Social media has become an increasingly valuable tool for job seekers when they’re looking for their next career opportunity. And social media recruiting strategies have become a key way for companies to find and connect with right-fit talent.
But it takes a lot more than a social media profile for employers to use these platforms to their full advantage. Companies need to have an active presence, relevant content and a willingness to change to bring about success with their social media recruiting strategy.
And it should be said that spreading yourself thin across all social sites just for the sake of being on them won’t bring in the results you’re looking for. Instead, choose the platforms that your candidates prefer so that your strategy is laser focused on the right networks and talent audiences.
So why exactly should social media be such a crucial part of your Recruitment Marketing plan? Here are just a few reasons:
- Many people interact with social sites on a daily basis, and by being on these platforms, you have a greater chance of getting in front of ideal candidates.
- With social networks, you can create more targeted recruitment campaigns based on where job seekers are looking for new opportunities.
- Social sites serve as an amplifier for your Recruitment Marketing content plan and help generate awareness of your employer brand, company culture and available positions.
There’s also data that helps back up the importance of social media in recruitment:
- A Glassdoor study revealed that 79% of candidates use social media when searching for their next opportunity.
- Nearly half (49%) of job seekers follow potential employers on social sites to stay aware of available roles, according to LinkedIn research.
- The 2018 North American Candidate Experience Research Report from Talent Board found that 62% of candidates are using LinkedIn as a job search tool.
These data points — especially that last one! — show just how prevalent social has become for candidates. And they support the notion that employers need to be present, active and engaging on social media to turn these sites into an effective recruitment tool.
The following social media recruitment strategy examples will help you see what these leading employers are doing right and serve as inspiration for enhancing your own social efforts.
Microsoft Life
For an organization as large as Microsoft, a multi-leveled approach to social helps to bring in results. Here’s what they get right when it comes to social media:
Employee stories
At Microsoft, stories about current employees and company culture are never in short supply. Microsoft uses social platforms to shine a bright spotlight on all aspects of the employee experience. Whether it’s featuring a new team member during their first few days or highlighting a seasoned employee working on their latest project, Microsoft amplifies their insight so that candidates can learn what it’s like to work at the company.
Microsoft also takes an innovative approach to telling employee stories. They create Facebook live events and give employees a chance to share their experiences and insights on a variety of workplace topics, including inclusivity, professional development and industry trends, among others.
Engagement
While the live events are great for boosting engagement, Microsoft also has a few other engagement tactics up their sleeves. These add an element of fun to their profiles as well!
The company uses polls to up the engagement factor on social media and get candidates to interact more with the company. They also incorporate non-work related polls to spur more engagement from their followers.
Microsoft will also post interesting and entertaining questions to their followers, with many weighing in. In this scenario, the company created fun previews of comic book covers with superhero names from commenters. This is a fantastic example of how Microsoft uses social to interact with potential candidates and work to create a connection with them.
T-Mobile
T-Mobile has a robust presence on the four main social networks — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. These platforms are used as extensions of the company and their employer brand, but they aren’t always used as extensions of each other. Here’s how T-Mobile creates a comprehensive social media recruiting strategy that covers a wide range of bases:
Tailored to each network
T-Mobile shares content centered around their employees and workplace culture on each social site, but it takes a different approach to each one. The company found that even though job seekers were on all the platforms, they wanted something different out of each one. So T-Mobile developed a strategy that provides the right type of content on the right network.
- Twitter: The company’s most-used social site provides candidates with tips, tricks and work hacks. And it’s not necessarily always self-serving content — T-Mobile provides advice and guidance to job seekers on how to move forward in the jobs they already have.
- Instagram: The photo and video sharing app is perfect for showcasing culture, and T-Mobile uses it to its full advantage! T-Mobile always shares authentic, positive images of real employees who enjoy their work. This gives candidates a glimpse into their potential experience as a team member.
To learn about the ways T-Mobile uses Facebook and LinkedIn and to get expert insight into their social strategy, check out T-Mobile Senior Employer Brand Manager Mark Diller’s RallyFwd presentation on demand! You can also check out Mark’s Rally guest blog on how he and his team showcase the company’s employee diversity to boost talent engagement on social.
Dell
Celebrating culture is one element that technology giant Dell does well on social media, and they use one platform in particular to generate awareness around one important part of their culture:
Harnessing hashtags
In the grand scheme of things, hashtags can often be an overlooked aspect of social media. Dell taps into the power that hashtags provide and does an excellent job of using them on Instagram to highlight their remote work culture:
The use of a branded hashtag (#lifeatdell) helps establish a familiarity with candidates, while non-branded hashtags (#flexibility #flexibleworking etc.) increases Dell’s chances of getting in front of job seekers, especially those who are interested in flexible working options.
Your ideal job seekers are on social media and are already using these sites as a resource for finding their next opportunity. You can expand your reach and establish yourself as an employer of choice by developing a comprehensive social media recruiting strategy that puts your employer brand right in front of candidates where they already are.