Improve your Recruitment Efforts through Social Media

Social Media Recruiting is a simple, fast, and affordable way to target top talent and promote your Employer Brand.

In today’s shrinking marketplace for top talent your employer brand is critical. WHY would someone want to work for your company? What makes you different from your competitors? You need to understand WHAT your employer brand is today and then take steps to change if necessary.

What is Employer Brand?

Employer Brand is the term used for your company’s reputation as an employer. Employer Branding is the process of presenting your company as a desirable employer.

The goal of Employer Branding is to attract high-quality candidates and position your company as their employer of choice.

According to the LinkedIn survey, 75% of candidates will research your company’s reputation before applying for your job opening.
And if they don’t like what they see, 69% of candidates won’t apply – even if they are unemployed!

So, if you want to attract top talent, you need to build a strong Employer Brand and present a compelling Employee Value Proposition.

In order to communicate their Employer Brand and Employee Value Proposition to potential candidates, companies use different Recruitment Marketing strategies, activities and channels.

One of the most important and commonly used channels for promoting Employer Brand is social media. Promoting your Employer Brand on social media is a part of a recruiting strategy called Social Media Recruiting.

What is Social Media Recruiting?

Simply put, Social Media Recruiting is using social media networks (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram) for recruiting.

You can use social media to find, attract, engage and convert top candidates into applicants.

If you are not already doing that, you are missing out!

According to the LinkedIn survey, half of all professionals are following companies on social media with the intent to stay aware of their jobs.

In order to reap all the benefits Social Media Recruiting can offer, first, you need to establish your Employer Brand presence on social media.
And then you need to promote your Employer Brand.

4 rules for promoting your Employer Brand on social media recruiting.

You have probably already heard that you should put more effort, time and money into promoting your Employer Brand on social media. What nobody is telling you though, is how exactly to do that.

In order to portray your company as a favorable employer through social media, you need to:

1. Establish your voice

To effectively communicate with your social media audience and potential candidates, you need to establish a consistent style and tone of your Employer Brand voice.

Your Employer Brand voice should be:

genuine human voice
friendly and approachable
unique and set you apart from your competitors
consistent, no matter which member of your team manages your social media
a good match with your candidate persona.

2. Share great content

Social media makes it easy to be visual with your storytelling.
People want to be able to envision themselves working for companies.
A great way to enable them to do it is by using photos and videos across all your social media platforms.

Show off your Employer Brand by sharing stories, photos and videos of:

your employees
your office and workspace
educational, corporate and recruiting events
interesting and cool projects your team works on
awards and recognition you won (especially Best places to work recognitions)
any additional perks you offer to your employees (for example: pets allowed, cafeteria, in-house yoga classes etc.).

3. Be responsive to your audience

The most important thing to remember when presenting your Employer Brand on social media is to always be responsive to your audience.

Effective Social Media Recruiting operates like a dialogue, so make an effort to engage your audience by:

starting a conversation with potential candidates
asking questions
responding to comments and likes
personalizing your answers
establishing on time communication.

4. Choose the right social media network(s)

There are many different social media networks that can be used for Employer Branding.

The most important are the so-called “big four”:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram.

However, it is not necessary nor practical to utilize all of them.

So which ones should you use?

That depends on your candidate persona. For example, if your ideal candidates are spending their time on LinkedIn, then LinkedIn recruiting is your best bet!

Which social media networks does your candidate persona prefer? Where does your target audience spend most of their time? That is where you need to be.

Employer Branding on Facebook

Microsoft has a great Facebook career page called Microsoft Life.

Microsoft Life regularly hosts the LIVE Facebook events for potential candidates. It might seem complicated to pull out an event like this, but it really isn’t.

You don’t need any special equipment or setting.
A simple table with your HR team or employees sitting around will do. Just let them talk and use your mobile phone to live stream.

When your live broadcasting is over, Facebook will automatically offer to post a recording on your company’s wall. That way candidates who weren’t able to watch your live can event at the time can review a recording whenever it’s convenient for them.

Employer Branding on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is different than other social media networks because it’s created specifically for professionals and business purposes and networking. Use it to position your company as an industry leader.

You will do that by creating and sharing interesting and engaging business-related content.

Share a blog post in which your experts share their views of the new industry trends, publish photos with your expert’s comments from industry leading events etc.

Employer Branding on Twitter

Share the good news about your company and highlight every award, certification and recognition your company receives.

Celebrate your success and don’t forget to thank your employees for their hard work and commitment to a higher cause.

Another thing to remember if you plan to do any Twitter Employer Branding is to use visuals.

Though Twitter was originally all about (a few) words (140 characters to be exact), things have changed. If you go through any of the major brand accounts on Twitter these days, you’ll notice that all their tweets include a photo or a video.

Employer Branding on Instagram

Make the most out of the platform you use. If it’s a visual platform like Instagram, you simply must have original, captivating photos.
However, don’t forget to complement them with great copy and custom hashtags.

Feature your employee stories and testimonials. Share their personal stories and make it easy for your potential candidates to see what type of people you are looking for.

Make sure you also show off employee perks and benefits. Your company probably can’t offer an employee discount for a vacation on exotic islands, but you probably have something special that you offer to your employees.

Importance of promoting Employer Brand on social media

Today’s candidates are digitally savvy and they spend many hours each day on different social media networks. They also use social media to research potential employers.

Because of that, promoting an Employer Brand on social media has become necessary for companies who want to attract top talent.

It seems that employers are very aware of that. According to research, 76% of companies choose social media to communicate their Employer Brand.

It is no wonder that the majority of companies choose social media for Employer Branding.

Social Media is a simple, fast and affordable way to target the right people and promote your Employer Brand.