"With social media now well into its teen years, there’s no excuse for brands to approach with a passive attitude or get news ‘out on the socials’ as an afterthought."

Content marketing guru Ann Handley calls out branders for building mostly mediocre marketing. And for my money, employer brand marketing can take a few lessons from this article on how to make marketing that rises above the obvious.

Speaking of "pivot," how deep are you in pivoting your content strategy? Here are two good guides on how to make a quick change of direction from Hubspot and Talent Brand Alliance.

In uncertain times, helpful content can bring companies and consumers closer together. Learn how to build a content marketing strategy to best address your audience's needs in times of crisis.

This is interesting because we may have entered "Covid fatigue," where we're all sick of getting those emails on how that company you bought a puzzle from three years ago is changing because of the pandemic. My take away? Less talk, more showing. Nike doesn't talk about design as much as it shows it, which is why people see it as authentically design-focused.

"Learn more about how to shift and evolve your content marketing during and after a crisis, to speak to your community, get connected, and stay relevant."

Let's talk Tik Tok! Or maybe we shouldn't! Just as the all-dancing, all-singing social platform starts to gain traction as a legitimate branding platform, it gets branded as a state agency intelligence operation. But when has a little espionage stopped "the kids" from singing? (That's the entire plot of Val Kilmer's Top Secret, btw.) So if you're ready to ignore potential Trump/Bezos bans of the social channel, here are so suggestions on how to do it right. My favorite? Think of it as an education platform first.

Further evidence that you and your marketing team should be spending more time together and occasionally taking long walks on the beach: employee advocates are the new “influencer.” In a lot of ways, influencers made a kind of sense in a world with a million options (or products, services, lifestyles, etc) because they acted as a kind of “native guide” to these things. A Kardashian can point to weight loss products and fashion because it’s something they know about. But as influencers as a celebrity become stale, the new advocate is the insider, someone with the inside view on things. They have a more credible voice and are seen as more real than marketing and can change people’s minds about your company (both as an employer, and as a vendor).

On the recruitment marketing side of things, we are faced with a slew of cool tools to help us place our message in front of people who just visited our career site, or are a lot like people who follow our Facebook page. There are two issues with that. One, most of us are just pushing out lame job ads to these people, as if applying for a job is the same as downloading a whitepaper (it’s not). Two, we don’t spend time thinking about how or why the tools are designed to work. We just get thrilled by the “extra clicks” or “deeper awareness” rather than thinking through how to use the tools properly. So here’s a Hubspot article on how to approach your behavior-targeted ad (I bet you didn’t even know that that was what that was called).

Speaking of community, we’re not the only ones struggling with the idea that we want to get people excited to learn more about us before we have the right role open. Turns out, consumer brands are trying to figure out the same puzzle. The first question you should ask is: what can I help my community members do?