GM Financial’s Social Media Strategy Tells Authentic Story of Its Intern Experience

GM Financial's recruitment marketing team launched an intern social media strategy in 2024 that is aimed at telling the authentic story of the firm’s intern experience and growing its pipeline of students for internships and early career opportunities. 

“With Gen Z at the forefront, we created mobile-first, shortform videos that highlighted key intern experiences authentically,” says Kathryn Kwiecien, university talent advisor II, who along with the UR team partnered with GM Financial's recruitment marketing team on this initiative. 

“We leveraged our existing channels, plus previously untapped features like Instagram Reels and a vendor’s new social feed to showcase our company culture, career growth, and benefits in new and engaging ways. Through this, we have positioned GM Financial as an employer of choice and strengthened our early career talent pipeline.”

She says that by tapping into Instagram Reels, the team was able to maximize visibility and engagement to a wider audience, while the vendor’s new social feed enabled it to directly target university students on a platform where they were already exploring career opportunities. 

Kwiecien notes that the primary challenge GM Financial's recruitment marketing team faced was rethinking how to showcase the internship program to resonate with current students who crave authenticity and want a deeper look into potential employers.

“In the past, our intern content consisted of static photos and focused on hiring instead of highlighting specific benefits of interning with GM Financial,” she says.

“Knowing that most students are on social media platforms that favor videos algorithmically, we knew videos were a great opportunity. However, we had limited resources and needed to move faster than lengthy workflows would allow.”

Through targeted messaging and engaging content, the team aimed to:

• Increase social media reach and engagement;
• Drive traffic to the careers site;
• Boost applications for internships and early career positions; and
• Showcase GM Financial’s culture. 

“We also wanted to create a storytelling approach that would get our content in front of a wider audience and excite students to join our program,” Kwiecien adds.

“Gen Z consumes content quickly, favors authenticity, and gravitates toward short-form videos, so our strategy is simply to meet Gen Z where they are. Our team focused on creating videos highlighting the unique opportunities our internship program offers.” 

Using current interns as the faces of the campaign, the team shared their stories and experiences to connect with their audience.

“With the videos coming at no cost, we created a variety of content emphasizing our key messaging pillars of professional development, inclusive culture, impactful work, and flexibility,” Kwiecien says.

The content included “day-in-the-life" videos that showcased interns’ daily responsibilities, offering an inside look into GM Financial’s culture and work environment. The team spotlighted interns’ involvement in volunteering to highlight the company’s benefits and commitment to corporate wellness. To further build authenticity, they also conducted on-the-spot intern interviews, capturing interns’ personal growth throughout the summer and their insights on the internship program.

“By keeping content relatable and mobile-friendly, we also made it easier for candidates to engage and learn more about our program,” Kwiecien says.

“Through this, we were successfully able to position GM Financial as an employer of choice while consistently strengthening our early career talent pipeline beyond just the summer intern season.”

After the program was completed, GM Financial's recruitment marketing team evaluated the successes of its organic social media content. 

In 2024, GM Financial’s early career content netted 166k+ impressions and an engagement rate of 1.88%, beating the industry average of 0.07%, Kwiecien says. These achievements also surpassed GM Financial’s 2023 numbers with a 24% increase in impressions and a 22% increase in engagement rate across all its channels. The increases show that the dynamic content approach resonated with the target audience.

“We also drove 6.5k+ clicks to our careers site from our organic social posts. Seeing this reflected in the data revealed the extent of our employer brand awareness in the early career talent pool,” she points out.

“Additionally, our talent acquisition team saw a 60% increase year-over-year in applications completed, with a 38% rise in applications that discovered GM Financial through social media. This highlights the effectiveness of the social media campaigns in strengthening our candidate pipeline. Also, by not relying on extensive production resources, our team was able to prioritize speed to market, cutting down process time by more than 85%.”

She explains that the 60% increase in applications is especially notable as it demonstrates that the initiative was not only effective in increasing employer brand awareness but was also instrumental in converting prospective candidates’ impressions into applications.

“Aside from the year-over-year impact, our main commitment to portraying authentic stories told by interns for potential interns led to creating a more long-term of impact of bolstering our brand through transparency and authenticity,” Kwiecien says.

This organic social strategy is a vital component of GM Financial’s early recruiting efforts as it creates its new blueprint in 2025. She says GM Financial’s commitment to this program is ongoing as it plans to:

• Enhance its content further through expanding its storytelling with new content trends;
• Create an opportunity for interns to be employee ambassadors; and
• Strengthen its content surrounding niche or difficult-to-hire intern specialties.

“By continuing to refine our strategy and staying ahead of industry trends, GM Financial will continue to commit to driving engagement; increasing applications; and, most importantly, being an employer of choice for early career talent,” Kwiecien adds.