How can your small business establish a brand on the Internet? It isn’t easy. Creating a brand online is about leveraging available assets to tell the story of your company. One such asset that is consistently underutilized today is a well optimized profile on Glassdoor.com. Employee advocacy makes an enormous difference when it comes to sales, talent acquisition, and online reputation. After all, no one wants to do business with a company that treats it’s own people poorly. The site also offers great insights from the inside; when mismanaged, disgruntled employees can be a reputation liability. The ability to view the company from different perspectives can be extremely useful for engaged HR departments. Here are three major advantages your small businesses can use to leverage Glassdoor for online branding.
Manage Search Results
Glassdoor will appear in search results when someone searches for your brand name. With a domain authority of 91/100 at the time of this writing, it is extremely likely that a completed Glassdoor profile will rank on the first page for a small business. This does not happen by accident. Google gives preferential treatment to websites which feature User Generated Content (UGC) and structured markup; people also tend to trust reviews from their peers up to 12X more than promotional marketing material. This makes it extremely relevant to individuals searching for information about your business. For companies who treat their employees well, use ethical interview tactics, and provide competitive compensation, this is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate value to consumers and potential employees while they are actively researching your organization. With built in CEO approval rates, Glassdoor can also help build public image for top executives. Even responding to negative reviews is an opportunity to show dedication to your employees, improve policies, and strengthen a company’s culture. However, there is one other point we should address.
Unfortunately, a Glassdoor profile that allows employees to anonymously post constructive criticism from within an organization also allows anyone with a computer to potentially make false accusations, post online defamation, or otherwise seek personal revenge against a person or company. If this has happened to you, the offending post will likely violate Glassdoor’s terms and conditions and you may seek professional or legal help to remove Glassdoor reviews.
Glassdoor offers small businesses a way to place trusted endorsements on the first page of search results in a very short time frame. While there is some potential for abuse, the pros outweigh the cons, and it is very easy for companies to leverage Glassdoor for online branding.
Attract Top Talent
Talented people want to work for awesome companies and be well compensated for their experience and skillset. Generally speaking, small businesses cannot compete with the salary and the benefits made possible by economies of scale at Fortune 500 companies; that’s okay. Millennials are entering the workforce in droves and they typically make less money, own less stuff, and care more about fulfillment. In short, it is becoming more common for employees to care less about acquiring stuff and more about enjoying life. This trend represents an opportunity for startups to compete on culture. But satisfaction is a little more abstract than money; you can’t offer 3.5% more happiness. Demonstrating that working for your small business doesn’t cause clinical depression requires an insider’s unbiased opinion, and Glassdoor allows companies to publish that content.
As it turns out, millennials are also the first generation in history to trust online reviews more than recommendations from their friends and families. Again, search engines trust user generated content, and people trust the opinion of unbiased third parties. Glassdoor understands that their value as a company comes entirely from people who volunteer information on the site, so incentivizing reviews is not allowed. That doesn’t mean you can’t encourage satisfied employees to leave reviews. Attracting talent is a great way to leverage Glassdoor for online branding.
Demonstrate Value
If you don’t treat your own employees well, how should I expect you to treat me? In business and in life, people matter. Perhaps the most important aspect of branding is establishing and maintaining trust. Volvos are safe. MacBooks are simple. Google is accurate. Consumers trust these companies to perform in certain ways. Employees broadcasting misery undermines a brand’s generally positive messaging. On the other hand, most consumers would expect happy employees to gladly help clients, provide customer service, and care about producing satisfactory results at work. Glassdoor affords small businesses the opportunity to show potential customers that their employees are happy to be doing what they are doing.
Today, information is everywhere and transparency is more important than ever before. Glassdoor creates an easy opportunity to publish trusted content high in search results when potential customers and employees are researching your business. Small businesses can leverage Glassdoor to create a positive employment brand online and attract top talent and demonstrate value and integrity to potential customers.