There are 2 weeks left until 2014 comes to a close and 2015 is among us. The new year will see an even greater focus on 3 major themes: storytelling, targeted marketing and candidate experience, and metrics/measurement. Here are 8 key trends those in employer brand and talent attraction need to know to hit the ground running:   1. Engagement's Gonna Get Real: Brand awareness is now a given in terms of expectation. Talent Attraction Marketers will link “engagement” to brand reputation versus their category’s ideal, rather than just counting “likes” or leveraging imagery. Fortunately, new technology is coming to the Human Capital market in 2015 to help accomplish this from Universum, so stay tuned.   2. The Metrics Rubber Meets The Road: The ability for employer brands to measure real, expanding emotional candidate expectations that are often unarticulated by the audience will provide advantages to engage, attract and acquire/retain talent. Tools like SEMrush will make ROI and measurement capabilities easier to prove-up and justify additional spend in the future.   3. Just In Time (JIT) Recruitment Marketing: Increased real-time brand expectations will spread to tailored recruitment marketing. Progressive companies will share applicable position availability while touting improved recruitment process efficiency for a better overall candidate experience. University Recruitment is likely to be the first hiring area to receive this focus for most companies.   4. Brands Will Evoke "All the Feels:" Successful brands will need to identify emotional values in their categories and use them as a foundation for meaningful positioning, differentiation, and authentic storytelling. The leader in this space so far is Ernst & Young: Maria's Story continues to be the most compelling piece of emotional employer branding in the marketplace today.   5. Real Employees, Real Storytelling: Storytelling may be all the rage, but Talent Attraction Marketers will have to "keep it real" by sharing real brand values and workplace realities... while continuing to meet differentiation and believability thresholds of their audience. Deloitte leads the pack in ensuring prospective employees understand the time and energy needed for success, though these companies have done a good job as well (1):

  • Rackspace: Culture and Combined Identity
  • American Heart Association: Meaning of Work (also, they share employee "meaning of work" testimonials via FB)
  • HP's "Digital Warrior" program has also done a good job of using employees to validate brand values.

  6. Diversity Fades, MULTICULTURALISM Shines: As diversity continues to evoke mixed feelings of being segregated in those identified as part of the "diversity club" and a global and remote workforce continues to grow; social recruiters and Talent Attraction Marketers will need to create a multicultural-specific brand experience. The focus is on inclusion, rather than diversity. AT&T has done an excellent job of sharing advancement in inclusion, despite using a "diversity" call-out.   7. The Technology Tracking Trend Improves: Just "guessing" where your traffic comes from and what content they find compelling is no longer acceptable. In addition to custom tracking tags to better identify traffic sources, tools like Wistia (webpage video hosting tool that tracks views and shows exactly which parts of the video the viewer watched, skipped, and re-watched.) and ClickTale Heatmap Analytics (a visual heatmap of where visitors scroll, move and click) will help digital marketers better understand website behavior.   8. "Just Push Play" Comes Front and Center: According to Invodo, 65% of viewers watch more than 75% of a given video and 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium. Pressing play has become the most compelling Call-To-Action in the Talent Attraction digital toolbox. With that in mind, video will continue to be a focus for content creators. Keep the videos short as nearly half of what we produce for social will be consumed via mobile device (eating up mobile data). AT&T has an excellent track record of producing employee-focused content under the 3 minute mark. Check it out. How many of these trends are in your 2015 playbook?   Join recruiting leaders at #SRSC this January 27-29th in San Francisco. Visit the Social Recruiting Strategies Conference website to learn more about the San Francisco and Boston events in 2015. (1) Disclosure: Crystal Miller has done work with both AT&T and American Heart Association