Social Media Recruiting: How Businesses Can Use Social Media for Sourcing and Staffing Talented Human Resources
Social media has largely widened our capabilities, and the idea is to explore all of the channels and outlets to their limits. Using social media for recruiting new employees and freelancers is one of the latest additions to social media utilities.
With each passing day, social media platforms are introducing new and advanced features to make our life and business function seamlessly. However, before we use social media platforms for manpower hiring, there are a few things companies need to keep in mind.
Each of the social media platforms has something new to offer, and thus, using them to recruit human resources for your brand will require precise knowledge about the process and features. This is exactly what this post will do for you.
Here, we will talk about how we can use social media to recruit new people and ensure the best use of them.
So without any further ado, let’s get started.
Developing and Executing Your Unique Social Media Recruiting Strategies
Being consistently active on social media channels is the first and foremost requirement. You cannot merely depend on a particular platform and wait for it forever to work for you. Your activity on social media platforms, in general, will increase your visibility and, in return, make you or your brand more popular.
After that, you should have your distinct strategy to hire new people for your company through social media. Now, what to do exactly? Below I am sharing some tips for you to get started:
- You need to participate in the right conversations. The idea is to find the right people without getting lost in the social media noise. Using platforms like LinkedIn groups can be super helpful to post about your job openings in front of prospective candidates. You can also use Hashtags for platforms like Twitter to reach the right people.
- Don’t be too rash; instead, take a soft approach and promote your work culture and general perspectives. With the right tactic, your social media job posting can go beyond just a mere advertisement; it can reveal a lot more about your brand.Hence, make sure to share content that will touch the right candidates and sway them about your company ethos. Everyone loves talking about brands with a great work environment, so this kind of content can fetch a lot of attention.
- Try to profit from connecting with the niche networks. Of course, everyone has got their friends and colleagues on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but still, you can find a few specialized candidate profiles with the help of niche networks and forums. For example, you can find several developers sharing their knowledge on GitHub and StackOverflow. Needless to say, you can find an expert on every topic under the sun, on Quora.
- Involve all your present employees to improve your social media reach. Just ask them to share the openings and promote the brand as much as possible. On top of that, you can also encourage and incentivize your employees to talk about their work experience in your company on social media in a responsible manner. This may indeed evoke a magnitude of curiosity among potential candidates.
- Social media brand accounts may have some limitations, and thus you need to ask your recruiters to use their personal social media profiles to connect with the right candidates. They should be active on social media and try to perform all the recommended practices on a regular basis.
LinkedIn Recruiting Tips
Everyone knows when it comes to recruiting with the help of social media, LinkedIn stands on top. Undoubtedly, it is the best one for the human resource recruitment process. Practically, anyone associated with some kind of professional field will certainly have a profile on the “World’s Largest Professional Network”, Linkedin.
You can quite effortlessly use this platform to attract a vast number of interested job seekers along with some passive ones for your company. Below, I am listing a few hiring tips for you to get started with LinkedIn recruitment.
- You must have a complete brand page on Linkedin; this is the first and foremost important thing. With this in place, every time someone does a search, the full company page will show up, and Linkedin will present the complete details about your brand, work-culture, and current employees. Now, the job seekers can easily find your page, learn about your openings, and see everything they need to know about your organization.
- Next, try to implement filters to discover the desired profiles. Millions of professionals use LinkedIn, making it challenging for companies to find the right set of people. Using the filters makes the entire Linkedin hiring process much simpler and straight-forward. Just use filters like location, current and past company, years of experience, or something important, and you can easily zero-in on your desired set of candidates.
- Never lose the personal touch while reaching out to them. Always remember that experienced and talented professionals get contacted a lot by various employers. So, don’t use the same cliché message for everyone, instead try something new with your personal touch the moment you connect with an extraordinary candidate. You can go by telling the thing that you found exciting about the candidate and made you think he/she would be a good fit for your brand.
Using LinkedIn Groups for Social Media Recruiting
For a large number of employers, using LinkedIn groups is one of the most preferred ways to source talents. Almost 87% of recruiters are currently using LinkedIn to hire candidates. Whereas 55% of them tend to use Facebook, and only 47% prefer Twitter for the same. But all of this would be futile if you just optimize your Linkedin account by saying that you are recruiting for your current vacant positions.
To make the entire Linkedin hiring process even more effective, join and participate in various LinkedIn groups that you found relevant to your niche and industry. Remember, it’s all about building the right contacts at the right time!
You can also tap the wealth of specialized communities on LinkedIn. These are the places where candidates are actively involved while trying to position themselves in their respective fields. This is your chance to seek them out. For example, suppose you are looking for a great sales team and experienced sales professionals. In that case, you should go for The Sales Association group on Linkedin for sales and business development experts. You can indeed find a goldmine there!
The main objective behind involving in these groups is nothing but utilizing the power of networking. When you become an active part of these authoritative Linkedin communities, you can quickly identify and set apart top talents and key influencers to recruit. Knowing all about them will be immensely beneficial for you and also make it much easier for your company to source the right professionals.
But It’s Not Just LinkedIn! Why Just Get Stuck to the Big Tree?
There is no denying that LinkedIn is perhaps the best option when it comes to recruiting through social media. But that doesn’t mean you should only depend on it and never explore anything else. There are other options too, and you should give them a try as well.
Don’t only stick to a few social media channels for sourcing manpower, but try almost all of them. Most importantly, try to understand the chemistry that works for each one of them. What might work for Linkedin; might not work on Twitter. Similarly, how you hire people from Twitter might not be applicable on Facebook. You get the idea, right? So try to perceive the recipe of success for each of these platforms, and consequently, recruiting talents will be much smoother for you.
You need to understand that all these platforms were designed for different purposes, and they are destined to appeal to a diverse set of audiences. Instead of applying a one-size-fits-all method, think on the bright-side and use the platforms to your benefit to reach out to the targeted group of audience and job-seekers. You never know where and how you might end up finding your desired employee.
Think a bit creatively and see which platform runs the best and then act on that. It’s all about creating engagement and continuing that! So instead of sticking to the big three, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter go ahead and create profiles on Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube as well. Believe it or not, all of them can offer some recruitment solution to source the right candidates for your organization.
For example:
- With Facebook, you can post ads, create events, and build contacts. Plus, there are hundreds of groups created across all the niches. So just try to tap this user-base, and you will indeed find good potential candidates. Of course, on Facebook, everyone shares a lot about their professional and personal info; therefore, shortlisting the right candidate profiles shouldn’t be a deal.Plus, if you wish to organize a walk-in job interview, you can create a Facebook event from your company’s Facebook page, which will immediately notify your contacts. This can surely attract a lot of talented candidates, both fresher and experienced.
- On Instagram, too, you can post the photos of your previous hiring event and invite your contacts and followers for the next one with date, time, and location and, of course, with catchy captions. On top of this, you can also use Instagram influencers to recommend your brand to induce potential candidates to join your company.
- On Twitter, you can create a list of users who are much likely looking for a new job role in your domain. Moreover, Twitter is the perfect place to use powerful hashtags relevant to your upcoming job vacancies to increase the number of walk-in attendees.
Besides, if you are ready to go for paid marketing for all these platforms, including LinkedIn, then it will be entirely a different ball-game altogether.
Use the Professional Niche Networks
Apart from the major social media channels, you should also use the niche networks where your dream candidates could be hanging out.
For example:
- As I said earlier, you can find several developers and designers from different locations sharing their ideas and knowledge on CodePen, GitHub, and StackOverflow.
- Want to find marketers? Just look out on Moz and Warrior Forum.
- And if you are looking for an expert on anything, make sure to browse Quora – you will indeed find a number of them!
However, you need to ensure that you are an active participant in these professional niche communities to connect with the right candidate at the right time.
So you see, the possibilities are endless!
Share Quality Social Media Content
It’s not just about the advertisement, but it’s more about the content. The content you share, be it your own or curated, you need to ensure that it is not being treated as noise. The best way is to know the questions your audience is asking and then give them the answers. Always remember to keep them engaged.
Your posts on social media are useless if the audience doesn’t find them worth sharing. This is why you need something that they would love to share, so the content should be catchy as ever! It must have some elements of entertainment, usefulness, and interest. Now, you can try any format you prefer. Like:
- Videos
- How-to guides
- Blog posts
- Images
- Photography
- Infographics
- Podcasts
If you want your contents to go viral, it ought to have something that is not trivial or boring. This is all the more important if you wish to engage the passive candidates on social media. Once your social media reputation is cemented, you can take things to the next level and up the quality of engagement with your contacts.
One great way to achieve this for sourcing new talents using social media can be using employee videos. Never underestimate the power of videos on social media.
- As per studies, social media users are 10 times more likely to be engaged through a video than any other form of content.
- 52% of marketing professionals around the world would prefer video to any other mode of content as they provide the greatest return on investment.
- The reason can be many, but probably the main reason is that our brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. Plus, videos will help you convey a lot more than a long text matter.
- So you can easily harness the power of social media engagement through videos to connect with all those passive candidates and other professionals relevant to your niche.
- You can use this content type to host live Q&As. This will give them a glimpse inside your company and make them feel all the more curious. A lot of people really love behind-the-scenes videos. You can easily intrigue them with this content type.
Harness the Power of Social Media Hashtag
Believe it or not, but we should all take a moment to estimate the real power of the divine yet humble hashtag. Nothing can be easier than putting a # in front of a word or phrase to reach more social media audiences.
However, you need to know the reach of your hashtag and how many people among your audience might use it. Consider the location and other demographics like gender, age group, profession, interests, etc., if you want your hashtags to reach the right segment of professionals.
It is always advisable to be creative with your hashtags and personalize them as per your brand and products/services. This way, you can increase their potentials and get better results through them.
Final Thoughts on Social Media Recruiting
Much like most things in life, recruiting through social media will also take some time. But trust me, the results will be worth the efforts.
The majority of recruiters using social media to hire new talents are immensely happy with the results. They claim to have seen an improvement in both the quantity and quality of candidates. Ergo, it is definitely worth giving a try with a strategic approach.
The strategy you will devise to recruit through social media is definitely the essential factor. You should think it through and plan for every single step. Chalk out everything about your targeted candidates, like where they spend time online, guidelines for establishing relationships, and the social media platforms to be used to hook them. Suffice to say, a failure in planning will result in an absolute disappointment in the end.
So what are your thoughts on recruiting through social media? Please tell us your opinion in the comment section below. If you have already used social media to hire talents for your company, share your top picks for the platforms to be used. Your insights on the plus-sides and shortcomings of various platforms will also be highly appreciated.
Please keep the discussion going on by giving us your valuable opinions. It will help our readers around the world who wish to recruit through social media for their companies.
Till then, happy social media recruiting!
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Mentored by Mr. Soumya Roy, the Founder, CEO of PromozSEO Web Marketing Academy.
Being an entrepreneur and digital marketer, he loves to share his knowledge and experience in topics related to internet marketing, SEO, SEM, social media, content marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, and many more.
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