If you’re a recruiter, you may find yourself relating to a Disney Princess more than you ever thought you would…
What am I talking about? Consider Ariel from The Little Mermaid, who just “wants to be where the people are.” Finding top talent requires you to have feelers out in all the places that top talent reside, and as more millennials enter the workforce, that “place” is quickly becoming social media. While the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn officially began well over a decade ago, social recruiting is still being explored and is often underutilized by organizations today. Feel like a mermaid out of water? In this post, we’ll dive in to the basics that will help set you on your way to implementing a social recruiting strategy of your very own.
Build Your Company’s Employer Brand
Your company may have a brand, which is perfected and promoted through your marketing department, but you also have an employer brand. What’s the difference? Your marketing brand promotes products and services to customers while your employer brand promotes company culture to prospective employees. In other words, all the cool reasons someone might want to work at your company. The best way to portray your employer brand is through visual mediums, including photos and videos. Take pictures of your breakroom, interview employees at their desks about why they love their job–the opportunities are endless! Need help? Our Recruit Rooster team has a full suite of services to help you polish your employer brand. While these elements should ultimately live on your career site, they can also be cross-posted on your social channels. You never know what will go viral!
Pro Tip: Set up social profiles dedicated to your careers. For example, “@CompanyNameCareers.” That way you can entirely devote the account to promoting your employer brand and can build a following of potential employees. Be sure to work closely with your marketing team to have them share/retweet your career-related posts on their main social accounts occasionally!
Use Paid Advertising Opportunities
Almost all social media networks offer some form of paid advertising for businesses. You’ve probably seen the ads as you scroll through your feed. This is a valuable piece of social real estate–and affordable real estate at that! You determine how many days you want the campaign to run and how much you want to spend and voila–you’re officially in the social advertising business! Social advertising is especially great because you can hand select your target audience. Have a job opening in Seattle? Target your ad to users in that area. Participating in a career fair in Orlando? Same thing. Some platforms even allow you to target ads to people of a specific age, gender or interest–but be mindful of bias!
Use Hashtags
Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag! While not as prevalent on Facebook, the use of hashtags is vital on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram–and rightfully so. Hashtags are a way to categorize posts based on the content within. For example, we hashtag our posts #HR #HumanResources. If someone is interested in HR, they can search that hashtag, and there’s a chance they will see our post. If they like our content, there’s a chance they will become a follower, yay for us! Reversely, you can search hashtags that relate to your needs and engage in conversations that can gain you exposure and clout. How do you figure out which hashtags to use? You can search the popularity of a hashtag via tools like Hashtagify.me. Here you can also enter your tweet or Instagram post text, and it will suggest hashtags you may want to use.
Pro Tip: In addition to using popular hashtags in your posts, you may want to make your own hashtag to catalog your posts – for example, #CompanyNameCareers or #WorkAtCompanyName. Be creative!
Don’t Be Afraid of Non-Traditional Social Networks
You probably already use “The Big Three”: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but don’t be afraid to incorporate Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and YouTube, as they rise in popularity. In fact, according a Global Social Media Research project, YouTube has the second highest number of active global users, with Instagram also topping both Twitter and LinkedIn.1 Use Instagram to display your corporate culture through beautiful imagery, use Pinterest to share links to your career site, or blog posts you have authored on interview advice, or resume writing tips. Use Snapchat to host a live Q&A or “a day in the life” of one of your employees while on the job. Finally, YouTube is a great place to share your recruitment videos–hint, hint: we’ve got the resources to help you here!
Get Everyone Involved
Did you know that social media platforms use an algorithm to determine whose posts you see when you sign in to your account? Many factors are taken into consideration when developing this algorithm (including how frequently you post, how much you interact with others, etc.), but one thing is for sure: engagement is vital. The more people that contribute to your posts, like, comment and share them, the more reputable you will appear to the social media network to which you are posting, and the more people they will, in turn, show your posts. So, when it comes to social media, it’s all hands on deck! Ask your staff to like, comment and share your posts on their personal accounts for more visibility.
Pro Tip: Have recruiters make work accounts and get active! For example: “@CompanyNameSarah.” Share posts about positions you’re currently looking to fill and make person-to-person connections that may lead to hires.
Use Reporting Features For Valuable Insight
In addition to paid advertising opportunities, all social media platforms typically come with reporting features that offer helpful insight into your audience, and the success of your account. For example, what times of the day are your followers most active (this is a GREAT time to be posting!), where are they located, which of your posts performed best, how many people are your posts reaching, etc. Having this information is invaluable for forming and reshaping your social strategy as time goes on.
Whew, that’s a lot of great information! Please keep in mind that there are legal restrictions to social recruiting per industry so be sure to check with your legal team to uncover those limitations before implementing a strategy. Now, get out there and get social!
Source:
1Chaffey, David. “Global Social Media Research Summary 2019.” Smart Insights. 12 February 2019. Web. 14 March 2019. https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
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