Leadership Social Media

Is Ignoring Glassdoor Hurting Your Company’s Brand and Impacting Sales?

The following is a guest blog post by Patty Dickerson.
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As a B2B marketer primarily focused in the healthcare tech industry, when I think of social media networks, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook naturally come to mind. For many of us, these are the key social networks we use as we try to engage with prospects, customers, and employees. Depending on the type of product you are trying to market, there may be other networks that you also focus on (Snapchat, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc), but there’s a good change that you use at least two of the three key networks on a regular basis. I’d like you to consider adding another network to your key marketing social networks list: Glassdoor.

Is Glassdoor a Social Network?

I bet you are asking “Glassdoor? Isn’t that a recruiting tool, not a social network?”  Well… yes and no. Glassdoor is a great recruiting tool, but it has also evolved into network that allows companies to engage with past, present, and prospective employees. Glassdoor has enabled companies to connect with employees and prospective employees anonymously in a way that hasn’t been done before: Not only can Glassdoor members review and provide feedback on a company, the company can respond back and proactively engage with members through the company updates.

Why Should Marketers Care About Glassdoor?

“Isn’t Glassdoor the responsibility of human resources?” is probably your next question. Yes, but the marketing team should also take note and even get involved. Employees are one of the greatest assets that a company, and its marketing team, has. According to Brandon Chesnutt in this LinkedIn Pulse post, employees are “a key audience that cannot be ignored.” Why? Bottom line, employees make great brand advocates. One of the very first ways for companies to start building followers and engagement on social media is to utilize employees, and Glassdoor is another great opportunity to do this. A good employee review on Glassdoor doesn’t just help attract good job candidates; it helps build the company brand by giving a glimpse into the company culture.
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In addition, Glassdoor has great SEO. Glassdoor company reviews can, and often do, come up in coveted search positions. As with other social networks, linking Glassdoor to your company’s website and sharing links back to your site on Glassdoor can help your own sites SEO ranking. And, like your website and other social accounts, the strength of your Glassdoor profile, and likely search results, is tied to how accurate your profile information is, how often you update the profile, and consistent engagement with Glassdoor members.

Glassdoor’s Application Beyond Marketing and HR

Back in 2012, Gordon Andrew aptly stated on his blog Marketing Craftsman that, “Glassdoor has become an important research tool for job hunters, corporate recruiters, and anyone looking for unvarnished behind-the-scenes insight into what really goes on behind corporate doors.” The key thing that stands out to me here is the “anyone.” Since Glassdoor profiles, reviews, and CEO ratings can turn up in search results, “anyone”, including prospects, customers, partners, and investors, has the potential to come across a good or bad review. With that in mind, Glassdoor has the potential to impact sales, partnerships, and investor relationships.

To start, let’s take a look at the company reviews. With the anonymity that Glassdoor provides, employee reviews are pretty revealing and can give a glimpse into management across the company or even provide insight into how well a product is developed. Yes, some reviews are rants, but like Yelp or other review sites, readers take note when the reviews are consistent. The same goes for the CEO ratings, and when combined with company reviews, can give prospects, partners, and investors, an idea of not only who is leading the company, but his/her management style and the level of respect employees have for the leader of the company.

If you work for a large healthcare organization that’s looking make a big purchase of a healthcare IT product, partner with a healthcare IT vendor, or even invest in the company itself, wouldn’t you want to know how the company is being led and if employees believe in the product? I’m not sure healthcare organizations are aware of the power of these reviews and ratings yet, but the potential is there for Glassdoor to evolve into vetting resource for prospects, partners, and investors.

In my next post, I’ll look at suggestions on how your company can tackle Glassdoor.

About Patty Dickerson
With a background in healthcare program management and editing, Patty Dickerson’s passion for content and digital marketing helps keep the HIT companies where she works on the pulse of what’s happening across the healthcare and technology industries. Patty has worked at a range of healthcare tech companies including NaviNet (now part of NantHealth), Curaspan, and MedAptus. Prior to working in healthcare IT, she managed a variety of Continuing Medical Education programs at Boston University School of Medicine. She has a MBA in marketing with a health sector focus from Boston University and BS in psychology and communications from Fordham University, where she was also a member of the NCAA Division I swim team. An active #HITMC and #HealthITChick twitter chat participant, Patty can be found on twitter at @PattyLDickerson or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/patricialdickerson

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