Understanding the use of social media for employer branding

Employer branding applies marketing tools to promote an organisation as an employer to current and potential employees. The importance of strategic alignment between parts of the business has been highlighted in literature: marketing and human resource activities are no exception. On the contrary, the alignment of customer brand and employer brand is equally important to marketers and human resource managers. This chapter frames the creation and communication of the employer brand as a “strong communication system”. A framework for assessment of the system's strength is introduced and a practical application of this framework is demonstrated in two case studies. The conflict between the traditional top-down one-way marketing communication flow and bottom-up bi-directional communication on social media is highlighted and the impact of this apparent conflict on the system strength is discussed. Social media appears to change the way in which employer brand is created, communicated and perceived and this chapter aims in aiding the understating of this changes