Employee-generated content is at the core of Cisco Systems’ social media recruiting efforts

Cisco Systems’ “We are Cisco” social media accounts are filled with employee-generated content. The Talent Brand Team’s entire content strategy is based on employee-generated content, which helps the organization “display the Cisco Life authentically to external candidates.”  That’s made Cisco the winner in the “User-Generated Content” category of PR Daily’s 2017 Content Marketing Awards.

The Talent Brand Team’s mantra, “Be you, with us. #WeAreCisco,” is designed to show recruits who may have their sights set on a startup how working at Cisco Systems—a relatively old, global, successful networking organization—can provide the same experience. 

To generate content in 2017, the Talent Brand Team launched its second annual #WeAreCisco #LoveWhereYouWork contest to encourage employees to share why they believe the organization is a great place to work. (The contest supplements an ongoing employee takeover scheme for the organization’s Snapchat account.) Employees were encouraged to share a photo using the hashtags and conveying why they loved working at Cisco. 

The team promoted the contest in a variety of exciting ways, including extending it beyond its planned May 3 deadline to tap into the “May the 4th be with you” cultural event. The pre-May 4 contest produced 1,300 unique entries, “enough employee-generated content to fill our social content calendars a month at a time.” The May 4th campaign added significant numbers to the total. 

Congratulations to the team of Macy Andrews, Carmen Collins, Casie Shimansky, Tamar Glasner and Anjali Bhatia.