How to Make the Most of 5 Social Media Platforms for Recruiting

In 8 Items to Consider with Social Media Recruiting, we ended with tips on using LinkedIn as a recruiting tool. This blog continues with helpful user information on five more social media platforms.

Facebook

· Build a community via groups: Create groups around an industry. For example, IT jobs, or Healthcare position. Build a high-volume member list. Post relevant, helpful information, trends in the industry, events, etc., as well as open positions.
· Highlight outstanding employees: Congratulate them on accomplishments. Share photos of awards they have won. Hold a Q & A session with them. This is a great way to reveal company culture and employee plusses.
· Holds chats and webinars: Discuss industry issues. Offer teaching tips on relevant subjects. Hold a hypothetical interview to present the ideal candidate for an open position.
· Utilize Facebook helps: Take advantage of banner ads, social media promotions, and Facebook apps, such as Linkup and Work4. Narrow your search for a candidate via custom filters on Facebook’s Graph Search

Pinterest

Pinterest, the social network with more than 150,000,000 users – here’s the stats.
· 85% female
· 42% of U.S. online adult women
· 13% of U.S. online adult men
· 30% of all U.S. social media users
· 67% are millennials

As you can see, Pinterest is an ideal social media platform for connecting with women professionals – especially when you are looking for contract work for short or long-term projects requiring innovative creativity. On the other hand, you can also find engineers and accountants – even attorneys. So how do you snag talent via Pinterest?

· Create company boards: Think about your website pages and create boards. You need an ‘About Us’ board to share a company overview, including your mission, vision, management team, and what you do. Use another board to share your company culture – include lots of photos that pinpoint the essence and spirit behind the people. Create a board that shares company perks and benefits.
· Create Job opening boards: If you have a small number of openings, create one board for each opening. Include a web link to the specific job on your website. If you have mega-openings, then create one board for each department. Another option is creating one board for each location if you have more than one branch.
· Include a “Pin it” button on jobs posted on your website: website: This allows for easy sharing and increases the number of potential candidates who hear about the position.
· Engage with candidates: Respond to inquiries, provide feedback, etc. Create boards with career advice, quotes for the workplace, etc. It’s all about relationship.

Twitter

· Hashtags: This is the power of Twitter. Hashtags allow you to enter the conversations that matter to you and they allow talent to connect with the openings that interest them. Hashtags are your ticket to attracting the right candidates to your website.
· Scan twitter profiles: So, Sally Brown has the talent, experience, and personality to match your ideal candidate profile. Scan her twitter profile. Within a few tweets, you can quickly pick up on her interests and find a connecting point for contacting her.
· Scope out industry events: It only makes sense that candidates will connect other professionals in their field of interest. Scoping out a guest list for an industry event will give insight into attendees. If you peruse an attendee’s followers, you will discover more candidates.
· Standout in the crowd: Tweet more than job openings. Share industry articles, thought-provoking pieces, and humor. Engage with others, share your bio, and express your personality. Be aware of the social platform and become familiar with the types of content people tweet, as every social platform has its nuances.

YouTube

A video is one of recruiting’s newest power tools. Creating and posting videos attracts prospective candidates and increase their awareness of what your company represents, as well as what it has to offer. A short, snappy recruiting video can capture the authentic essence of your company. Here’s the scoop.

Use your YouTube video creativity more multiple purposes

· Sourcing: Using videos to draw the interests of potential candidates. Be sure to include links to your application process within the video.
· Employee Testimonials: A 2-minute video of an employee sharing why he/she loves working for your company can be the best advertisement for attracting talent.
· Company Culture: Just like the employee testimonial, a video of life on the job can be a compelling candidate attraction. Choose videos that show the real everyday culture of a thriving, happy company. And if that’s not you, maybe it’s time to work on company culture.
· Hiring Campaigns: Put it on video – it attracts more candidates than just text. In fact, according to MWP Digital Media, 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.
 

Follow these tips when creating your video

· Share the right information: Cover the basics – including answers to the typical question that interested candidates ask.
· Use the real stars: This isn’t about the company CEO – unless he/she is involved in the interview process. Make your video around the people who do the hiring/interviewing and the people who the new talent will be working alongside.
· Keep it short, fun, and authentic: Use upbeat background music (be careful of copyrights) and appropriate color schemes. You want to attract people – not put them to sleep.
· Call to action: Have fun making your video, but don’t forget the call to action. Your video is a stepping stone to the next part of the process – a personal connection with a perfect-fit candidate.

Snapchat

The yes-they’ve-arrived Millennials and up-and-coming GenZ generations are avid mobile users. Snapchat is a standard mode of communication, and they’re on it – 20 times/day. Since they use their mobile devices to search for jobs, it’s a given that Snapchat has great potential for recruiting strategies. It’s the perfect opportunity to get their attention. Here’s how.

Snapchat is a lot of fun – so, use this to your company’s advantage.

· Tell your company story: Share exciting or entertaining company happenings via photos. Invite viewers to participate in contests that reflect your personality and award prizes.
· Give advice: From job-search or interview tips to softer subjects, such as making the most of your weekend, snapchat helps to prospective candidates.
· Make announcements: Whether it’s about a job fair, a sign-up bonus, your referral program, or a job posting – share the news where it matters.

Need some help to get started? Here’s 16 snapchat helps from Pocket-lint.

Ok, so you have an overview of social media recruiting, as well as tips on using the most popular platforms, but why should you use invest time in it? What are the benefits? That’s precisely what we will discuss in Part III of our Social Media Recruiting Trilogy. Don’t miss it. And while you wait, why not partner with Award Staffing?  We’re a Minnesota-based staffing agency serving the entire state with the highest concentration of job placements in the Minneapolis, Saint Paul and greater metro area. We partner with companies and organizations for all their staffing needs, so offices, factories, events, buildings, c-suites, restaurants, and businesses can flourish and succeed. Contact us today.