. As an example, if you’re working with a charity organization, tell a story about how much money you helped raise for another charity you’re affiliated with.

If you win an important award in an industry, put it in your email signature or as a tagline in a piece of social content. Showcasing your wins organically and authentically will attract more of the same. Create interest by focusing in on what you have, not what you’re missing.

Related: Top 10 Ways Others Can Promote You

Asking the universe

Another form of attraction occurs by asking the universe to take energy expended and attract similar energy back. Scientific studies have shown examples of attraction in people. We have mirror neurons in our brains that are activated when two individuals simultaneously experience emotions, such as anger, happiness or confusion. The neurons also activate when we observe these emotions in others. The emotions of others are then attracted to us.

Be the person with the confidence to attract and ask for what you want. I have given you two simple ways and four methodologies to make it happen, rapidly and accurately.   

It’s easier than you think. I invite you to use the simple, yet highly effective formula for getting what you want.

Ask others … and ask the universe.