What I often hear from practitioners in the Rally community is they assume they need to post more frequently or experiment with formats. But the data tells a different story. The platforms you’re using are making decisions about your content, and most recruiting teams don’t realize how those decisions are being made.

Social media is not a distribution channel where you can expect your content to reach your audience simply because you published it. It’s a platform, and that distinction matters. A channel pushes content out. A platform decides what gets seen using algorithms designed to keep people scrolling longer so that attention can be monetized through advertising.

At the same time, people aren’t on social media to look for a job. This is something that Rally Award-winning practitioners know: Candidates are on social scrolling to stay informed, entertained or connected. When your post looks like a job ad, it doesn’t align with what people are looking for, and low engagement signals to the algorithm not to promote it.

At Rally, we’ve been analyzing social recruiting content through our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing Platform since 2021, through tens of thousands of employer posts, and the patterns are very consistent. The data I’m sharing here is based on LinkedIn, but we see similar trends across Facebook and Instagram.

Read on to learn the hidden rules of social recruiting and how to create content that actually reaches and engages talent.

The Six Hidden Rules of Social Recruiting

Rule #1: If it looks like a job ad, it won’t be distributed

One of the clearest patterns in the Rally Inside data on LinkedIn is how the platform responds to job-related language. Words like apply, job, and hiring are consistently associated with significantly lower performance. In many cases, LinkedIn posts that include this type of language receive 40 to 70 percent fewer impressions compared to other content from the same company page.

That means fewer people are even seeing the content because LinkedIn isn’t showing it to them. These words act as signals that the post is a job promotion, and organic job promotion is not what most LinkedIn members want to see in their feed, therefore LinkedIn doesn’t amplify it.

• “Apply,” “job,” and “hiring” = 40–70% fewer impressions
• Job-focused posts are deprioritized in the LinkedIn feed
• Over time, this can impact overall page performance

According to Rally® Inside data, “apply,” “job” and “hiring” hurt performance on LinkedIn, while “career” and “grow” drive it. Language matters.

Rule #2: Invitation beats instruction

Calls to action are another strong signal the LinkedIn algorithm responds to. Phrases like “apply now,” “apply today,” and “apply here” tend to underperform on LinkedIn, while alternatives like “join our team,” “be part of” or “learn more” perform significantly better.

The intent is the same, but the framing is different. One is transactional and immediate, while the other creates curiosity and invites someone to engage. That difference influences candidate behavior and thus how LinkedIn distributes the content and how people interact with it once they see it.

• Underperforming CTAs:
  • Apply now / Apply today / Apply here
• Higher-performing CTAs:
  • Join our team / Be part of / Learn more
• Small language changes → measurable differences in reach and clicks on LinkedIn

Phrases like “Apply now” and “now hiring” hurt performance on LinkedIn, while “join our team” and “learn more” drive significantly stronger reach and clicks. Source: Rally® Inside.

Rule #3: People outperform positions

Another consistent pattern in our LinkedIn data is that content about people outperforms content about positions. Words like team, employee and colleague are associated with higher impressions and clicks, and posts about jobs with a team tend to perform better than posts about individual roles. This type of content feels more inclusive and gives candidates a sense of belonging, which is why it performs better in the feed.

Again, people are not interested in seeing job descriptions in their LinkedIn feed. They’re responding to people, stories and experiences. When content helps someone see themselves in the environment or understand what it’s like to be part of a team, it creates a stronger connection.

• “Team,” “employee,” “colleague” drive higher performance
• Team hiring posts outperform individual job posts on LinkedIn
• People-first content increases engagement and relevance

Rally® Inside data shows that people-first language performs. LinkedIn posts that highlight teams, colleagues and employees see higher engagement than content focused on jobs or roles.

Rule #4: The algorithm follows relationships

One of the simplest ways to increase reach on LinkedIn is also one of the most overlooked. Posts that tag employees, partners or other companies consistently perform better than posts that don’t.

In our LinkedIn data, tagging is associated with significantly higher impressions, clicks and engagement, often more than doubling reach. This is because LinkedIn is built around professional networks. When you tag someone, you extend your content into their network’s feed, increasing the likelihood that it will be seen and engaged with.

• Tagging = 2x+ impressions on LinkedIn
• Higher clicks and engagement when networks are activated
• Posts without tags often perform below average

Tagging expands your reach. LinkedIn posts that tag employees or companies drive significantly higher impressions, clicks and engagement compared to posts without tags. Source: Rally® Inside.

Rule #5: Progress and recognition outperform promotion

Content tied to professional progress and recognition consistently performs well on LinkedIn, according to Rally Inside data. Posts that highlight achievements, milestones, promotions or collaboration tend to generate higher impressions and clicks.

This aligns with how LinkedIn is used. It’s a platform built around professional growth. However, not all positive language performs equally. General statements like “we’re excited” or “we’re grateful” don’t stand out in the same way as content tied to a specific outcome or achievement.

• High-performing themes:
  • Milestones, achievements, promotions, collaboration
• Specific recognition outperforms general positivity
• Content tied to progress aligns with how LinkedIn content is consumed

What if your leaders don’t want you to celebrate your employees on LinkedIn? Get my advice.

Celebration content performs. LinkedIn posts that highlight milestones, achievements and recognition consistently drive higher engagement than generic or promotional content. Source: Rally® Inside.

Rule #6: Values work — but only when they feel real

Values-based content is one of the safest ways to improve performance of your employer brand content on LinkedIn, but only when it’s grounded in something concrete. Words like culture, purpose, community and impact are associated with stronger performance, but vague or generic statements don’t have the same effect.

The most effective LinkedIn content shows how those values are experienced. When values are demonstrated through real examples and stories from your employees, they resonate. When they are simply stated, they tend to blend in with everything else in the feed.

• Strong-performing language: culture, purpose, community and impact
• Human, specific language performs better than institutional shorthand
• Specific, real examples drive stronger engagement

According to Rally® Inside data, values-based content performs on LinkedIn, but the language matters. Words like “vision,” “purpose,” “community,” and “culture” are associated with stronger impressions, clicks and engagement.

What this means for your social recruiting strategy 

When you step back and look at these patterns together, a clear picture starts to emerge for Recruitment Marketing teams. Most social recruiting strategies are still based on the idea that social media is a place to promote jobs. But the platforms are not designed to distribute job posts. They are designed to distribute content that keeps people engaged.

If you want your LinkedIn content to perform, the shift is practical and actionable:

• Lead with people, not job descriptions. Show the team, not just the role.
• Replace “apply now” with language that creates curiosity and invites someone in.
• Use team-based framing instead of focusing on a single open position.
• Tag employees and partners to expand reach through their networks.
• Anchor content in real moments like promotions, milestones and achievements.
• Show your values through real-life examples, not general statements.

The key takeaway: Social recruiting has changed. The platforms you’re using are not neutral. They are actively deciding what gets seen based on how your content performs in the feed, all in support of their business model to keep people on the platform longer. Once you understand what the algorithms reward and what they penalizes, you can create content that gets seen by the right talent and drives better Recruitment Marketing results. 

If you want to go deeper on how to apply these strategies and build a more effective Recruitment Marketing approach, this is exactly what we cover in the Certified Professional in Recruitment Marketing (CP-RM) program. If this is something you want to get better at, I invite you to learn more about the program and upcoming cohorts.

The post 6 Hidden Rules of Social Recruiting and What the Algorithms Reward first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

That was the scenario we discussed recently in the Certified Professional in Recruitment Marketing (CP-RM) program.

Each week we break into small groups to talk through real situations we face when building a Recruitment Marketing strategy. This time something interesting happened — two breakout groups chose the exact same scenario.

As Recruitment Marketing, Employer Branding and Talent Acquisition professionals, you’ve probably heard this before. And you know that concern often reveals a deeper cultural issue going on in the organization. Which is why we need to help our internal stakeholders see this from a different perspective:

What does it signal to employees and candidates when a company never talks about its people publicly?

In this post, I’ll share what our CP-RM group discussed, what the data says about celebration content on LinkedIn based on Rally Inside’s analysis of tens of thousands of company LinkedIn posts across more than 2,500 organizations, practical ways you can make the case internally for spotlighting your people and why this is a winning Recruitment Marketing strategy for every company.

What it signals when companies don’t celebrate employees publicly

LinkedIn is fundamentally a platform about professional progress. People go there to see:

• promotions
• career milestones
• team accomplishments
• company growth

When a company never posts about the people inside the organization, candidates start filling in the blanks themselves. They may wonder:

• Do people grow there?
• Are employees recognized?
• Is there pride in the team?
• Or is the culture so cautious that no one is ever spotlighted?

Celebrating employees doesn’t just recognize an individual. Employee recognition posts send a signal to your employees and potential candidates about what your organization values.

It signals that people matter. And that’s where the conversation with our CP-RM community became really interesting.

How Recruitment Marketing teams make the case for celebrating employees on LinkedIn

After our breakout discussion, I shared the scenario on LinkedIn and asked the community how they handle it.

The response from Martha Feucht summed it up perfectly:

The return is higher than the risk.

A promotion post doesn’t just celebrate one person. It does several things at once:

• Builds awareness for your company and team
• Demonstrates that internal growth is real
• Gives you a story that attracts future candidates

And if leaders are worried about exposure, there are easy guardrails:

• Keep the story high level
• Avoid sensitive details
• Pilot a post and measure engagement, traffic and applicant lift

Once leaders see the results, the conversation often changes.

Here’s another perspective from Collette O’Neill:

If an organization is worried that celebrating someone’s promotion will make them a target for competitors, the bigger question is how confident they are in their ability to retain that employee in the first place.

Great people are already visible. Recruiters will find them whether you post about them or not. The difference is whether you are telling the story first. And today, companies don’t control that conversation the way they used to.

The reality: employees already have a voice on social media

There’s another reason this fear is outdated: You can’t actually stop employees from talking about their work anymore.

Companies used to try to control it. In the early days of social media, many organizations had policies saying employees couldn’t post about the company without permission. I remember when a company I worked for introduced one of those policies, and even then it felt ridiculous. We wanted to be seen as leaders in our industry, yet the very people with the most expertise — our employees — were being dissuaded from sharing their perspectives publicly. 

Today employees share their work, their teams and their career journeys across LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms every day.

A member of our CP-RM group pointed to the Staples Baddie on TikTok as an example. A Staples employee started posting videos about working in the print center. Her content took off. She now has over 500K followers, and the company has seen measurable increases in store traffic for products featured in her videos. This New York Times article provides a great summary and other examples of employees as influencers.

@blivxxWe do mugs and travel cups TAP INNNN♬ original sound – oblivion

Ask yourself: would your company have shut this down?

That difference — control versus participation — is exactly the shift organizations are navigating right now. But your organization doesn’t need employees to become influencers to shine a spotlight on your culture. One of the simplest ways companies participate in the conversation is by celebrating their people publicly — which, as our LinkedIn data shows, is also one of the most effective types of content you can publish.

Why celebration content performs so well on LinkedIn

Beyond the cultural signal, there’s also something else to consider: the data.

With our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing Platform, we’ve been analyzing LinkedIn content performance across company pages for the past five years. Across more than 2,500 practitioners using Rally Inside, we’ve analyzed tens of thousands of company LinkedIn posts to understand what messaging actually drives engagement with candidates. We call this “The Language of Recruiting.” Our analysis consistently shows that posts with celebration language outperform the average company post on LinkedIn.

Here key highlights from new data as of February 2026:

• Launch posts drive over 330% more impressions than the average company LinkedIn post.
• Announcement posts generate nearly 200% more impressions and about 145% more clicks.
• Congratulations posts see around 150% more impressions and clicks.
• Milestone and Achievement posts drive over 120% higher engagement.

Rally® Inside analysis of tens of thousands of company LinkedIn posts shows that celebration and employee recognition keywords consistently outperform the average post in impressions, clicks and engagement. Data as of February 2026.

The takeaway: employee recognition and celebration content perform extremely well on LinkedIn, especially when the recognition is tied to a clear professional outcome like a promotion, launch or company milestone.

In other words, when you celebrate the people behind the progress and tag them so their network sees the story too.

And while LinkedIn tends to be the strongest platform for this type of content, the same principle applies across social channels: people are drawn to authentic stories about real employees.

Which is why the most effective companies don’t just post these stories from their corporate account — they enable employees and recruiters to share them too.

The effect of companies empowering employees to tell the story

Some of the strongest examples of this strategy come from the Rally community itself.

A frequent winner in the Rally® Awards, Baylor Scott & White Health built an organic social strategy grounded in employee advocacy and associate storytelling.

Instead of relying on paid promotion, they empowered employees to share content in their own voices.

Example of employee storytelling and recognition content from Baylor Scott & White Health, a Rally Awards winner, highlighting employee milestones, achievements and career moments across LinkedIn.

The results included:

• more than 800 employee shares
• a potential reach of 2 million
• an estimated $32,000 in ad value

And the content worked because it reflected the real culture of the organization, highlighting growth, purpose and community.

We’ve seen similar results with Rally Inside customers. One of our user’s employee stories content created with Rally® AI outperformed corporate marketing posts by:

• 82% more shares
• 430% more comments
• 40% faster LinkedIn follower growth

Why? Because people connect with people stories more than brand announcements. Which is why the most effective Recruitment Marketing strategies make it easy for employees and recruiters to participate in the storytelling.

How to turn employee recognition into a Recruitment Marketing strategy

One of the most common objections I hear from leaders is: “If we do it for one person, we have to do it for everyone.”

I say “Yes please!” That’s the point.

If your organization doesn’t have a strong recognition culture, you’re already behind. Celebrating employees shouldn’t be a rare exception. It should be part of how your company communicates.

The good news is that this doesn’t have to be complicated. You can recognize many employees at once without overwhelming your corporate social feeds. For example:

• Monthly anniversary posts: Combine employees celebrating work anniversaries into a single collage image (this takes a minute to create in Canva).
• Carousel recognition posts: Spotlight several promotions or team achievements in one post.
• Team milestone highlights: Celebrate projects, launches or accomplishments that demonstrate progress.

These formats allow organizations to consistently recognize employees while keeping the content manageable.

And if your corporate social team still isn’t comfortable posting this type of content, there is another option: empower your employees and recruiters to do it themselves. This is where employee advocacy becomes incredibly powerful. Instead of relying only on the corporate account, organizations can enable recruiters and employees to raise their professional visibility on LinkedIn, share recognition posts, highlight promotions and team wins and engage directly with candidates.

With Rally Inside, organizations can create suggested posts that employees personalize and share in their own voice. When recruiters and employees participate in celebrating their colleagues, recognition content spreads much farther than a single corporate post ever could. The result is a network effect where candidates see the culture of the company through the people who actually work there.

The real risk isn’t celebrating employees, it’s staying silent

When companies never talk about their people publicly, candidates still draw conclusions — they just may not be the ones you want.

Employee recognition posts signal something powerful to the market: that people grow in your organization, that contributions are recognized and that careers are built there.

Those are exactly the signals great candidates look for.

If conversations like this resonate with you, they’re exactly the kinds of challenges we work through in the Certified Professional in Recruitment Marketing program. The next cohort begins May 6, where we work through real Recruitment Marketing situations together and I share the strategies that actually work in practice. Participants earn the CP-RM designation while building the strategies, skills and confidence to lead Recruitment Marketing in their organizations.

Because sometimes the most valuable insights come from the questions everyone in the room is already asking.

The post When Leaders Don’t Want You to Celebrate Employees on LinkedIn (And What You Can Do) first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

Across the Rally community, we’re seeing the power of employee content to boost reach, build credibility and drive candidate engagement. Employee-focused content was the center of many winning entries in the 2025 Rally Awards from companies like ADT, UBS, Baylor Scott & White Health, Ascension and Credicorp.

But, we’re also seeing a shift. What worked a few years ago — templated LinkedIn posts and scheduled reshares — isn’t working as well today.

Because when everyone shares the same content, candidates can tell it wasn’t written by the person posting it — and that disconnect makes it feel less genuine and easy to ignore. The social platforms also tend to favor original content by giving those posts more impressions — making the “sharing” strategy less effective at reaching potential candidates in the first place.

If engagement with your employee advocacy content is low or enthusiasm is dropping off, it might not be your advocates — it might be the approach. Turning employees into a distribution channel can only go so far. Candidates, employees and the platforms themselves can see through it.

What if the goal of employee advocacy wasn’t just to amplify company posts… but to amplify employee voices?

In this blog post, I’ll show you the latest data proving the value of employee advocacy, how expectations are shifting and how to evolve your strategy to drive real engagement and recruiting results.

Let’s dive in!

Employee Advocacy Still Works, Just Not the Way It Used To

There’s no question that employee advocacy plays an important role in attracting talent. When employees share your content on social media, it expands your reach and adds credibility to your employer brand.

In fact, data from our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing Platform shows that when employee ambassadors post content to LinkedIn, it generates 2x more clicks on average than posts from the company page. That’s why so many organizations have invested in tools, templates and training to encourage social sharing across their teams.

But while the value of employee advocacy remains strong, we’re seeing a shift in how well shared content is performing.

In 2024, LinkedIn posts shared through employee advocacy programs generated an average of 166 clicks, according to Rally Inside data. So far in 2025, that number is down 32%, to just 112. Still significantly better than the 43-click average for company posts — but the decline is noteworthy.

In 2025, employee-shared content still outperforms corporate posts on LinkedIn, averaging 112 clicks compared to just 49 — but the 32% year-over-year decline in EA post clicks highlights the need for more original, engaging content.

So, why is it getting harder to engage people on social?

Because much of the content looks and sounds like it was written by the company, not created by the employee.

The platforms see it too. LinkedIn sunset its Employee Advocacy features — including the “My Company” tab — in late 2024. The direction is clear: social platforms are prioritizing original content and real voices over mass resharing.

This is the era of influence. Leaders, recruiters and professionals across your company are building their personal brands — whether they mean to or not. Every post, comment and share shapes how others see them and the organization they represent. And especially in recruiting and Recruitment Marketing, where we’re the face of the company to candidates, we have a responsibility to not only share the company’s voice, but to bring our own voice to the conversation too.

It’s time to evolve how we think about employee advocacy — not as a distribution channel, but as a network of individual creators, each with their own story and impact.

What Employees and Candidates Expect from Employee Advocacy

Let’s be honest — we’ve all scrolled past a copy-paste LinkedIn post about company culture that just doesn’t land. We’re all too social savvy to fall for that. What engages us on social is not polished corporate announcements. We want to be informed and entertained.

Have you noticed just how much LinkedIn content is getting personal, with people sharing deeply personal stories about their health and their kids? This content is working right now. LinkedIn content with the word “child” gets 2x the engagement rate of average corporate posts, according to Rally Inside. Think about that for a moment. We’ve all known for many years that employee stories resonate. Now it’s the stories of our employees’ children!

The growing amount of personal content on LinkedIn reflects the general trend that people are more comfortable creating their own content and more interested than ever in building their personal brand, growing their networks and being recognized for their ideas and contributions.

This shift isn’t a risk to your employer brand — it’s a multiplier.

Personal branding is now one of the most powerful tools in talent attraction. A recent article in The Times spotlighted the rise of corporate influencers, noting that professionals who build a strong personal voice — especially on LinkedIn — consistently outperform company pages in reach and engagement. When individuals build trust and visibility, the employer brand gains momentum right alongside them.

We see this trend in the Rally community — and in my own metrics. Over the past 90 days, my personal LinkedIn posts have generated 5x more impressions than the Rally Recruitment Marketing company page, even though we post about many of the same topics.

That’s not a knock on Rally’s page or company pages in general. It’s a reminder that people follow people. And when someone shares content that feels honest, useful or celebratory, their network responds.

This dynamic shows up in our broader data too. Rally Inside found that company LinkedIn posts using words like “announce,” “award,” “congratulations” and “collaboration” consistently outperform posts about “sustainability”, “wellness” and “purpose”. 

Company LinkedIn posts that highlight announcements, awards, congratulations and collaboration continue to outperform posts about abstract themes like purpose and wellness — signaling that personal content drives higher impressions than corporate themes.

This growing preference for personal, authentic content is a signal: employees want to build their own voice and reputation — and they’re looking for tools that make it easier. That’s why the next evolution of employee advocacy is about supporting content creation that benefits both the employee and the company.

How to Strengthen Employee Advocacy by Empowering Real Voices

Employee advocacy still starts with sharing — and for good reason. When employees post company content, it expands your reach and adds credibility in a way that branded content alone can’t.

But if your program is only focused on getting more shares, you’re missing a bigger opportunity.

The next phase of employee advocacy is about enabling employees to grow their reach, build their personal brand and share their own stories. That shift turns employee advocacy from a distribution strategy into a relationship-building strategy that still reflects well on your company and attracts talent.

Here’s how to get there:

1. Start by Auditing Your Advocacy Library

Most EA libraries are filled with job posts, blog links and branded graphics which are good for amplification, but not so much for originality. A modern content library should also include:

• Prompts that encourage storytelling
• Examples of great employee-created posts
• Tips for writing with authenticity and adapting to different platforms

2. Support Original Content, Not Just Sharing

Employees want to be recognized for their ideas and contributions. The right prompts can help them create content that’s both personal and on-brand. For example:

• “What’s something your team accomplished recently that made you proud?”
• “What’s one way our company has supported your career growth?”
• “What advice would you give someone applying for your role?”

These kinds of posts do more than engage — they build trust and credibility on both sides of the talent relationship. Bonus points if the employee includes a photo of them at work!

3. Measure What Matters — to You and to Them

Don’t just count shares or earned media value. Track the impact on recruiting.

For example, with Rally Inside, you can measure what matters in Recruitment Marketing:

• Who’s creating original content and sharing corporate content
• Which themes drive the most engagement
• What content brings candidates to your careers site and influences them to apply for jobs

But the most important metric? Whether employees feel their effort is worth it. Give them insight into how their posts are performing and contributing to talent attraction. When employees see the value both for themselves and how it’s helping the company, that’s what keeps them motivated to keep posting — more than any leaderboard ever could.

Putting Your Employee Advocacy Strategy into Action

The next era of employee advocacy isn’t about abandoning reshares — it’s about not stopping there. Sharing is still important and valuable. It extends your reach and increases employee engagement. But creating content? That’s what builds real connection between people.

When you empower employees to show up with their own voice — not just repeat the company line — you unlock something more powerful: credibility, visibility and influence. Seeing your employees being their authentic selves on social — that’s what will attract talent to want to work with them, and you!

The post The Next Employee Advocacy Strategy: From Shares to Real Voices first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

One of the topics in our recently published “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report” is the performance of using diversity language in social recruiting content. Our latest data shows that changing attitudes and policies about DEI are impacting engagement with diversity-focused social recruiting content on social media. However, since the report’s dataset went through May 2024, and therefore didn’t include data from Pride Month, we decided to take an up-to-date look at the analytics to see what we could learn about diversity language in social recruiting for the first half of 2024.

In this blog post, I’ll share the latest data showing that the effectiveness of diversity posts varies widely on LinkedIn, and I’ll explain how understanding these nuances can significantly impact the success of your Recruitment Marketing strategy. In addition, I’ll explore the current trends about DEI that are impacting how people (and therefore, candidates) are responding (or not) to diversity content in their social media feeds. Of course, I’ll share valuable charts and graphs, diving into data on the performance of DEI keywords in terms of impressions, engagement and clicks. And finally, I’ll provide actionable recommendations to help you boost the success of your social recruiting efforts while staying true to your company’s DEI position.

By understanding these insights, you’ll be ready to better align your social media strategy with your company’s DEI goals, ensuring that your messaging is both authentic and effective, and that you’re attracting talent who align with your company’s culture and values.

Let’s dive in!

The Impact of DEI Changes on Recruitment Marketing

Keeping it real, social media can be a scary place, with all the trolling, negative comments and outright hate. It’s getting tougher to be authentic on social media without opening ourselves up to backlash. This is not only true for individuals, it’s also true for companies. Disney, Target, Bud Light, Oreo, Nike, Lego, Starbucks, Cracker Barrel and Peloton are all brands that have faced significant backlash in recent years for expressing their support for DEI on social media or in advertising campaigns.

It’s understandable why many practitioners in our community have told me that their C-suites have pulled back from celebrating holidays and cultural events publicly on their social channels, because they’re afraid of offending customers, partners, shareholders and even employees. You’ve seen the news too: the C-suite today is under a lot of pressure to reverse their DEI policies. Last year, according to reporting in the Washington Post, Eli Lilly’s annual shareholders letter referenced the DEI acronym 48 times. This year, “DEI” is nowhere to be found. In March, Starbucks got shareholder approval to replace “representation” goals with “talent” performance for executive bonus incentives. At Molson Coors, the acronym DEI has disappeared altogether.

Another Washington Post article from February reported that companies such as Meta, Tesla, DoorDash, Lyft, Home Depot and Wayfair were among major corporations slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more.

In his widely read announcement on LinkedIn last year, Johnny C. Taylor Jr., head of SHRM, talked about how SHRM has shifted their focus from diversity to inclusion, and how he’s switched to using the acronym IED, putting the focus on inclusion. I’m curious — has your organization adopted the term IED instead of DEI?

According to our data, the term “IED” isn’t yet replacing “DEI” in Recruitment Marketing, but it’s something we’ll continue to monitor. For now, Rally Inside users — which represent employers of all industries and companies of all sizes — are still using the term “DEI” when talking about diversity on social media in their company’s organic channel. So let’s look at how the term “DEI” and other diversity-related keywords are performing to attract and engage talent, specifically on LinkedIn.

Social Recruiting Data on Diversity Keywords

Most Used Diversity Keywords on LinkedIn

Since we launched Rally Inside in 2021, we’ve been tracking the The Language of Recruiting, and we’ve learned that words matter a lot if you want to break through the digital noise and influence a candidate to join your company. When it comes to social recruiting, your word choice can significantly impact the performance of your post, both in terms of the social platform’s algorithms and in terms of candidate engagement.

From January 1, 2024, to July 19, 2024, the most used diversity keywords by Rally Inside users on LinkedIn were:

• diversity
• inclusion
• women

These top-tier keywords reflect a broad focus on general diversity and gender inclusion. The second tier of keywords that frequently appear in employers’ LinkedIn content were:

• history
• Black
• equity
• pride
• equality

The term “DEI” falls in the third tier in terms of frequency, but when it is used, it gets more impressions and clicks than average content. More on this below.

Diversity Keywords – Impressions

Rally Inside data reveals a downward trend in LinkedIn impressions for posts containing diversity keywords. In 2022, words like “diversity” and “equality” were associated with posts receiving 130-183% more impressions than the average post. By 2023, these numbers had halved, and through July 19, 2024, posts with these keywords have been getting below-average impressions. The word “diversity” is now included in posts with 12% below-average impressions — a decline of 117% since 2023.

Interestingly, while “DEI” is not used as often as other diversity words, it continues to perform well in terms of impressions, getting 95% more than average organic corporate LinkedIn content. In addition, “inclusion” and “equity” still perform above average too. This suggests that while general diversity content may be losing their impact, posts with engaging recruiting content that also mentions diversity will resonate with social audiences.

Impressions of diversity-related keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Diversity Keywords – Engagement

When it comes to engagement, the performance of diversity-related posts has been disappointing. In 2024, words like “diversity,” “DEI,” “inclusion,” “equity” and “equality” have all performed significantly below average. This decline in engagement suggests that these posts are not only being seen by fewer people, they’re also not prompting the audience to interact. Notice that the word “DEI” has experienced a 153% decline in engagement since 2023. The word “equality” has dropped by over 500% in engagement!

This trend highlights the importance of not just using diversity keywords but, importantly, creating content that genuinely engages your audience. Posts that feel performative or insincere are likely to fall flat, while those that showcase people stories and commitments to DEI can inspire more meaningful interactions.

Engagement rate of diversity-related keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Diversity Keywords – Clicks

Despite the overall decline in engagement, posts with diversity keywords generally receive above-average clicks on LinkedIn. This is particularly true for terms like “inclusion” and “DEI,” which see significantly higher click rates. The word “DEI” received 174% more clicks than the average organic company post from January 1 – July 19, 2024. The discrepancy compared to the engagement rate suggests that while these posts may not generate a lot of likes or comments, if used correctly they can encourage people to learn more about an employer by clicking through to additional content.

Our data shows that this positive click through rate is largely due to Rally Inside users knowing how to create people-focused diversity content that drives candidates to continue the candidate journey. Including links to employee stories or DEI initiatives can turn a passive scroll into an active interest.

Click through rate of diversity-related keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Social Recruiting Data on Identification Keywords

Identification Keywords – Impressions

We also track a group of diversity-related keywords which we call identification keywords. Words like “gender,” “women,” “Black” and “African” have also seen a downward trend in impressions on LinkedIn. These keywords are often used in posts celebrating specific heritage months. What the Rally Inside data shows is that the performance of these posts varies.

For example, posts celebrating Black History Month performed significantly well in February, while posts about Women’s History Month in March and Pride Month in June got below-average impressions. This variability suggests that LinkedIn audiences don’t respond to generic heritage month celebrations like “Happy [fill in the blank].” Instead, companies need to showcase how their employees and teams are celebrating or provide proof points about the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Impressions of identification keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Identification Keywords – Engagement

The engagement rate for posts containing identification keywords has followed a similar downward trend, generally performing below average. Even during heritage months, posts with these keywords often fail to drive significant interaction, with a few exceptions like “Black” and “African” during February and “Pride” during June.

This data reiterates the need for more compelling and interactive content. Simply mentioning identification keywords isn’t enough to drive engagement; companies need to create posts that resonate emotionally and intellectually with their audience and that include an entertainment factor, even on LinkedIn.

Engagement rate of identification keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Identification Keywords – Clicks

Clicks on posts with identification keywords show mixed results. While some posts perform well, the overall trend is a decline year-over-year. Again, maintaining interest in this type of content requires more than just seasonal posts. Companies need to create ongoing, engaging content that keeps these conversations alive throughout the year. I can’t emphasize enough that one of the most effective ways to do this is to share people-focused social posts. We provide lots of data proving this in our “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report.”

Click through rate of identification keywords on LinkedIn from January 2022 through July 2024. Source: Rally.

Recommendations for Effective DEI Social Recruiting

Transitioning into actionable steps, it’s clear that understanding and leveraging these insights about diversity and identification language can significantly enhance your social recruiting strategy, or at the very least, help you know which words to avoid in your social content. Here are some recommendations to help you align your social media content with your company’s DEI goals effectively.

1. Align Internal and External Messaging

To effectively use DEI keywords in your social recruiting posts, it’s essential to align your internal and external messaging. Candidates are increasingly looking for authenticity and consistency. Your social media posts should reflect your company’s true commitment to DEI, supported by real actions and policies within your organization.

2. Leverage Employee Stories

One of the most effective ways to engage your audience is by showcasing your employees (I told you that I can’t emphasize this enough). I may sound like a broken record, but the data is the proof: people-centric content performs exceptionally well on social media. Share stories of your employees’ diverse backgrounds, experiences and contributions to create a more relatable and engaging narrative.

3. Use Data-Driven Insights

Utilize data-driven insights to inform your social media strategy. Get a free account to Rally Inside so you can monitor which keywords and types of content perform best and adjust your approach accordingly. This continuous optimization will help you stay ahead of trends and maintain high levels of engagement.

4. Be Consistent and Authentic

Consistency and authenticity are key to successfully incorporating DEI in social recruiting. Regularly post content that reflects your ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion. Avoid performative posts that only appear during heritage months, and instead, integrate DEI into your everyday social media strategy in the images, videos and stories you share. Just using the words alone doesn’t buy you much, and in fact, may actually result in fewer impressions and engagement, signaling to the social algorithms that your channel publishes low-value content.

Embracing DEI Authentically in Social Recruiting

There’s no question, there are changing attitudes and policies around DEI, and we must ensure this is reflected in how we do our jobs in recruiting. As we move through these changes in our culture and politics, it will affect how you can tell your company’s story as an employer and how you attract talent to your company’s culture and values.

What I want to tell all of you is to be courageous, be the champion of diversity, because if not you, then who? But that’s not my advice. My advice is to ensure your strategy is authentic to your organization. The reality is if your company has pulled back on DEI, then that’s authentic. And if your company partners with transgender influencers and doesn’t walk it back under pressure, then that’s authentic.

As you move forward, partnering with your corporate communications team will be essential. Your internal and external messaging to all audiences must be aligned. It’s more crucial than ever that you show the “real you” to both candidates and employees, so they can know the company they’re going to work for, or already work for, and choose the right employer for them.

You may not be in the C-suite or in a position to affect company policy, or even influence how the company’s leaders respond to politics or public opinion. But you are in a position to tell the stories of the people who work at your company. And there are many beautifully interesting, eccentric and diverse stories to be told. Remember the old saying, that a picture tells a thousand words!

For more data, insights and recommendations on social recruiting, be sure to download our latest our “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report.” And to get real-time insights into how your social recruiting content is performing, be sure to join the 2,000+ practitioners with a free Rally Inside account.

The post What Happened to DEI in Recruiting? New data reveals declining social engagement. first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

Social media allows us to reach candidates where they spend nearly 2.5 hours a day, while AI provides the tools to create data-driven content and continually optimize our efforts. It’s clear that staying ahead in the fast-changing social media landscape will push all of us in talent acquisition, Recruitment Marketing and employer branding to embrace these advancements and get more sophisticated with our social recruiting strategies so that we can use these platforms most effectively.

To support our community in harnessing AI-powered social media, we hosted our second annual Social Recruiting Rally from May 6-10, 2024, where over 400 practitioners came together virtually to discover new best practices in using social media to attract talent. During this week, participants were given free access to our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool with Rally® AI feature to create best-practice social media posts and track their results. Our goal was to collectively learn what works and what doesn’t work in social recruiting today, given the latest changes to social algorithms and audience interests. Rally Inside tracked and analyzed all posts, offering new insights into the types of content that drive candidates to visit an employer’s careers site and explore open positions.

So, what did we learn? That effective social media is guided by data, not by creativity alone, and that anyone can apply the data to get results, no matter their experience level!

Let’s dive into the key takeaways to help you improve your social recruiting strategy.

Rally note: For more data, insights and recommendations, download our 2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmarks Report.

The Increasing Importance of Social Recruiting Strategies

Over the past 2 years, we’ve seen a definite trend towards making social media a key part of every company’s Recruitment Marketing strategy. At our RallyFwd Virtual Conference in May 2022, 62% of attendees said they used social media to promote jobs and company culture. Compare that to our most recent RallyFwd in December 2023 — that number reached 87%! It shows a broad recognition of social media’s reach and impact in attracting and engaging talent across every job function and every industry.

40% more practitioners are using social media to promote their company’s open jobs and culture.

The increase in adoption of social media strategies in talent acquisition directly relates to practitioners becoming more experienced in using social media for talent attraction. Compare the practitioners who participated in the 2024 Social Recruiting Rally to those who participated in 2023:

• 34% vs. 55% identified as beginners
• 56% vs. 38% identified as professionals
• 10% vs. 7% identified as experts

Overall, 47% more practitioners identified as professionals or experts compared to one year ago. They also were regular users of social media for talent attraction, with 30% posting daily (or almost daily) and 38% posting weekly. In addition, while practitioners are still leaning heavily on publishing jobs content on social media, there is a noticeable increase in the other types of content they post to attract talent.

From 2023 to 2024, there is a noticeable increase in practitioners posting other types of recruiting content than just jobs.

Social Recruiting Rally participants also told us what social platforms their company uses to attract talent as well as which platforms they personally use for recruiting. While participants were more experienced in social recruiting compared to the 2023 participants, their adoption of social platforms beyond LinkedIn is still relatively low. This tells us that most employers aren’t keeping up with where their talent audiences are.

It’s important to remember that most people on social media are not actively looking for jobs. They’re looking to be informed and entertained and to fill the moments of boredome in their lives. This means that recruiting content must be engaging and provide value to attract passive candidates who might not be actively searching for job opportunities.

The Pew Research Center asked U.S. adults which social media platforms they use the most. The big takeaways:

• YouTube, Facebook and Instagram top the list
• People still use Pinterest (who knew?!)
• LinkedIn falls in the middle of the pack
• TikTok is surging
• X (Twitter) has declined

Compare this Pew Research Center data to the organic social media channels used by the Social Recruiting Rally participants’ companies. While we all use LinkedIn heavily, it’s not where most people of working age spend most of their social media time.

Most employers focus on LinkedIn for organic social recruiting, yet the Pew Research Center reports that the most popular social media platforms are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Valuable Lessons from the 2024 Social Recruiting Rally

Now that we’ve shared more about who participated in the 2024 Social Recruiting Rally and more about their current strategy, let’s dive into the key takeaways that we learned.

Participants were asked to publish one post each day for one week, to either their corporate or personal LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, since those were the platforms they told us they used the most. The posts were all composed by Rally AI on specific topics, such as promoting a job, sharing an employee testimonial and showcasing company culture.

To analyze the results, we used Rally Inside to compare key metrics (impressions, reach, clicks and engagement rate) of social posts published during the Social Recruiting Rally to posts that were written from scratch and published in the weeks before and after the event.

Key Takeaway #1: The Right Content Topics Get More Candidate Engagement

Based on our knowledge of the most effective content for talent attraction on social media, we provided Social Recruiting Rally participants with a content plan for the week. Essentially, we told them what content topics to post about.

Here’s the social recruiting content plan they used:

• Day One: Individual Job
• Day Two: Team Job + Company Culture
• Day Three: Company Culture + Employee Testimonial
• Day Four: All Jobs + Company Benefits + Company Culture
• Day Five: Career Progression + Employee Testimonial

And here’s the results they got:

Social Recruiting Rally participants’ content got clicks 23-35% more often — 23% overall across all social channels, and 35% more often on LinkedIn!

It means that guided by Rally’s best-practices and proprietary data about what works, Rally AI-composed posts were more effective at getting clicks by candidates on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Guided by Rally’s best practices and Rally AI’s composed content, Social Recruiting Rally participants’ posts got clicks 23-35% more often.

We think this is a pretty significant result, considering that Rally Inside data shows that, on average, 49% of organic social recruiting content gets No clicks at all. This is a 9% decrease compared to 45% in the same period in 2023, meaning it’s becoming more difficult to get candidate engagement on social media. There are many factors that can contribute to this, but the most important one is the content of the post itself.

49% of social recruiting content gets no clicks, according to Rally Inside data.

Key Takeaway #2: There’s a Right Way to Get Candidates Interested in Your Careers

Since we launched our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool in 2021, we’ve been tracking the content topics and keywords used by practitioners to attract, engage and recruit talent across dozens of different social media platforms and digital channels. We call this The Language of Recruiting, and our data shows it’s ineffective to use a company’s organic social platform like it’s a job board.

Therefore, language matters a lot in social recruiting (actually, language matters a lot in all recruiting channels!). Use the wrong keywords and you may signal to the social algorithms that you’re publishing low-value content, which will result in fewer impressions and reach. Or you may turn off candidates who simply aren’t interested in that type of content appearing in their feeds.

Knowledge about high-value and low-value keywords is built into our Rally AI feature, which is why we wanted Social Recruiting Rally participants to let Rally AI compose the specific language in their posts. All the posts had links that went back to the participants’ careers site or in some cases a job description.

Here’s the result:

Social Recruiting Rally participants’ content drove 42-1101% more candidates to view their jobs and careers — 42% more clicks on LinkedIn and 1100% more clicks on Facebook, wow!

Social Recruiting Rally participants drove more candidates to view their jobs and careers — 42% more clicks on LinkedIn and 1100% more clicks on Facebook.

It means that the topics of the content combined with the language used by Rally AI were more effective at getting candidates to click, driving more traffic to participant’s job descriptions and careers pages from organic social media.

Remember that every “free” click from social media is one you didn’t have to pay for in traditional job advertising.

Key Takeaway #3: Social Media Audiences are Interested in Content about People

As I described earlier, it’s getting harder to get clicks from your social media posts. Knowing what content to publish and what language to use are crucial to your effectiveness and success. So, what type of content do social media audiences want to see? Content about people!

With more corporate content on LinkedIn than other social platforms, you might think that people content isn’t as effective. You’d be wrong! Social Recruiting Rally participants’ content that featured people and culture received 44-150% more clicks per link on LinkedIn!

Social Recruiting Rally participants’ content that featured people and culture received 44-150% more clicks per link on LinkedIn.

It means that the LinkedIn algorithm and audience responded more to the people-centric topics and language of the posts that the Social Recruiting Rally participants published.

Even though all of the links in their posts went to their careers site or job descriptions, the posts didn’t directly promote a job like you often see on LinkedIn. Instead, the posts featured the people who work at their company and then mentioned that this team is growing with a call to action to learn more, not “apply now”.

Essentially, we taught the Social Recruiting Rally participants how to create recruiting content that is significantly better than the typical “we’re hiring” type posts you often see on social media and with language that’s optimized for the social media algorithms.

Key Takeaway #4: It’s Essential to Tailor Your Content to Each Social Platform

The Social Recruiting Rally confirmed what our Rally Inside data has been tracking since 2021, which is that the kind of content social media audiences engage with can be significantly different.

One-size-fits-all content strategies are becoming less effective. Our data shows that tailoring content to the nuances of each social media platform is essential. For instance, posts that perform well on LinkedIn might not have the same impact on Facebook or Instagram. Customizing your content to align with the preferences and behaviors of each platform’s audience can enhance engagement and reach.

For example, posts with the word “mission” perform differently across platforms. On LinkedIn, this keyword can boost impressions by 9%, and on Instagram by 129%, but it results in 16% fewer impressions on Facebook. Therefore, sharing the exact same content across all your social platforms just doesn’t work.

The word “mission” performs differently across platforms. On LinkedIn, this keyword can boost impressions by 9%, and on Instagram by 129%, but it results in 16% fewer impressions on Facebook.

I have long advocated for and taught people how to repurpose their content for Recruitment Marketing. People tell me it’s one of their favorite exercises in my Rally Academy workshops and courses. But repurposing content doesn’t mean copy, paste and post. The data shows you must customize the content to the platform. This may mean rewording your post, or potentially not posting the content to every channel you have.

Successful Strategies for Effective Social Recruiting

To build a successful social recruiting strategy, you can borrow the top lessons from our Social Recruiting Rally. Here’s a quick summary of the key takeaways:

1. Leverage AI for Content Optimization:

• Use AI tools like Rally Inside to generate and optimize your social recruiting content. All AI tools will help you compose posts faster, but unlike ChatGPT, Rally Inside knows how to write content specifically for talent acquisition.
• Example: During the Social Recruiting Rally, Rally AI-generated posts received up to 35% more clicks, proving the effectiveness of AI in creating engaging content.

2. Focus on Storytelling:

• Shift from direct job advertisements to storytelling.
• Highlight your company culture, employee experiences and the human side of your employer brand.
• Example: Posts featuring employee testimonials and company culture saw 44-150% more clicks compared to direct job ads.

3. Customize Content for Each Platform:

• Tailor your social media posts to fit the specific platform.
• Understand what type of content works best on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms.
• Example: Using the word “mission” increased impressions by 129% on Instagram but decreased them by 16% on Facebook.

4. Analyze and Iterate:

• Continuously analyze the performance of your social media posts.
• Use data from tools like Rally Inside to refine your strategy, learn from what works and adjust your approach to improve results.
• Example: Regularly reviewing engagement metrics helped us identify that people-centric content performs better, allowing for data-driven content planning.

The Bottom Line: Focus on Recruiting Content that Engages Candidates

The bottom line: Content and language matter for effective recruiting. We all use the same channels to reach candidates, but what we’ve seen from our Rally Award winners is that the most effective practitioners have the ability to communicate and engage on these platforms in a way that gives candidates the kind of content they want. So, if you’re treating social media as just another channel for broadcasting job openings, you’re doing it wrong. To truly engage and attract top talent, it’s time to shift your perspective. Use social media to build employer brand awareness, foster relationships and nurture conversations. This approach will grow your reputation, create followers and fans and give you permission to share job openings.

The critical takeaway is to move away from simply announcing jobs and instead create content that resonates with and engages potential candidates, according to what the data tells you that your talent audiences cares about most. Embracing AI is also crucial. If you’re not leveraging AI in your daily work, you’re quickly falling behind. Take this opportunity now to learn practical AI skills to make the most of AI in your talent acquisition efforts. Tools like Rally Inside with Rally AI can help you create more effective and tailored content, track and measure your results and continually optimize your strategy.

Thank you to all the practitioners who participated in the Social Recruiting Rally and to everyone using our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool! Your efforts help us see what works and what doesn’t, giving us critical data that we all can use to improve our talent attraction strategies collectively.

Be sure to download our 2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmarks Report to learn how to connect with candidates through the social media channels where they already hang out. And if you’d like to get 42-1101% more candidates to view your jobs and careers, start today by signing up for our Rally Inside Free Plan!

The post Discover How AI and Social Media Strategies are Revolutionizing Recruiting in 2024 first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

Since 2021, we’ve been tracking and analyzing the type of content that candidates engage with most on social media and digital marketing channels, based on data from the 2,000+ practitioners using our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics platform. This insight has become invaluable to our community for creating an effective social recruiting and Recruitment Marketing content plan that can break through the digital noise, capture a candidate’s attention and build their interest in new career opportunities with your company.

In the past 18 months, we’ve dug deeper into the data to understand social recruiting trends and made a remarkable discovery: using certain keywords can make your social recruiting strategy a success or failure. We call this as The Language of Recruiting – a list of high-value and low-value keywords that Rally Inside data shows can significantly impact your ability to reach talent on social platforms.

For example, certain keywords will keep candidates scrolling past your post, signaling to social algorithms that your content is low-value. This causes the platforms to show your post to fewer of your followers and people like them. On the flip side, high-value keywords are associated with posts that get more impressions, making more candidates aware of your employer brand and bringing more candidates back to your careers site to learn about your jobs and employee experience, yay.

We recently summarized our key findings in a new report, “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmarks,” which you can download for free. It’s packed with 65 pages of charts, graphs, insights, analysis and recommendations that will help you build a data-driven and highly effective social media strategy.

In this blog post, I’ll share 11 specific keywords that we highlight in the report that you should avoid including in your posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram when aiming to increase your impressions and reach. Some words are the same across platforms, while others are specific to that platform, affirming that your social media content really needs to be tailored to the platform and its unique audience.

LinkedIn:

• Apply
• Job
• Hiring
• Opportunity
• Join
• Role

Facebook:

• Apply
• Hiring
• Work
• Benefit
• Role
• Recruit
• Grow

Instagram:

• Apply
• Hiring
• Career
• Benefit

Now that I’ve got you curious, let’s dive in!

LinkedIn: Focus on Value and Growth

One of the biggest mistakes I see practitioners making on social media is treating their organic social platform like it’s a job board. The data shows it’s a sure-fire way to get your content flagged as low-value by both candidates and the social algorithms.

The charts below show data from our Rally Inside tool for January through May 2024. They depict common keywords used in recruiting to promote a job or working at our company, and measure whether those keywords are included in company posts that get above-average or below-average impressions or reach.

The first chart is for LinkedIn. Rally Inside data shows that the words Apply, Job, Hiring, Opportunity, Join and Role are associated with below-average impressions, indicating that using these terms isn’t effective when trying to get your posts in front of your existing followers and people like them. This is consistent with what we’ve seen for years, which is that “we’re hiring” type posts are not effective.

Instead, words such as Benefit and Grow are associated with above-average impressions, highlighting the importance of focusing on the values and growth prospects your organization offers. This approach can create a more engaging narrative that resonates with passive talent and active job seekers alike, ultimately boosting your Recruitment Marketing efforts on LinkedIn.

Impressions of LinkedIn recruiting words show significant variation compared to the average, with terms like “Grow” and “Benefit” performing above average, while words such as “Hiring” and “Apply” see lower engagement. Source: Rally Inside.

Facebook: Emphasize Career Growth

The next chart analyzes the reach on Facebook of recruiting posts that include recruiting keywords. It’s evident that certain words significantly impact reach, either positively or negatively. Keywords like Apply, Hiring, Recruit and Work have a notably negative impact, leading to a reach that is significantly below average. The words Hiring and Recruit are used in posts with 50-65% less reach than average.

Conversely, words like Job, Career, Opportunity and Grow are neutral or slightly positive. This pattern suggests that job seekers are more responsive to posts about jobs and careers that emphasize career growth rather than just promoting that an open job is available. By strategically choosing your language, you can significantly impact your ability to reach and engage talent on Facebook.

The reach of Facebook posts with recruiting words shows significant variations, with “Hiring” and “Recruit” experiencing the lowest reach compared to the average post on a company’s Facebook channel. Source: Rally Inside.

Instagram: Boost Employee Engagement

The final chart highlights the impact of recruiting keywords on Instagram post impressions. The results are mixed. Words such as Apply, Hiring, Career and Benefit are linked to below-average impressions, as much as 70% lower than average. But look at the word Work! It’s used in posts that get more than 80% above-average impressions.

Digging into this further, we found that the word Employee is used in Instagram posts with more than double the average impressions. Therefore, we believe the performance of the word Work is related to many Rally Inside users using Instagram as a careers channel more than a corporate social channel, with a lot of content geared at employee engagement.

Based on this analysis, our recommendation is to grow your employee engagement first, which will then help you expand your audience reach from there.

The word “Work” is used in posts on Instagram that get significantly higher impressions compared to other recruiting words. Source: Rally Inside.

The Importance of The Language of Recruiting

Social media posts that directly promote a job, tell the world that you’re hiring and ask people to apply are not effective content for a company’s organic social platforms. Across social platforms, candidates generally don’t engage with posts that use the words Apply or Hiring. No wonder many practitioners get pushback from their marcom team regarding job promotion posts — marcom doesn’t want to use that real estate to promote jobs. They know the algorithms learn if your company is consistently publishing low-value content, making it harder for all content on the channel to reach your followers.

Therefore, knowing The Language of Recruiting is crucial to the effectiveness of your social recruiting strategy. The Rally Inside data underscores the importance of tailoring your social media content and keywords to the platform and focusing on what truly resonates with your audience.

The insights we’ve shared are just the tip of the iceberg. Our new benchmark report, “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmarks,” offers a comprehensive analysis of the latest trends in social recruiting. This 65-page report is packed with charts, graphs, insights and recommendations drawn from over 18,000 social posts, 6.8 million impressions and 3.8 million clicks across 6 social channels.

Be sure to download your copy of the “2024 Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmarks Report” today to equip yourself with the data-driven insights you need to attract and engage top talent effectively. And sign up for a free Rally Inside account to access even more resources and tools designed to help you succeed in Recruitment Marketing and employer branding.

What’s working for you in social recruiting? Connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know!

The post 11 Words to Avoid in Social Recruiting first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

So, what’s the most effective type of social recruiting content to grab a candidate’s attention and lead them to your employer brand? If you guessed content that focuses on your people, you’re on the right track. New data from users of our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool shows that a specific type of people-focused content—content that “celebrates” your employees—is currently getting the most impressions, engagement and clicks.

In this blog post, I’ll share data-backed strategies with insights and charts that show how to create a magnetic employer brand on social media that will attract and engage candidates effectively and authentically (and boost employee engagement too!).

Let’s dive in!

Why Celebrate Employees on Social Media?

Celebrating employees on social media isn’t just about creating a feel-good post; it’s a strategic move that boosts engagement, enhances your brand’s image and attracts top talent. According to our Rally Inside data, our users’ posts that highlight employee achievements, milestones and life events receive significantly higher engagement compared to practically any other content. This is likely because celebration content is more relatable, emotional and fosters a sense of community and belonging among our audience—key ingredients in recruiting and retention.

Our analysis reveals that certain keywords associated with celebrations lead to a surge in engagement and clicks. Words like “congratulations,” “celebrate,” and “thank you” are used in posts that generate an above-average engagement rate on LinkedIn.

Celebratory posts outperform other types of content, drawing more attention and engagement from the LinkedIn audience, according to Rally Inside data.

Rally Pro Tip: Be careful with announcement-type posts. They’re possibly perceived as too corporate or impersonal and lacking the invitation for the kind of interaction that social media thrives on.

Our Rally Inside data shows a similar positive result on Instagram, with the IG audience also responding well to our users’ content with celebratory keywords, but with some nuances compared to LinkedIn.

For instance, the word “congratulations” can boost engagement rates by more than 60% on Instagram. Interestingly, even terms like “awards” and “announcements” perform better on Instagram than on LinkedIn, a sign that the Instagram audience may be more emotionally invested in the brands they follow.

Best Practices for Employee Celebration Posts

So, what lessons can we learn from this data? To maximize the impact of your social recruiting content, we need to do more than showcase our employee stories and voices. We need to celebrate our people!

Here are some types of posts that have proven effective in celebrating employees for the practitioners who use Rally Inside:

• Work Anniversaries: Celebrating the tenure of employees, marking the years they’ve been part of your company and how they’ve contributed to your success.
• Milestones: Recognizing significant personal or professional milestones in your employees’ lives, such as completing major projects, earning certifications, or hitting customer service targets.
• Welcoming New Employees: Giving a warm welcome to your newest team members. These posts are a great way for your new associate to share their career growth with their network and for you to show that your company is growing.
• Celebrating Promotions: Highlighting career growth within your company by congratulating employees when they step into new roles or get promoted.
• Employee Appreciation: Shining a spotlight on the incredible effort and achievements of your team members, showing how much you value their hard work and dedication.
• Career Achievements: Showcasing the professional accomplishments and accolades received by your employees, such as awards, notable project completions, and customer appreciation.
• Community Honors: Highlighting the recognition your employees receive from the communities they serve, such as volunteerism and leadership in community organizations. These external honors reflect positively on them and, by extension, your company too.

Rally Pro Tip: While celebration content is generally effective, be cautious with awards content, as its performance can be inconsistent.

The Importance of Tagging Employees

One of the reasons celebration posts create a magnetic employer brand presence on social media is that they provide an opportunity to tag your employees. This not only alerts the people tagged but also increases the likelihood of their followers engaging with your post, significantly expanding the reach of your content and brand awareness. When you tag someone, you’re essentially giving them a virtual shout-out, which encourages them to interact with the post by liking, commenting or sharing.

Here are a few tips to tag effectively and respectfully:

1. Always Ask for Permission: Before tagging someone, especially in a photo, make sure you have their consent. This shows respect for their privacy and ensures they’re comfortable with the post.
2. Use Relevant Tags: Tag only those who are directly related to the content. Over-tagging can seem spammy and may deter engagement rather than encourage it. It could also trigger the social algorithms in a negative way resulting in your post getting fewer impressions or reach.
3. Engage with Responses: After tagging, keep an eye on the post and engage with any comments or interactions quickly. This keeps the conversation going and can lead to even more impressions and engagement.

Analyzing People Keywords in Social Recruiting

To optimize your social recruiting strategy, be sure to use specific “people” keywords. These terms are closely aligned with updates about your employees which we know is the key to creating a magnetic employer brand on social media platforms.

This chart demonstrates how words like “employee,” “team,” “associate,” “colleague,” and “leader” drive higher clicks on LinkedIn, indicating a strong audience interest in personal and professional updates. Overall, we’ve noticed LinkedIn content becoming more and more personal in recent years, which aligns really well to an employer brand strategy focused on showcasing your people.

On Instagram, the results are more varied:

• Employee: High impressions and reactions.
• Team: Average performance.
• Associate, Colleague, Leader: Below-average impressions but better engagement.

This data suggests that many practitioners start their Instagram careers channel focused on sharing culture content and employee stories, so their audience is mainly employees initially. Once these employers can drive employee engagement, they work on growing their talent audience.

Social Media Content Ideas Using High-Value People Keywords

By focusing on these high-value people keywords, you’ll not only boost the relevance of your posts but also foster a deeper connection with your audience. These keywords help humanize your employer brand, showing that behind your products or services are real people with stories and achievements that resonate.

Here are several types of content, published by Rally Inside users, that effectively leverage these keywords to engage and attract talent:

• Employee Spotlights, Stories, and Testimonials: Share personal stories and testimonials to humanize your brand.
• Team Meetings: Showcase behind-the-scenes looks at how your teams operate.
• Community Events and Volunteerism: Highlight how your employees contribute to their local community or causes they care about.
• Leader News and Thought Leadership: Share insights and news from your organization’s leaders. After all, both employees and candidates want to work for companies that are leaders in their industry.
• Team Jobs: Promote open roles by showing the team that the new hire would join. Talk about the work that the team does and showcase the team culture, then mention that the team is expanding.

This approach does more than just spice up your content; it also makes it more powerful, turning your social media channels into an authentic representation of your company’s culture and the amazing people who make it all happen.

Using Data to Guide Your Social Recruiting Strategy

So, how do you create a magnetic employer brand on social media? By celebrating your employees! The data from the users of our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool underscores the importance of using celebratory language and people keywords to boost engagement and attract top talent. By implementing these data-backed strategies, you can create a more relatable and engaging employer brand that’s true to your organization and that resonates with both current and prospective employees.

Remember, social media is continually evolving, so it’s important to measure changes in your audience’s interests by regularly analyzing your data to spot patterns and know how to adapt. This way, you’ll ensure that your employer branding efforts are not only effective but also resilient in the face of shifting trends and algorithms.

Want to dive deeper into the data and analytics that drives successful employer branding on social media? Learn more about our Rally Inside tool and how you can elevate your Recruitment Marketing results.

The post Celebrate Employees to Create a Magnetic Employer Brand on Social Media first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

This is a common question that I receive often from practitioners in the Rally Recruitment Marketing community. One of the reasons that this is such a big decision is because most recruitment marketers are solo practitioners, and you can’t be everywhere all the time. Another reason is that the corporate marketing team likely already has a social media presence, so you need to work out how to ‘share the real estate’, so to speak, on these social platforms.

Fear not! To help you choose the right social media channels for your recruiting strategy, there are 6 questions that you can ask to help you make this important decision.

1) Are your target candidate personas on the social platform?

Do your candidate personas regularly spend time on the social channel?

The first question to ask is where your target candidates spend their social media time. Most people spend 2-3 hours on social media each day. So it’s important to determine where you have the biggest chance to reach the people you want to hire most.

I recommend defining your candidate persons so that you can understand where they spend time online. This information typically comes from surveys of your employees and conversations with your recruiters and hiring managers.

I also recommend doing some homework on each social platform. Because social media companies monetize their audiences through selling advertising, they provide advertisers with lots of information about their audience demographics and interests. A little googling, and you can find the info you need to determine if your audience is present there.

It all boils down to knowing your audience: who they are and where they ‘hang out’ in the world of social media. 

2) Does your company have a corporate presence already?

The second question to ask is whether your company already has a presence on the social media platform. If the answer is yes, then you should evaluate whether your company has an engaged following, or is the marketing content gathering digital dust? If your company’s profile is active and thriving and lots lots followers, using that platform for your recruitment strategy could provide an immediate jumpstart. However, if your company’s presence on the platform is non-existent or lackluster, you’ll need to invest time and effort to ramp it up.

Does your company already have a social media presence on the channel? If so, that’s a built-in audience who already know your company.

If your company already has a social presence on the channel you want to use, it’s time to become friends with corporate marketing! But get ready, this will likely be challenging.

If there’s a dedicated marketing resource for social media, they might feel a bit protective, or they might have the directive to use those channels for customer acquisition only. You’ll need to make a business case for why your talent audience is also on that platform and why you should be included in the content plan. This may not be easy, so arm yourself with data, not only that your talent audience is there, but also data about what type of content you plan to publish that will attract and engage your talent audience. A tool like Rally Inside can help you show your marketing colleagues what type of Recruitment Marketing content is most effective in recruiting for each social media channel.

If there is friction with the marketing team, I recommend that your senior leader help to bridge the relationship with the marketing leader. You won’t be successful in recruiting talent today unless you can reach your talent audience on social media, and you have every right for your employer brand to be present on those channels too, so stand your ground

3) Are your talent competitors there?

The third question to ask is whether your talent competitors also have a presence on the social media channel. When you visit their page, do you see employer brand or jobs-related content? If so, then your competitors are already recruiting talent on the platform and are one step ahead of you. That’s another point to add to your business case. But also look for job ads running on the social platform. In Facebook, you can find this information by looking in Page Transparency.

Next, take a look at what kind of engagement your competitors’ organic social content is getting. While you may not be able to see the number of impressions or reach, you can see other engagement metrics such as likes, shares and comments. Do an audit to note what type of content topics from your competitors are getting the most engagement, so that you can incorporate these learnings into your own social media content plan. Our Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool can help here too, as the product has built-in benchmark data showing what content topics get the most engagement per job function per social media channel. The benchmark feature is available with a free account, so consider signing up for Rally Inside if you haven’t already.

These are 6 recommended questions to consider when deciding which social media channels to use for your recruitment strategy.

4) Does the content you’ll need to post align with your employer brand and company values?

Does the content you’ll need to publish align with your brand voice and values?

The fourth question is one that I think is often overlooked by Recruitment Marketing and employer branding professionals. Before deciding on a social media channel, it’s important to evaluate whether the content you’ll be posting aligns with your employer brand voice and company values.

What do I mean by this? Well, let’s take TikTok as an example. If you’re not on TikTok today (and most recruiting teams are not on TikTok yet), you’re probably considering it or maybe even starting to get questions internally, like “Why aren’t we on TikTok?”

If your talent audience is on TikTok (they probably are, by the way), and especially if your talent competitors are already thriving there, then it’s time to seriously consider a TikTok channel. But ask yourself, are you ready to create TikTok-style content? More importantly, is your leadership ready to embrace showing the entertainment side of your brand? If not, and you can’t convince them it’s worth the investment, then don’t bother with TikTok. 

It’s critical that the nature and style of your recruiting content matches the vibe of the social media platform, otherwise it will fall flat, get no engagement and never get in front of your talent audience. Compatibility between your brand, the platform’s environment and your audience’s expectations need to align for your social recruiting strategy to be successful.

5) Can you create or source content regularly for that social media channel?

Every social media channel requires a steady stream of engaging content that’s suited for that channel. But remember, it’s not just about quantity, it’s also about quality. The fifth question to ask yourself is do you have the resources to generate or curate top-notch social content regularly for that channel, or for a second, third or fourth channel that you might be considering?

Can you regularly create and source content for the social channel, to keep the drumbeat going?

Social media is a long-term strategy. Building a following and getting candidates to engage with your careers content doesn’t happen overnight. But if you don’t have a content plan or the resources to execute it, you’ll find yourself on the “social media hamster wheel” where you just keep running and running to create content without ever taking the time to evaluate if what you’re publishing is actually working.

Or worse, you’ll publish content so infrequently that you won’t build much of a following, so your manager will start questioning whether that social channel is even worth it. (You’ll start questioning it too, as you should…)

So before you commit to a channel, I recommend to build out a 3 month content plan. For LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, plan to publish 2-4 times per week. Yes, I said per week. The key is to create content that your talent audience wants to engage with, not just what you want to talk about. I teach a digital course called Rally Content Rescue that can show you how to do this. 

6) Does the content coming from other users and brands align with your company values?

Will the content posted by other users and brands align with your company values?

Last but definitely not least, the sixth question to ask is what do you think about the other content being published on the social channel? Take a deep dive into the content coming from other users and brands – does their content align with your company values?

For instance, if you’re committed to sustainability, social responsibility and equality, but the platform is dominated by brands and users who don’t align with these values, it could create a disconnect for your target audience. Or content that’s strongly against your company’s values might show up alongside your content.

This is one of the reasons I know that many people and brands gave up on X (formerly Twitter). Another reason is that our Rally Inside data shows that X just isn’t effective for recruiting content. 40% of the content that our Rally Inside users publish to X get no engagement at all, and the content that does get engagement may get 2-3 clicks per post at best. So you may have a reason to be on X, but don’t expect that it will drive a lot of clicks to your careers site.

———-

Asking these 6 questions will help you and your leadership make a well-informed decision on the best social media channels for your recruiting strategy. Mastering social media recruitment requires more than posting engaging content; it’s about understanding your target audience, considering the platform’s environment, assessing your competition, creating content that truly works on the platform, ensuring you have the resources to keep the social content flowing and having a social presence that aligns with your company values and brand voice. These six questions will act as your compass, guiding you to choose the perfect platforms that’ll become the springboard for your Recruitment Marketing success.

Sure, it might take some time to find your ideal mix of social channels, content and strategy, but the benefits are undeniably worth it – the ability to reach passive talent who you can’t reach through job boards, higher visibility for your employer brand among a wider talent pool and more organic (free) traffic to your careers site and jobs – you can’t afford to not be on social. You’ve got this!

The post How to Decide Your Social Media Channels for Recruiting first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

Since we launched our Rally® Awards program in 2020, the competition in the social media categories has intensified each year, showing the growing investment and creativity in using social media for talent attraction. In 2023, the spotlight was on Blizzard Entertainment, UBS, Westpac, PetSmart, Northrop Grumman and Fiverr, each earning accolades for their distinctive approaches to connecting with potential candidates through social channels and showcasing their employer brands in authentic and compelling ways. As we approach the February 16th submission deadline for the 2024 Rally Awards, we’re shining a spotlight on last year’s winners to highlight the key ingredients of their success. We hope this will provide valuable insights and inspiration for creating your social media campaigns and crafting a winning submission of your own.

Let’s dive in and see how these practitioners have created effective social media strategies for Recruitment Marketing and employer branding!

Reminder: Don’t miss this opportunity to enter the 2024 Rally Awards and be recognized for your work across 17 categories. Learn more on the Rally Awards website.

2023 Rally Award Winner for Best Careers Social Media Channel

Blizzard Entertainment: Bringing Life at Blizzard Entertainment “Back to Life”

Blizzard Entertainment, the powerhouse behind legendary gaming universes like World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo, charged into 2022 with a bold mission: to reignite its talent brand and rekindle trust with its audiences. Following a strategic pause on social channels, the company focused on an internal culture shift and then set out to attract a diverse and innovative workforce to meet their ambitious hiring goals. Through the power of authentic employee narratives, Blizzard began painting a vivid picture of the magic behind its doors, transforming its social media into a beacon for the world’s most passionate and creative minds in gaming and media and re-establishing its reputation as a trusted, leading voice in the community.

At the heart of Blizzard’s strategy was raw authenticity, a commitment to showing the real, unfiltered Blizzard life through the eyes of its people. By amplifying user-generated content and peeling back the curtain on its evolving culture, the company seamlessly wove its iconic gaming legacy into a compelling recruitment saga. Strategic efforts to spotlight diversity and inclusion, alongside crafting relatable and visually stunning content, were game changers. Blizzard’s social channels transformed from silent to sensational, morphing into a dynamic showcase of what it truly means to be part of the Blizzard family. This bold strategy didn’t just shift perceptions—it skyrocketed positive engagement, turbocharged social media metrics and fueled a surge in careers site visits and applications. For example, its careers social channels reached over 1M followers, a 223% increase in engagements and a 205% increase in post shares, ultimately driving tens of thousands of potential candidates to its careers site. The success of Blizzard’s revamped social media strategy for recruiting shows the power of authenticity and strategic storytelling in rebuilding trust and excitement around an employer brand.

Why They Won

Judges’ Comments: The judges were captivated by Blizzard Entertainment’s revitalized approach to their social channels, noting the outstanding integration of brand essence with employee highlights. The channels were not just a platform, but a narrative that spoke volumes about Blizzard’s core values and mission. The judges also recognized the strategic move to real, relatable content that resonated deeply with their audiences, fostering a genuine connection between potential candidates and the company.

• Strategy: By zeroing in on key roles and markets, Blizzard’s strategic content deployment across social media channels clearly articulated their brand values and effectively engaged with the right audiences.
• Quality: The exceptional quality of Blizzard’s content perfectly balanced professionalism with a personal touch, bringing the company’s dynamic culture and its people stories to the forefront.
• Innovation: Blizzard’s imaginative job advertisements and the incorporation of their gaming legacy into employee narratives showcased a forward-thinking approach to talent engagement.

Blizzard Entertainment shows its culture on social media to attract the brightest minds in gaming.

2023 Rally Award Winner for Best Use of Paid Social Media in Recruitment Marketing

UBS: Targeting Tech Firms with Layoffs 

In the fiercely competitive tech talent arena, giants like Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft dominate. So the UBS Recruitment Marketing team knew they needed to be bold in order to capture the attention of this highly sought talent segment. In 2022, as the tech industry faced a wave of layoffs, UBS saw an opportunity to attract top-tier talent—software engineers, data scientists and developers—across global hotspots from India to Switzerland. The strategy was clear and ambitious: leverage the moment to showcase UBS as a prime destination for tech professionals seeking new horizons. By engaging directly with those affected by industry shifts, UBS set out to not only highlight the wealth of its career opportunities but also to position itself as a beacon of stability and innovation in uncertain times. This campaign wasn’t just about filling positions; it was about reshaping perceptions and signaling UBS’s significant investment in technology and digital expertise.

UBS’s approach was data-driven and meticulously executed, utilizing insights from previous campaigns to refine candidate messaging and target the tech community with laser precision. The UBS team, working quickly to seize the moment, created a strategic paid social media campaign that deployed tested content they knew resonated with tech professionals. The results were nothing short of spectacular: reaching over 1.7 million targeted individuals with a modest budget and securing nearly 2,000 applications—a remarkable feat that underscored UBS’s prowess in leveraging paid social media to engage with a highly specialized audience. Not only did the paid social campaign achieve a low cost per application, but it also boasted a significant rate of qualified candidates.

Why They Won

Judges’ Comments: The judges were thoroughly impressed by UBS’s swift and successful campaign in the competitive tech talent market, particularly highlighting the remarkably quick turnaround time that achieved outstanding results. The panel lauded UBS for its strategic use of existing tools and resources to break into a tough sector with finesse and effectiveness.

Winning Reasons:

• Strategy: UBS’s strategy was heralded for its data-driven approach, swiftly executed to seize a prime opportunity, capturing a crucial target audience when they were most receptive.
• Quality: The campaign’s quality shone through in its attention-grabbing headlines paired with compelling still images, demonstrating a keen understanding of impactful visual communication.
• Innovation: UBS was celebrated for innovative campaign tactics that led to high engagement and an impressive return on investment, setting a new benchmark for efficiency in talent acquisition campaigns.

UBS launched a successful social recruiting campaign to attract highly sought after tech talent.

Second Place Winner (tie) in the Best Paid Social Media Category

Westpac — Elizabeth Clerke and Craig Richards — “Engineers make life better”

Why They Won

In a tie for second place, Westpac’s recognition stems from their exceptional engagement with engineers to delve into their passions and drivers, crafting a campaign that resonated well with the audience. The judges were impressed by the thorough research that led to groundbreaking creativity in a saturated market, achieving awareness goals alongside the added bonus of attracting high-quality applications and new hires. Additionally, the campaign’s dynamic use of music and imagery broke new ground in Recruitment Marketing.

Northrop Grumman — “Overheard at Northrop Grumman”

Why They Won

Also in second place, Northrop Grumman’s paid social campaign earned high marks for its exceptional use of video on social media to tackle perception challenges, showcasing out-of-the-box thinking and innovation. The judges were captivated by the standout videos, which offered a distinctive angle on employment branding that was universally engaging to social media audiences.

2023 Rally Award Winner for Best Use of Organic Social Media in Recruitment Marketing

Fiverr: #MyNewTitle Employer Brand Campaign

Fiverr, the platform renowned for championing freelance talent, flipped the script on spotlighting its employee-centric ethos with an organic social media campaign that cleverly blurred the lines between professional and personal.  Through this campaign, Fiverr wanted to build a narrative closer to what jobs and the people in them are really like, unfiltered, straight to the point and joking about things that really happen every day in working life.

For a day in early 2022, Fiverr was mentioned on the LinkedIn feeds of practically everyone in their company. Employees were able to invent their own job titles to include something more personal and fun that put the corporate culture and values at the center of the campaign. Job titles ranged from “Someone who skips meetings to do actual work, who’s also a software development team leader” to “Head of saying what everyone else is thinking, who’s also a Product Manager” and “Someone who doesn’t like office politics, who’s also a data analyst”. 

This wasn’t just a campaign; it was a culture showcase! The result? A whopping 92% spike in careers site traffic, a 43% leap in applications and an acceptance rate that soared by 78%. But beyond the numbers, Fiverr sparked a wave of employee engagement and brand buzz, proving that a great Recruitment Marketing campaign can build employee engagement too. 

Why They Won

Judges’ Comments: Fiverr’s LinkedIn campaign struck a chord with the judges, earning accolades for its ingenuity and efficacy. The campaign stood out as a testament to creative thinking within the often-rigid confines of professional networking platforms. The judges were particularly impressed with the campaign’s focus on key performance indicators that drive business success: application numbers, acceptance rates and employee engagement.

Winning Reasons:

• Creativity: Fiverr’s campaign was celebrated for its out-of-the-box approach, defying conventional LinkedIn norms with a splash of creativity that turned heads and captured the essence of their vibrant culture.
• Focus on Metrics: The campaign was strategic in concentrating on metrics that truly matter, going beyond mere views to drive substantial applications, high acceptance rates and boost employee engagement effectively.
• Brand Showcase: The unique simplicity of Fiverr’s approach was highlighted as a powerful tool for showcasing the employer brand, proving to be exceptionally effective in garnering attention and underlining the company’s culture.

Fiverr’s creative LinkedIn campaign encouraged employees to invent their own playful job titles.

Second Place Winner (tie) in the Best Organic Social Media Category

PetSmart — Meghan Rozman & Tabatha Phillips — “Loving #LifeAtPetSmart”

Why They Won

PetSmart tied for second place with their expertly designed social channels that showcased a harmonious mix of authenticity and professionalism. The judges were impressed by the high level of employee engagement and the rich content variety featuring staff and pets, which contributed to strong year-over-year results.

Northrop Grumman — “Overheard at Northrop Grumman”

Why They Won

Also tying for second place, Northrop Grumman implemented a clever organic social media campaign that successfully shifted the company’s public perception, drawing in a broader audience with high-quality content. The judges praised the innovative videos, noting their unique contribution to employment branding and engagement across the board.

What the Best Social Recruiting Strategies Have in Common

As we unpack the strategies of these Rally Award winners, there’s a treasure trove of actionable insights that you can incorporate into your careers social channels and paid and organic social campaigns. Let’s delve into the lessons we can glean from the expertise of the teams at Blizzard, UBS, Fiverr, PetSmart, Northrop Grumman and Westpac in using social media for Recruitment Marketing.

• Authenticity as a Standard: These teams set the benchmark for keeping it real. They showcased actual employee stories, understanding that the most compelling employer brand narrative is one that begins with their teams, rooted in authenticity and relatability.
• Crafting Visual Impact: Each winner broke through the digital noise on social media with standout imagery and video content. By investing in high-quality, visually arresting content, they captured candidates’ attention and made them stop scrolling.
• Continuous Innovation is Key: These teams took a chance with a bold idea, daring to disrupt the norm with creative campaign angles and storytelling techniques that set them apart in the industry.
• Brand Alignment Across Channels: These brands demonstrate the importance of a cohesive message across all platforms. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok, telling your employer brand story must remain consistent and undeniably “you”, while being mindful to adapt your content to each channel and audience.
• Metrics That Matter: Finally, all of these Rally Award winners tracked and measured their social channels, from engagement at the top of the funnel to applications at the bottom. These practitioners know it’s not just about the reach but about converting social clicks into applicants, and applicants into hires.

Now It’s Your Turn: Create Engaging Social Recruiting Channels

As we celebrate the impressive achievements of the 2023 Rally Award winners, we’re reminded of the transformative power of strategic Recruitment Marketing. These winning social recruiting strategies from Blizzard Entertainment, UBS, Westpac, PetSmart, Northrop Grumman and Fiver showcased their employee experience and captured the attention and the imagination of potential candidates. These teams have done more than just fill positions; they’ve fortified their employer brands with the keystones of authenticity and compelling storytelling.

To the last year’s winners, our sincerest thanks for setting such a high bar and for providing a wealth of insights! Your social channels and campaigns are case studies in excellence and show us all how an engaging social recruiting strategy can impact talent attraction. And to all the practitioners and teams who entered, keep going–you’re making an impact at your organizations and moving our entire field forward.

We’re excited to see your entries in the 2024 Rally Awards! Share your social recruiting successes with the Rally community to receive recognition for your strategy and creativity. Let’s continue to push boundaries together using modern marketing strategies to attract talent who will thrive in our organizations. Your work has the power to not only shape your company’s future but to inspire our entire profession. We can’t wait to celebrate your achievements!

Don’t forget: Entries in the 2024 Rally Awards are due by January 31, 2024. This is your opportunity to be recognized for your outstanding work in Recruitment Marketing and employer branding across 17 categories. Learn more on the Rally Awards website.

The post Winning Social Media Campaigns from the Rally Awards first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.

This is why it’s become essential that every recruitment marketer, employer brand practitioner and talent acquisition team know how to attract and engage a talent audience through social recruiting strategies. It’s not enough for your company to have a business page on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn that promotes your products and services to potential customers and partners — you must also showcase your company as an employer and tell potential candidates (and remind existing employees!) why you’re a great place to work.

Effective social recruiting requires partnering with your corporate marketing team to share the real estate, so to speak, on your corporate social channels, given how much candidates are using social media to learn about employers and jobs. For some TA teams, it means building careers-focused social channels that concentrate on company culture and the employee experience. Whatever approach you pursue with social media recruiting, it requires an intentional strategy that ensures you are publishing the right content for each social channel and that you have the resources and commitment to build a social presence for the long term.

To help you take your social recruiting strategy to the next level, we’ve pulled together the most popular resources on RallyRecruitmentMarketing.com, featuring expert strategies from some of the leading practitioners in our community. Dive in now to get the top 10 Rally Resources for Social Media Recruiting!

Social Recruiting Strategy

1. Creating a Social Recruiting Strategy that Gets Results (Without Overthinking It)

One of the most important aspects of a social recruiting strategy is the content you publish. It’s content that will interest and engage your social audience beyond posting a job and asking people to “apply now.” There are many types of recruiting content that can be effective on social media, including employee testimonials, company awards and examples of your company culture (to name a few). Really, the sky’s the limit!

This blog post features two members of the Rally community, Jessica Summerfield and Jana Luitjens, who share their social recruiting content examples and pro tips to help you attract talent to your employer brand and career opportunities. By using some creative thinking, focusing in on their hiring goals and testing and measuring different types of Recruitment Marketing content, they’ve each built social content machines that actively engage and convert their talent audience into candidates. 

A LinkedIn post that was based on an internal Lunch and Learn about the Project Leader role at Parexel. 

2. How an Influencer Program can Upgrade Your Social Recruiting Strategy

Over 84% of organizations are currently utilizing social media for their recruitment process. If you already have an active social recruiting strategy, then you know it takes a content marketing engine to keep all your social media channels full of engaging material. But you don’t have to go it alone! Getting your employees involved can have a big impact on creating authentic social channels that influence candidates to want to join your organization.

In this blog post, Tricia Day shows you how she upgraded her company’s social media presence by leveraging employer brand champions. Trish explains that she defined what it means to be an influencer, how employees can contribute, the importance behind the program and what’s in it for them. Whether it’s starting small with just a handful of employees to build an Instagram presence, or scaling a full influencer program, your efforts will help trigger a domino effect and ultimately improve your social recruiting strategy.

3. What Does an Award-Winning Careers Social Media Presence Look Like?

An effective social recruiting strategy needs to be thoughtful and intentional. It’s not enough to post corporate party pictures or a “we’re hiring” graphic with a stock photo. You need to ensure that you’re posting the right content in front of the right candidates.

One company that’s doing an exceptional job at this is ADP, the winner of the Best Social Careers Channel in the 2021 Rally Awards. ADP spent a year thoughtfully crafting their @ADPCareers presence on social media to earn them a whopping 12% increase in click applies from organic social posts alone!

In this blog post, you’ll learn the story behind ADP’s award-winning social recruiting strategy to help you elevate your employer brand on social media. The ADP’s team advice: to increase your presence on social media, you must prioritize employee-centric content, source content from a variety of channels, post content where candidates hangout online and have the right CTAs (calls to action) to convert candidates.

Social Recruiting Channels

4. Social Media Takeovers: How TTEC increased intern engagement by 40%

It’s clear that the best social recruiting content highlights your employer brand and features your culture, values and people. And the more thought and creativity you put into your effort, the more success you’ll have. While you need to lead the effort, you can also outsource some of the work. This is exactly what Leesha Bush-Anderson and Rebecca Brookson and their teams from TTEC did with their social media campaign around National Intern Day.

In this blog post, Rebecca and Leesha share how they collaborated with their interns to create a social recruiting campaign to celebrate National Intern Day. Not only did they showcase their interns in order to develop awareness of their intern program to college students, they gave the interns the keys to their social media channels and let them lead the strategy. This blog post will inspire you to leverage your employees to create fun, engaging, authentic content for social media that will captivate your audience, bring awareness to your employer brand and impact your hiring efforts.

The video recording of the LinkedIn Live with 4 interns speaking about their experiences at TTEC. 

5. How to Create a Better Candidate Journey from your LinkedIn Posts

If you’re just publishing “we’re hiring” social posts on LinkedIn, you’re doing it wrong. New data from our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool reveals a better way to create high-converting candidate journeys that lead more qualified talent from your organic LinkedIn posts to your open jobs.

This blog post focuses on what Rally learned about social recruiting on LinkedIn to help you know what types of content (and literally what words) actually work better to engage talent through your organic LinkedIn feed. And importantly, this post will explain what this means for the candidate journey that you will need to provide in order to convert more interested candidates from social media to want to apply.

6. How to Increase Engagement on Instagram (and Other Recruitment Marketing Social Channels)

With Instagram’s average engagement rate being less than 1%, figuring out how to increase engagement on the platform and creating content that actually engages candidates are challenges you’re likely all too familiar with.

Read this blog post to learn specific strategies to know what content you should create for Instagram and your other Recruitment Marketing social channels that actually engages your candidates in your company culture and careers. This post covers: creating candidate personas, using benchmark data, activating employee-generated content, ensuring diversity and representation and adhering to each channel’s preferred format.

Social Media Analytics

7. Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report

Earlier this year, we held our first-ever community-wide Social Recruiting Rally event to help Recruitment Marketing, employer branding and talent acquisition professionals at all levels to become better at attracting talent through social media. Participants learned how to boost their social recruiting strategy using the latest data and insights from our Rally® Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics tool. 

In this report, you’ll learn:

• How to decide your social channel strategy
• Pro tips for creating a social content plan
• What makes an organic social post perform above average
• The latest benchmark data on using social media to attract talent
• And more!

Don’t miss these key learnings from the Social Recruiting Rally participants as well as all of the users of our Rally Inside tool in this 40-page Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report. 

The Social Recruiting Strategy Benchmark Report includes these 6 key factors to consider when deciding which social channels to use for your Recruitment Marketing strategy.

8. What Metrics to Measure for Each Recruitment Marketing Channel

Having so many social channels to now connect with candidates is great news for recruitment marketers. But as you’ve likely experienced, the more channels you use, the more complicated it becomes to measure your entire strategy.

That’s exactly why we created our Rally How To Guide: How to Track Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy. Aside from explaining what Recruitment Marketing tracking consists of and why it’s so important to your strategy, we also explore what metrics are worth tracking for different Recruitment Marketing channels including social media.

Read this blog post to learn what metrics you should be measuring for 3 of the most popular Recruitment Marketing channels: email, social media and your careers site — and what you can learn from each metric, and then download the report to begin building your social media analytics strategy.

Social Recruiting Content

9. Build Your Fall Social Recruiting Calendar (using proven data)

Data from our Rally® Inside tool shows that organic posts on LinkedIn and Facebook that promote individual jobs don’t get clicks 50% of the time. Candidates are ready to engage with your employer brand on social media, but they prefer to see content about your people and company culture.

In this webinar on demand, you’ll learn:

• Rally’s expert framework for creating a content plan that’s aligned to the candidate journey
• The latest benchmark data showing what type of recruiting content your talent audience wants to hear from employers on social media
• How to know what works best for different job functions such as technical roles, nursing and healthcare services, sales professionals, customer service representatives and manufacturing production workers
• The right posting schedule and cadence to keep your talent audience engaged
• Examples of high-performing social posts and why they work, so you can borrow these strategies right away

10. Create an Employee Generated Content Campaign That Gets Noticed on Social Media

Having a social recruiting strategy (both for your company’s social pages and your own personal channels) is an opportunity to showcase your employer brand, highlight employees and bring attention to your company culture and values. When creating your social recruiting content, it’s important to consider what would get the attention of passive talent. They make up 85% of the labor force and they’re not paying attention to jobs content, especially on social media.

But creating an effective strategy for social media that’s not focused on just posting jobs can seem intimidating. This is where employee generated content (EGC) can be both practical and powerful. While it still takes time and planning to execute successfully, it will provide you with an abundance of authentic content that shows potential candidates exactly who your company is without you having to collect stories or testimonials from employees and write each post.

Read this blog post to discover how Lisa Kay Davis and the Kyndryl team harnessed the power of employees and their social networks to authentically and uniquely share the passion, diversity and culture within their company.

Social Recruiting Bonuses!

11. RallyFwd Virtual Conference: Recruitment Marketing REIMAGINED

Throughout 2023, employers continue to face challenges when using traditional hiring strategies to attract the talent they need. Talent acquisition teams are confronting outdated and ineffective recruiting methods, tight budgets and limited resources, causing them to struggle to keep up with hiring demands. Candidates now make job decisions based on a company’s values, diversity and inclusion, and the employee experience they’re promised. We need to evolve how we market our jobs to tell the full story of what our company offers as an employer, beyond a job description, and take our strategy outside of job boards to the social and digital channels where people already hang out online.

Watch the sessions from our latest RallyFwd Virtual Conference to see expert presentations on various social recruiting strategies that you can learn from and put into practice right away.

12. Rally Inside Recruitment Marketing & Analytics Tool

Get our Rally® Inside tool to help you attract talent using the social media and digital channels where candidates already hang out, so you can stop waiting for job boards to solve your recruiting challenges.

With Rally Inside, you can create best-practice social posts in under 5 minutes, track your Recruitment Marketing in one place in real time, focus your strategy by candidate persona, validate your employer brand messaging and discover how to get more qualified applicants at a lower cost per applicant. Sign up today!

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This list of the top 10 Rally Resources for Social Media Recruiting is just the beginning. Search for “social media” or “social recruiting” in the search bar at the top right of our website to discover even more resources on how to boost your social strategy.

You can also keep the learning going through our Rally Academy which offers online digital courses, virtual training and in-person workshops.

Thanks to all of the practitioners and companies who have shared their pro tips and advice to Rally so that you can learn how to build a social media recruiting strategy and create the right content that will attract the talent you want to hire. You got this!

The post Top 10 Rally Resources for Social Media Recruiting first appeared on Rally® Recruitment Marketing.