Outtweeting the competitors - how social media is used in employer branding in Finland

Abstract

Objectives: This thesis studies social media usage in international companies based in Finland. The first objective is to find out how companies use social media to attract their employees. Second, an objective is to study how social media activities of a company affect the applicant's perceptions of the company and if it had any effect when choosing their employer.

Methods: The methodological approach of this thesis was qualitative. Five companies were interviewed. Additionally, employees from two of the respective companies were interviewed to find out how they experienced companies social media activities related to employee attraction.

Results: The study found that companies operating in Finland actively use various social media channels for employer branding and use it in variety of ways. The use combinations include traditional job ads and more general employer branding communications, which are both done in rather traditional ways, but also some new methods suited for social media are being used. The employees seemed to be very positively positioned towards social media and felt that it is an important contributor to a company's attractiveness as an employer, however they stated that they for them the social media had not affected their choice of employee. From this perspective for the employees there seems to be a discrepancy between the perceived effect of social media and the actual effect.