Social Media : Essential for Recruitment
Social media has previously been looked upon by some as an added bonus for recruitment companies but not a necessity. However, going into 2017, in order to keep up with competitors; engage with candidates and build a strong recognisable brand, social media needs to be an essential part of any recruitment companies marketing strategy.
LinkedIn is constantly developing and over recent years has become an extremely useful tool for recruiters. A report from LinkedIn uncovered that 70% of the global workforce are passive talent and 87% of these individuals are open to new job opportunities. If LinkedIn isn’t in the marketing strategy and candidate generation is solely dependant on job adverts or referrals, there is a massive pool of potential being missed!
It is also worth noting that Microsoft completed the acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016, so marketing professionals need to be alive to the fact some significant changes could be on the cards and changes may be needed to the current strategy!
Images
Not only are images eye-catching and more memorable, but, according to HubSpot, compelling visual graphics could generate up to 94% more views. So, to make your job adverts, blogs or status’s worthwhile, an image or graphic is highly recommended!
Twitter is a free platform which offers opportunities to really build a brand personality and thought leadership. It is a great tool to engage in conversations with clients or candidates by commenting on their tweets and congratulating and tweeting about client success or developments. Not only this, it is a great platform to demonstrate company culture and promote company success.
Aside from developing a brand image, it has been found that 58% of job seekers use Twitter in their search so if you’re not visible and your competitors are, you will be losing talent.
Content
Content demonstrates industry knowledge and presents yourself and your company as a reputable thought leader within your market. If your content is relevant to your market and is “shareable” it broadens your reach, widens the pool of connections that you are visible to, and really strengthens your personal brand.
Content marketing has been around for years, but 2017 is likely to see a massive increase – 70% of B2B marketers plan to create more content in 2017 compared to 2016 – it is important not to merely concentrate on volume, but focus on creating valuable content that offers something to your clients and candidates to engage with!
Videos
Recruitment International released an article in their latest magazine with Giles Guest, Director of Enhance Media who has said over the next year the use of video will rise as candidates want to be ‘participants rather than spectators’ and engage with the company culture before applying.
Social media is an ever growing and developing arena, and there are much more platforms than I have touched upon above which delivers a challenge to recruitment marketers, as their plan today could well need adapting tomorrow! However, keeping on top of the current channels, monitoring all updates and analysing previous months should give a good indication of which platforms are going to have the most impact and therefore need prioritising!
Kat Whitehead, Marketing Executive, Foundation Recruitment
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