As tech companies face increasing challenges in staffing, it’s becoming more difficult to attract top talent each year. A company’s HR brand must be strong enough to stand out from the competition and organically attract high-quality candidates. Ideally, people should aspire to work at your company.
To meet this challenge, IT companies are exploring various strategies: offering comfortable working conditions, enticing perks, and other incentives to encourage potential employees to choose them.
One effective way to attract more job applications is through social media promotion, specifically positioning the company as an attractive employer. But is this an easy strategy for IT companies to execute?
To answer this, we spoke with Ulyana Korolova, a marketer and expert in organic brand promotion with over 30 successful projects in the tech industry.
What experience do you have promoting IT companies with a focus on HR branding, and why do businesses choose this route?
I’ve worked with several IT companies where the primary goal of organic promotion was HR branding and attracting new talent to fill open positions. My recent clients in this area include AllSTARSIT and LeverxGroup, whose TikTok videos have amassed millions of views globally every month.
Promoting a company through TikTok has become one of the key organic marketing methods, requiring no additional advertising costs. It’s the only platform that allows you to reach a large audience of target viewers with just high-quality video content.
What types of content formats did you use, and what strategies proved most effective in attracting new developers?
One of the main strategies was creating content directly from the company’s office to capture the true atmosphere of the workplace and showcase the environment where the team works.
Another important element was featuring the company’s employees as “actors.” It’s crucial to show real people who work at the company and highlight this in each video. Videos with the team significantly build trust in the brand as an employer and make the team feel like an integral part of the company. By participating in the shoots and appearing on social media, employees get to experience firsthand how they contribute to the brand’s image.
Filming is always a fun process, and most employees are eager to take part, even suggesting their own ideas for the videos.
As for content formats, we made sure to reflect real-life situations that would resonate with experienced developers, while also offering educational content tailored to entry-level or mid-career professionals.
But since it’s a collaboration with people, there are always potential challenges. Did you face any issues with the team during filming? Did everyone like the idea of appearing on TikTok?
To be honest, there are always some team members who aren’t keen on participating in the shoots or who may not be in the right mood on a particular day. We always coordinated each shoot in advance with the client’s marketing team to make sure everyone was prepared.
Participation was voluntary, and even with this condition, the number of employees eager to join the creative process was much higher than I expected.
When the team sees how videos featuring them get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, it becomes a great motivator and encourages them to continue participating in the project.
What results did the companies achieve through TikTok?
It’s hard to measure the full impact of HR branding in the first month because this is a long-term effort that yields results over time. However, from the very first videos that reached a wide audience, we began receiving numerous applications from developers of all levels who were interested in job openings at our clients’ companies.
Moreover, TikTok quickly became the most popular social platform for both companies. For LeverX Group, we managed to build a community of 45,000 followers on the platform.
What were the key factors that contributed to these results?
Several factors played a role in our success. First, an effective promotion strategy and a well-organized content plan tailored to our target audience on TikTok. Second, the active involvement of the client’s team and their commitment to a long-term posting strategy. Maintaining consistency is crucial, particularly when establishing a new blog or brand presence. Lastly, the IT specialist audience on TikTok, which turned out to be one of the most engaged and active on the platform.
What key insights can you share with other IT companies looking to promote their brand on TikTok?
The biggest takeaway for me was just how engaged the IT community on TikTok is. Having worked with various niches and tested multiple strategies, I was truly impressed by the size and activity level of this audience.
This proves that TikTok can be one of the leading platforms for companies and brands to communicate with and engage their target audience, especially those looking to attract and build visibility among developers.
