4 steps to create a social media recruitment strategy
Published on Nov 23, 2017
The drastic change in the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other emerging platforms has made it more than just a social avenue. Today, social media has turned into a job-seeking portal where recruiters interact with potential clients to know and learn about each other.
Gone are the days when recruiters manually collected details of each candidate and recorded them in their talent pool database. Thanks to the advent of social media, recruitment has become a much hassle-free process. The transactional nature of social media makes easier for job-seekers to reciprocate or revert to job postings published by recruiters. With transparency being a key attribute of social media websites, recruiters can learn about potential applicants like never before.
Unlike a resume, social media platforms give recruiters a more in-depth and comprehensive picture about whom they are hiring. But this can be useful only if recruiters have a solid hiring policy to implement on.
As Han Digital talent consultants, we have listed out 4 steps to increase the effort of recruiters in finding the best talent through social media websites:
· Team Building Efforts
Before publishing a job post, a recruiter must identify their hiring strategy and target audience. A recruiter must build a team of members, assign clear roles and set a protocol to work upon. The fast moving and dynamic trends of social media require a group of experts to handle requirements. If a potential requirement or job prospect is overlooked, it can lead to a major loss in terms of talent acquisition.
· Building Your Content
Content management is equally important to building a team. It familiarises potential job-seekers to the company ethics and its work culture. The content generated must be engaging and is much different from any other product/service related content. The written content must sell jobs, not a service or product.
Employee testimonials are considered one of the most preferred forms of content by recruiters. It helps them showcase company talent and display transparency in terms of company policy and hiring.
A company must never blow its own trumpet. It is absolutely fine to talk about why the company is best to work for, but at the same time, a recruiter must know where to draw the line. Overdoing such an act can diminish credibility and brand image.
In addition, a recruiter must also make vigorous efforts to highlight the mission, vision and value of the company. Candidates would want to know more about the long-term goals of the company and its progress.
Subsequently, content does not only include testimonials, blogs and profiles, but also video and photography. In this digital age, a company must invest in promoting its interest through video blogs or vlogs as visual content has much impact than written content.
· Finding and targeting the audience
Every social media website has its own demographic. Posting random jobs on social networking sites can be futile. A recruiter must know where to find the right audience and target them. Social media websites that support a neutral and common demographic such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are best to publish general job posts. However, LinkedIn is known for professional hiring and related activities.
Other social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram can also be used, however, these platforms are fully image-based. Here, a recruiter must use more graphics than written words to attract potential talent.
In order to target a particular demography or audience, a recruiter must make use of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategies. SEM is a subset of internet marketing that can assist recruiters to target special audiences through online advertising and optimisation.
· Convert potential leads
Tapping progress on social media is nearly difficult but not impossible. The number of ‘likes’, ‘retweets’ and ‘shares’ etc. can help recruiters understand the impact and progress of their job post. Uploading links directing to career pages or online job applications is the best method to close the deal. This eliminates energy and helps candidates save much of their time. This strategy might not work all the time. Besides, another method to build an active talent database is to review the number of likes, go through profiles and send emails.
Do you want to know more about social media recruitment strategy? Our talent consultants at Han Digital Solution can help track talent on social media.
We have been tracking the job market for over 15 years and understand the recruitment needs of every industry. Are you facing problems in attracting the best talent? Get in touch with our talent consultants by writing to us at info@handigital.com