Recruitment Marketing, Content & Social Media

First leap china

Our team was brought on board specifically to help turn the First Leap’s overseas company image around back in 2016.

To this day, we are still running all their overseas marketing and social media.

Deliverables

  • Website Consulting
  • Blog Design & Set-Up
  • Hundreds of Blog Posts
  • Social Media Channel Optimization & Set Up New Channels
  • Marketing Collateral Design (flyers, brochures, advertisements, graphics, etc.)
  • Ongoing Video Creation
  • Ongoing Social Media Management Services

Type of Work

  • Branding & Strategy
  • Graphic Design
  • Website Development
  • Blogging
  • Photography
  • Content Strategy
  • Digital Marketing Strategy
  • Social Media Strategy & Management
  • Ambassador Program
  • Teacher-Generated Content
  • Video Production
  • Online Customer Service Support

Challenges

The ESL industry is booming in China. First Leap needed to hire hundreds of international teachers who would relocate to China and teach English. However, this booming industry led to some unscrupulous companies tainting the industry with scams.

This caused potential overseas candidates to be suspicious and highly worried about scams.  Further, First Leap had never invested in cultivating its overseas image online. Due to this lack of branding, content and social media, First Leap was having a difficult time recruiting international teachers to come to China.

At the time we were brought on-board with First Leap, it was nearly impossible to find anything good about the company online. There was an extreme lack of content, and anything that you did find was negative reviews from disgruntled employees (which were very old!). 

Our Process

 Having a personal history with First Leap and the leadership of the company, our team discussed heavily the problems facing the organization and the opportunities to correct them.

Our team gathered brand materials for domestic marketing within China, then discovered the internal brand values of the organization and employee attributes. 

We interviewed leadership and staff throughout the organization, and built very close relationships with international teachers at First Leap. Our staff also attended company events and participated as if we were employees as well so that we could understand the company culture & experience.

Understanding these employee brand values allowed us to create a story around working at First Leap.  

We overlayed this story with market research about our target market. Our team gathered data about current ESL teachers in China, and with First Leap. We identified key characteristics and developed “personas” to define these prospective candidates. Then we set out to create content that would get their attention and pique their interest about moving to China to teach English.

Finally, our team executed a digital and social media strategy to that would get this content in front of the target audience online. 

Solutions

Digital Strategy

There was virtually zero digital presence in the overseas market for First Leap. Our first priority was to build the “digital footprint” so that you could find positive information when looked up the company online. This included a combination of content creation, SEO, PR, influencers, and social media.

Overseas Branding & Content

We created a distinct brand image overseas that emphasized First Leap’s focus on being a part of the “First Leap Family.”  We knew ESL teachers were concerned about being scammed, they didn’t know if they could trust First Leap, and they didn’t want to be alone. So our content revolved around making ESL candidates feel at ease, comforting their worries and answering their questions.

SEO: English Website & Blog

First Leap did not have an English website. Being owned by a larger parent company in China made this a bit of a challenge, but we were ultimately able to build a WordPress website to host content & our blogs and make them visible overseas and to Google through SEO best practices.

Social Media Management

Social media in China is very different than in other parts of the world. Having an understanding of Western social media and how the target demographic of First Leap uses social media, we were able to create content that got on their daily social media feeds. 

Further, we understand that millennials today don’t trust companies as much as they do their peers. So our team not only created content from the teacher perspective, but we built an ambassador program that nurtured “teacher-generated content” and developed hashtags the teachers could use in their own personal social media posting. This all helped to create valuable content that the target market trusted, and helped support our overall marketing strategies online.

We’ve Been Busy!

Below is a snapshot of the social media numbers, since December 2016 when we began running all of First Leap’s social media.

%

Increase Social Media Followers

Social Media Impressions

Social Media Engagements

Outcomes

Within one year, our team reversed this online image.

When searching “First Leap” online people now found a proper English website loaded with great content and information  – including teacher-generated content which was real, and trustworthy.

Other search engine results included blogs, influencers and other parters we worked with for additional credible content & links which further helped rankings. Further, the website began to rank for keywords, which drove traffic to the site and lead generation.

Regarding social media, First Leap now had one of the strongest social media presence of any competitors — including some of the highest engagement rates in the industry!

Within two years, First Leap was seen as one of the most desired schools to teach ESL in China.

Candidates were now seeking out the First Leap directly for jobs.

The company filled all positions, and applicants would even be willing to wait months for new job openings. When asked why they wanted to wait instead of going to another company, they said it was directly related to First Leap having the best web presence online. Including the best and most helpful content, and best social media.

 

are you looking for help with online recruiting? Let’s Chat!

Even if you aren’t sure what you need, we’re happy to have an initial call to talk things through and see how we might be able to help you.