To uncover the latest employer branding trends, we surveyed 250+ in-house recruitment, talent acquisition and employer branding teams about their employer branding strategies and social media activities.

Check out the infographic below for the key takeaways, and read on for more employer branding social media insights. Or download the full report on social recruiting and employer branding for all the statistics, trends and advice from the specialists we surveyed.

Employer branding trends: Infographic of key takeaways

Read on for more insights and statistics on the 2022 employer branding trends highlighted in the infographic.

Employer branding and EVP strategy trends

Our research found that employer branding and EVP (employee value proposition) strategies are a popular and growing focus. Around half of the 253 in-house recruitment and employer branding teams we surveyed have an employer branding and/or EVP strategy in place.

Employer branding strategies were the most popular of the two, with 64% of specialists already having an employer branding strategy in place, versus 46% for EVP strategies.

This is an even bigger trend for larger companies of 10,000+ employees, with 76% having an employer branding strategy in pace, and 67% having an EVP strategy. Many more teams, especially those in smaller companies (1,000-4,999 employees), are also planning to join this trend by getting started with an employer branding and/or EVP strategy (23% and 33% respectively).

Meanwhile, just 6% of respondents stated that they were not interested in having an employer branding strategy, and 7% in having an EVP strategy.

Employer branding activities and budgets

When asked about the type of recruitment and employer branding activities they currently perform, the most popular include recruitment events (68%), internal employee events (64%) and dedicated careers websites (61%).

Our respondents support their recruitment and employer branding activities with budgets of varying sizes. Of the 210 specialists who answered this question:

• 45% have a budget of between €20,000/£17.500 and €99,000/£87,499 per year.
• 25% have a budget of between €100,000/£87,500 and €499,000/£437,499 per year.
• 21% have a budget of more than €500,000/£437,500 per year.

Employer branding social media statistics

The use of social media is a huge trend for employer branding and recruitment teams. Out of the 253 specialists we surveyed, 96% use social media. In addition, 64% have dedicated social channels for employer branding and recruitment.

We then looked at how these 96% of in-house recruitment and employer branding teams use social media. Our key findings include the following:

• LinkedIn and Facebook are the most-used channels, followed by Instagram, Twitter and YouTube — the last 3 varied widely in popularity between regions.
• 2 in 3 specialists use social media with a goal to increase their number of applications.
• Video is the most common post type. Meanwhile, only 19% use social media carousels, which means 81% are missing out on this engaging content type.
• 86% encourage employees to share and engage with their recruitment social media content, and 30% run employee ambassador programs.

Get the report for more employer branding social media insights and trends.

Employer branding social media best practices

What works best on social media for recruitment and employer branding specialists? We asked our respondents to share their best practices. These were their top 3:

1. Be authentic and credible, and avoid exaggerated claims.
2. Keep it short and simple. Use clear language that people understand.
3. Create quality branded visuals that stand out, to grab attention.

Catch up on these and more employer branding social media best practices in our blog.

In a separate question, we also asked our recruitment and employer branding specialists about the performance of social media content which features photos of employees. 57% agreed that including employee photos led to more engagement.

One specialist also highlighted the need to prioritize real employees over actors: “Followers are interested in the company news, but more so in the individual employee experiences. So it’s good to have real voices at the forefront of advertising campaigns, rather than actors.”

Social media content creation statistics

There is no clear trend on how employer branding teams are creating images and videos for their social media channels. We found that 51% still rely on their marketing team for (part of) their content creation. Meanwhile the same number also create content themselves, within their own department.

When they create their social media visuals themselves, almost all (98%) use some form of tool or program. However, the type of tool varies widely, from Photoshop, to native social media platform editing tools, PowerPoint, and more.

In addition, our statistics show that most teams haven’t yet found the right approach to content creation. Out of all those employer branding and recruiting teams who use social media, a huge 71% face content creation challenges. These are mostly due to a lack of time, design skills, and/or resources.

Employer branding social media trends: 2022 vs 2021 statistics

To understand how employer branding trends are shifting, we compared our 2022 results with data from a smaller 2021 employer branding social media survey. Overall, the trends have stayed very much the same, with only slight increases and declines year on year:

• The percentage of employer branding and recruitment specialists who use social media has remained at 96% year on year. However, we see a slight increase in how many teams have their own dedicated social media account(s) for recruitment and employer branding, with 64% in 2022 versus 48% in 2021.
• LinkedIn continues to take the top spot as the most-used social media platform for employer branding. However, Facebook came in second in 2022, compared to Instagram in 2021.
• Around half of employer branding teams create their social content themselves in both years. However, fewer received help from their marketing teams in 2021 (30%), compared to 2022 (51%).
• While the vast majority of employer branding teams continue to face challenges in their content creation process, we see a drop this year, with 96% in 2021 and 71% in 2022. Lack of time, budget and design skills remain to the main challenges.

Is content creation a challenge for you, too?

Learn how some employer branding teams solved theirs! Lidl, A.S. Watson, PwC, Eneco and more are using custom-made templates so that anyone in their team can create professional branded social media content quickly — which means that lack of time, design skills, or resources are no longer an issue.

Take a quick look at how our custom templates content creation platform works below, and learn more about how it can help you build a memorable employer brand on social media.

Plus, get all the information you need to make the right decision for you and your team by booking your personalized demo with an employer branding expert.

You might also like these articles

• Access the full social recruiting and employer branding 2022 report, for all the stats, insights and expert recommendations.
• Grow your employer brand on social media with these 8 best practices and 14 ideas.
• Get inspired by these examples of “we are hiring” and “new employee” social media posts.