If you had told our Social Media team one year ago that we will have a tremendous success with our HPE Careers Facebook page, and we would grow to have 400,000 followers, we would have said you are out of your mind and you are way too optimistic. We were struggling for the past 2 years on the HP legacy page to grow it – celebrating every 10,000 new followers and pushing out as much content as possible – to be able to stay active on the market. We knew very well the theory: the key to success is all about being consistent, but also having high quality content, that speaks to your audience.
Maybe for some, having 400,000 fans on their Facebook page, in one year, is not that big of a deal, but for us – knowing that we have started back in September 2015 with 0 (zero!) followers, this is a huge achievement done by our team, and we could not be more proud.
We started the process of pulling together a social media strategy for the separation of HP in 2 new companies: HPI and the newly created Hewlett Packard Enterprise, back in July-August 2015, then we went through numerous reviews with our Global Marketing Social Media team, including several revisions and campaign changes, and, after finally receiving an exceptional approval from the leadership team, on Sept 1st we launched the new Facebook channel, 2 months ahead of the actual HPE Company launch date. We were actually the first and only business unit within HPE to launch 2 new social media channels: HPE Careers Facebook and HPE Careers Twitter, before the actual start date, as we knew we would need to educate our followers – our active and prospective employees – what HPE would stand for, and that we would have careers awaiting for them, even after the split was over.
We didn’t have a lot of templates or information about the new brand, we couldn’t even use anything else but the name of our channel: HPE Careers and the name of the new company: Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It was quite difficult to find content that would not speak about the legacy HP Company and would not have the specific branding – all the photos and videos we could use were coming from the legacy library. We asked for help and sat down with our creative agency, trying to figure out cool, fancy campaigns that we could run on the channel, and brainstormed unusual ideas.
From Day 1 we knew we wanted to deliver back to our audience high quality content, news about the company and its employees, and we wanted to get our candidates excited about the new brand and their future as HPE employees. We had several themed campaigns such as: Countdown to Day 1– where we asked employees to submit their photos celebrating each day that passed until Day 1 of the new company launch – November 1st, AskHPE – a video series where we encouraged our fans to ask us questions and we would respond in a video format, coloring posts, and more. Throughout the campaigns, we stayed as much as possible authentic, transparent and open – responding to followers questions, using employee generated content – and providing up-to-date information on the company progress.
After Day 1 we focused on enhancing the newly created brand, using templates with the HPE logo - the element, using fresh iconography and, at the same time, coming up with innovative campaigns and differentiating the 2 brands: HPE from HPI. We started a monthly editorial calendar, with new social media campaigns, and we worked on getting real content from our own employees. We promoted University events and job fairs, we gathered photos from around the world for the most important employee engagement programs we have in the company, from Wellness sports activities to Volunteering and Matter to a Million campaign, to Take our Children to work sessions and Employee competitions. We highlighted recognitions and awards we received as a company throughout the year, partnered with Global Marketing to raise awareness on big media campaigns such as Star Trek, and promoted the business initiatives and career opportunities to join our teams.
What are we most proud of, now that we've achieved 400,000 followers in 1 year?
Teamwork – we could not have achieved such great numbers without the daily effort of our teams, our recruiters and sourcers throughout the world, that are our “eyes and ears” in the local markets. We receive photos and stories daily from teams that want to celebrate their success and show the world the impact they have internally and externally. We appreciate each and every person that has sent us an email, appeared in one of our campaigns or liked and shared our posts. We run global and local campaigns daily, giving each of these teams to opportunity to have their voice heard (and their face seen).
Creativity – apart from meeting on a weekly basis with our extended teams to discuss new campaigns and get baffling with the proposals for posts, we have been amazed by the amount of innovative ideas we have seen. In an industry where it’s very hard not to re-invent the wheel or be a copy-cat, we have managed to create authentic videos, some of them quite different from the corporate snaps you’d see in an IT company. You can check them out here.
Transparency – this is bigger than you think – employees are genuine brand advocates, better than any ad or banner you put on a website. Getting your employees involved into your campaigns, answering their questions or concerns, encouraging them to recommend HPE to their friends and family – what more could you want as a marketer? With transparency often comes responsibility and opportunity, so in many cases we have received questions and comments, on topics such as diversity & inclusion, financial concerns: fair pay prices: men vs. women, unemployment periods, mentorship requests – and we have responded or redirected those accordingly each and every time, and in a timely manner.
External recognition – we believe that being a “Best place to work” comes from within the company, not outside it. When we've started receiving awards in different countries, such as Aon Best Employer India 2016, or the Bronze award in the “Best Use of Digital Media" category at Asia Recruitment Awards Malaysia 2016, we've realized that we are on the right track. Apart from staying current on what’s happening globally, with our competitors, it’s always good to do a reality check and look at the metrics you get, from Social media recruitment monitor metrics (which we check on a weekly basis to see where we stand in top 10) to the reviews we get from our fans and followers.
Other things we’ve either tested or tried out for shorter periods of time: investing in sponsored updated and followers campaigns, setting up page banners on external websites, promoting our page in the job fairs or on campus, or sharing our Facebook content on the internal employee platforms. With the amount of algorithms and how often social media channels change their rules, it’s always good to have some money put aside, to invest into meaningful campaigns. As we move into a new fiscal year, we know we have set the bar high internally and externally, and all eyes will be on us. Stay tuned to see what’s coming next!
About the author
Catalina Radulescu leads the Global Talent Acquisition Digital Media and Employer Brand. She has been with the company for almost 11 years, having held various roles in Business operations and Human Resources. From November 2015 she is leading Digital Media and Employer Brand for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She graduated from the University of Bucharest with a degree in English Language and Literature, and has over 6 years of experience in talent acquisition, sourcing and digital marketing.
Katy_Radulescu
Digital media HPE, life lover, HPE brand ambassador, wellness addict.
