A lot of people dive into social media without really knowing what the objective is. When putting together your marketing plan, you will absolutely know what your objective is, but from a social media perspective, it’s really important you know what you want to get from each platform. You may choose to use Facebook; you may not. You may choose to use Instagram, but you may not if you’re looking for clients and or candidates. Are you likely to find them on Instagram? In some cases - yes, but more often than not, it’s a no. The same applies to LinkedIn, there’s a real 70/30 split of yes, and no, so it’s important you know and understand what you want out of each platform.

As recruiters, we’re looking to fill vacancies and nurture future candidates, but we’re also looking to ensure our current CRM are loyal to us. We may use it as reputation management, brand awareness, or simply to drive traffic back to your own website. It’s likely you will use different platforms for different objectives.

THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE

Which channels should you be using? Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking we need to be everywhere, so we put all of our effort in equal measure  into every single platform. What we should be doing is thinking, ‘Where are we going to find our ideal client or candidate?’ and work from there. A recent report from Hootsuite, one of the biggest social media scheduling tools, took UK data and found that people aged 16 and over are using the following platforms as so:

YouTube – 79.9%

Facebook – 73%

WhatsApp – 70.3%

Messenger – 59.5%

Instagram – 52.5%

Twitter – 44.3%

LinkedIn – 28.6%

TikTok – 22.3%

Now, using LinkedIn as recruiters is a no brainer, but actually, looking at that data, if you were in a room of 100 people – 73 of those are going to be on Facebook, so it’s important you understand where your candidates are hanging out on social media. If you’re not using Facebook currently, as an individual, start looking at what other brands are doing on the platform, what groups are being used that you may want to be a part of. If you’re looking for graduate roles, TikTok is a really interesting place to be monitoring and doing some research on. This type of content is going to be here to stay, so it’s important to keep an eye on what’s happening there.

YOUR CONTENT IS YOUR CURRENCY

We can talk all day about the opportunities we have available or what we can offer to our clients, but if we did that all the time everyone would get a bit bored, no one wants to be sold at so we need to be able to showcase what we can do to evidence our expertise. You may want to use eBooks/whitepapers, or blogs are a great way of making your website valuable and not just an online brochure. Webinars are so simple – everyone is familiar with Zoom now, and whether you’re using it for a marketing tool or having people use it to register to attend, webinars have massive value. You can use videos, give training tips or give your time. There is more to using social media than ‘Do you want this job?’.

GAIN ATTENTION IN THE FEED

What do the algorithms want? Platforms are looking for that meaningful interaction; they want people to be scrolling through and stopping on others’ posts. Dwell time matters, which is how much time you spend on someone’s post. If Joe Bloggs has posted something and you have spent time on it, Facebook, for example, notices that happening, so next time Joe posts, they’ll show you more of his content. Having a voice is also really important; the platforms don’t want us to regurgitate the same old content, they want fresh stuff, and they want us to be present and consistent.

DON’T JUST BROADCAST

Like we said before, people don’t just want to see ‘Buy our brand’ type of posts. We have an 80/20 rule that works really well: 80% of what you post should engage, entertain and educate your audience; the other 20% is the stuff that makes you money – the vacancies, the tips on how to recruit, the news – this is all the news about your business. If we keep the 80% entertaining and interactive, it will draw people in and drive how many people see ‘the boring stuff’ that will make you money. This is the biggest lesson to learn about implementing social media.

WHY ISN’T MY ACTIVITY BRINGING ME OPPORTUNITIES?

You might be sticking to the 80/20 rule and thinking, why isn’t this working? Then it’s time to think about whether you are targeting the right people; what are the people you want to target interested in – you need to look at your content and think, “will the people I want to attract be interested in this?”. Are you being human enough, or are you just robots – don’t forget, people buy from people. Are we present? Have we responded, and what perception are we putting out to people about our brand? Are you consistent? Are you contributing – are we investing time in those we want to attract, engaging with them? Have you considered the algorithm? Have we followed up on people that have followed/commented on our posts?

Follow these tips and make social media work for you, or watch the full webinar below: