Survey results clearly show growth of social media adoption, but employers are still facing hurdles with measurement and risk mitigation.
DirectEmployers recently conducted a survey to see how the adoption of social media has changed over the past few years for Member companies. Growth is certainly evident, as 61.29% of respondents used social media for recruiting in 2010 compared to 87.50% in 2013. The prominent use of social media among Members is still recruiting, however more than half indicated also using it for engaging current employees.
The two most common factors preventing companies from using social media are legal concerns (62.5%) and leadership buy-in (50%).
Structure
Results show that 42.55% of respondents have a person or team dedicated to social media in the HR department; however only 26.60% indicated their company offers ongoing training. Nearly 80% have a social media policy.
Platforms
LinkedIn (100%) and Facebook (86.17%) are the top two most used social networks, but Twitter came in close at 78.72%. YouTube is used by 50%, Pinterest by 14.89%, and Google+ just over 11%. Other platforms mentioned were Glassdoor, Jobvite, Instagram and Tumblr.
The majority of survey respondents (76.60%) replied that LinkedIn refers the most candidates. Nearly 20% are not sure which social network refers the most candidates. LinkedIn also dominates as driving the most hires at 77.17%, followed by Facebook at 3.26%.
Goals and Objectives
Reaching passive candidates and building employer brand awareness were the two most popular goals and objectives selected – both nearly at 90%. Generating more traffic to the career site was selected by 68.48% of respondents, followed by reducing advertising /external spend at 56.52%. Additional goals and objectives include:
- Raise quality of applicant pool
- Drive more targeted traffic to the career site
- Initiate pipeline interest for future
- Seek feedback from candidate pools
- Engagement and talent communities
Measurement
Measuring social media outcomes is another critical component we wanted to examine. In our 2010 survey, many respondents expressed difficulty in measuring ROI, but in the more recent survey, 47.87% have implemented the tools and processes to measure efforts. There are still 37.23% that do not and 14.89% that are not sure. Current metrics being analyzed include:
- Referral traffic to career site
- Number of hires
- Number of applicants
- Followers or likes
- Engagement
Social media metrics are most frequently evaluated at monthly and quarterly intervals.
For more survey and poll findings, Members can visit the Survey & Poll Results page in Pipeline. For more information about becoming a Member of DirectEmployers Association, please visit the Become a Member page. The DirectEmployers 2013 Annual Meeting & Conference will offer up many opportunities to learn best practices in social media recruiting in addition to OFCCP compliance, technology and more. Learn more!
How did these results compare with your organization? Do you feel employers are effectively using social media? Comment below!
These survey results show how important it is to be active on social networking websites because this is where recruiters are starting to hangout to find job applicants.