Making Your Community a Talent Magnet

Talent is a top of mind topic in nearly every industry today, including ours. Here we take a look at some of the talent attraction strategies chambers and EDOs are embracing, including examples and tips you can incorporate into your community’s efforts to draw new residents.

Bringing Back Boomerangs
Boomerangs are folks who used to live in your community, moved away and then returned – primarily people who grew up in the area. Action Greensboro’s boomerang campaign has successfully drawn back about a hundred boomerangs. Love, Kansas is a state campaign embracing this.

Recruiting Foreign-Born Workers
It’s hard to say how this approach will evolve in the current political climate, but in recent years, some communities have launched efforts to recruit immigrants and refugees to grow their workforce. Brattleboro, Vermont’s leadership intentionally welcomed refugees to spark a needed population boost. Foreign-born workers have made up a large portion of the U.S. workforce in recent years as we face demographic challenges.

Offering Incentives
Many communities offer incentives to recruit people – mostly remote workers. Tulsa Remote is the most well-known, but many places ranging in size have created versions of this whether it’s cash or other perks like homebuying support or money toward student debt.

Intentionality is key when offering an incentive; make sure you’re also helping people build community and connection that make them want to stay past the perks.

Fostering Connection
Helping people cultivate community is important, whether they’re considering relocation or have already moved. Communities do this through networking and programs for newcomers, like the Chattanewbies in Chattanooga.

Community influencer programs using locals as a resource are also effective – like the Indianapolis Indyfluencers. You can find someone aligned with your interests or phase of life to be a first connection and give advice on the area.

The Right Marketing
What do these strategies have in common? Marketing. Your talent recruitment strategy is really a marketing strategy, because if no one’s aware of what you’re doing, it can’t help you reach your talent attraction goals. Perceptions also play a role in the talent attraction game – creating them and shifting them through promoting your community and your quality of life.

Social media targeting, working with marketing consultants and service providers, traditional PR and more are marketing tactics that make the examples we covered here effective. We know that talent gets information about communities largely through digital outlets like online research, social media, rankings and media coverage – your community’s “digital front door.”

It can be helpful to think about the components of your digital front door in terms of your owned (platforms belonging to you), paid (advertising, sponsored content, etc.) and earned media (neither paid nor owned – mostly media coverage). Working with Livability Media bridges all three – our branded content promoting your community has the look of earned media, harnessing the impact of third party endorsement, while also empowering you to craft your ideal messaging. Your Livability content is likely to be one of the first things prospective talent find via search, positioning you and any special efforts to recruit folks front and center.

At Livability, we’ve spent decades promoting and celebrating U.S. cities, helping identify their unique selling points and target the right audiences. With our expertise in your corner and a solid understanding of how other communities are attracting talent, you’re sure to become a talent magnet.

Livability Media is a full-service media and content marketing company focused on bringing talented individuals to your city. We work with chambers of commerce, economic development groups and city governments to tell the unique stories of cities, regions and states through custom online, print and digital content programs.