Recruitment marketing across social media: Best practices

 

Many employers have embraced recruitment marketing across social media. Here we’d like to share best practices and answer common questions.

If college students don’t use Facebook as much anymore, should employers even consider branding on Facebook to reach millennials?

According to Fluent – a customer acquisition platform – in 2016, 41% of millennials use Facebook every day*. That generation was part of the days when you had to sign up with Facebook using your college email address. While the use of Facebook has since changed, millennials are using it to keep in touch with friends and family, as well as receive news.

The organic reach of brands on Facebook has been reduced dramatically. Nowadays, you have to “pay if you want to play.” Therefore, companies have to allocate a budget to advertise on this platform. Even though organic reach is almost nonexistent, a company should post regularly (2-3 times a week) when advertising. Here is why:

If your company is sponsoring posts (ads) and candidates click on these posts, they are sent to a landing page outside of Facebook. But candidates can still visit your company’s Facebook page. If that’s the case, your page has to grab the visitor’s attention. If there is no sign of recent content or content of value, the visitor will not likely take interest in the ad or your company.

One great thing about advertising on Facebook is how granular companies can target candidates. You can focus on certain universities, majors, graduation date and more. It’s easy and relatively inexpensive to brand your company as an employer to the most relevant audience.

*Note: That same study shared that the older millennial generation (ages 25-34) use Facebook most in comparison to the younger millennials (ages 18-24). 

Where else should companies invest in social media marketing?

Facebook may not be the best channel to use for recruitment if you’re not paying to play, but Instagram and Snapchat are two channels that can support your efforts to reach college students and millennials. These social networks can assist with attracting these candidates because both are all about the visuals. Leverage them for your employer branding efforts and tell your company’s story through videos and photos, but don’t forget about Snapchat Geo-Filters.

For examples on how companies are using both Instagram and Snapchat for recruitment check out this blog post on KRT’s website.

How much can employers build a relationship with college students and grads via social media? Does that matter?

It is definitely important to build relationships with college students and recent grads. It is up to your company to determine where that audience hangs out. When you determine which channel best fits your needs, you need to create content that will provide value to that audience. College students, especially today, are concerned with life after graduation. Post career-related content that would appeal to them: tips, articles, and company culture. If you have an internship program or entry-level positions for recent graduates, show what that would look like and let your audience know what’s in it for them (culture, benefits, what to expect out of the job, etc.).

According to Jobvite’s 2016 Job Seeker Nation report, higher-educated job seekers (college degree or more) are “more likely to research companies online in the application process.” Take advantage of this trend! While these college-educated job seekers are doing their research, make sure your content, and therefore your company, becomes top of mind. This is crucial to building relationships with these potential candidates.

While targeting college students, keep in mind that a younger audience doesn’t want to be “bought.” Make sure your voice is genuine and be realistic about whether your brand can provide relevant content on emerging social media channels.

What are common recruitment marketing mistakes that employers make on social media?

There are a few challenges that employers face when using social media as a recruitment marketing tool. One is that companies try to be too general with content. A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Your company should start with your current employees. What type of people do you typically hired? By doing a smaller personas study, you’ll learn more about the type of candidates that you’ll want to attract. Compile that information and leverage it to build a strong and robust content strategy for social media. If you can’t use personas, you still need to fully understand your candidates. Do an internal survey with your employees, for example. You need to know what they value and what they would consume online. With that information, you can develop a thoughtful content strategy that may include career success tips, company photos, news articles, etc. Think about what would appeal to you as a candidate and approach it that way.

Do as much as you can to humanize your brand as an employer. People like to engage with people in real life, and it’s no different on social channels. Give your employer brand personality by applying content, tone of voice and visuals that align with your company culture.

Also, it is not only important to highlight the positives. Candidates today look for transparent companies that are truthful and candid. Ensure that you are telling the whole story on social media.

What are the most important metrics on social media that employers should be watching to measure their recruitment branding?

Goals are different for each organization so each company may look at metrics differently. If your company’s goal is awareness, you might focus on impressions and views.

Ultimately, you want to create and share relevant and interesting content that will be engaging to your target audience. Therefore, a critical metric is return on engagement (ROE). Engagement is the number many clicks, likes, shares and comments your content gets in a period of time.

Also, your company might create various campaigns throughout the year that will require analyzing different metrics.  For instance, if diversity is an important initiative, you might share more frequently about diversity related topics, and create a brand awareness campaign. It may be less important to measure likes, comments and shares in this example. Instead, you might focus on impressions. For a social media program, every metric counts so both impressions and engagement are relevant and important. All metrics go hand in hand in order to tell a bigger story for recruitment branding efforts.

Make sure all links you share on social media are trackable and set up relevant reports on Google Analytics so you can analyze how much social media is influencing actions and goals on your website (assisted conversions).

Great resources to learn more:

• Find examples of companies with great social recruiting strategies, on this blog post on KRT’s website.
• Social media use among college students and teens: What’s in and what’s out
• Social media and networking sites used by us teenagers

 

About the writers at KRT Marketing:

Adriana Kevill (@ADRIANAK): Adriana has her hands in social media – more specifically, partnering with clients in their talent acquisition journeys. She’s there, side-by-side with them, figuring out how to best promote their employer brands; creating social media programs from scratch; planning employee advocacy programs; developing online employer reputation management strategies, pushing their content strategy to the next level, training recruiters on social interaction best practices and expanding their social presence internationally. She likes to have her hands in all phases of social recruiting, including tracking and analyzing results.

 

Audrey Agot: Audrey is a social media coordinator. She inhabits the worlds of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, but not everything is rainbows and memes. From copy writing to graphic design to social media analytics, her work is instrumental in building clients’ employer brand and expanding their social recruiting efforts.

 

Nathalie Cano: With a background in public relations, Nathalie has over eight years of experience in marketing and communications. She has worked with clients in professional sports, hospitality, non-profit, medical, finance, engineering, telecommunications and more. Specializing in social media, Nathalie focuses on project management, content strategy and creation, as well as analytics.

 

 

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