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Making It Snappy

Making It Snappy
by Andrew R. McIlvaine

Some companies are turning to Snapchat -- one of the most popular social-networking apps for millennials -- to promote their employer brands.

Macy Andrews and her social-media team at Cisco Systems are always on the lookout for the hottest new channels in which to engage potential employees for the technology giant.

"We're constantly scouring for 'where the eyeballs are,' " says Andrews, Cisco's director for culture and global employer branding. Their search led them to Snapchat, the popular mobile app for sharing pictures and videos.

"Snapchat was becoming more and more popular," she says. "But we couldn't quite figure out how to use it for recruiting."

Cisco is hardly a stranger to using social media for connecting with potential job candidates. Its "We Are Cisco" campaign uses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social-media channels to get the word out about its culture and job opportunities. But Snapchat presented a bit of a challenge.

To begin with, content posted to Snapchat is designed to disappear quickly -- typically within 10 seconds to 24 hours. Its user interface is not intuitive, critics say, while the overwhelming majority of its (mostly) young members use it for sharing short videos and selfies (accompanied by silly doodles, captions and graphics) with their friends. The vibe is informal and fun, and the app doesn't lend itself to carefully crafted marketing messages.

Andrews and her team ultimately decided that the best approach was a potentially risky one -- letting Cisco's employees (or "Cisconians," in the company's parlance) create and post content ("snaps") directly to its WeAreCisco Snapchat channel themselves.

"We realized Snapchat is pretty goofy, and you can't orchestrate a beautiful marketing campaign on it -- once we embraced that aspect of the channel, we decided to hand it over to our employees," she says.

Relatively few companies are using Snapchat to recruit at the moment, but experts say that can be a good thing -- it may make it easier for companies that do to stand out.

"If you're using Snapchat for recruiting, it means you're kind of cool -- it's like the difference between being a skier and a snowboarder," says Jodi Ordioni, president of New York-based Brandemix, a marketing firm that specializes in employer branding. "It's a way to show your audience that you're embracing new technology."

Read full article on Human Resource Executive.