5 tips for boosting your talent strategy on social media

It’s occasionally tempting to think that social media is merely a platform for sharing pictures of artisan coffee and inspirational quotes from writers no-one has ever heard of.

That’s a slight exaggeration. But the fact is, it can be difficult to cut through the noise when swimming against a tide of endless content.

And the saturated digital world we live in poses plenty of questions to businesses looking to use social media to express their brand personality and stand out from the crowd.

Which, when you’re on the hunt for new talent, is a game-changer!

However, all those social profiles will do little for your brand if you’re not making full use of their potential.

Thankfully, there’s a few quick ways you can put in place to ensure you’re getting the most from social without having to invest too much time - or money.

How?

To be more proactive with your social hiring strategy, follow these 5 tips for success:

1. The key is in the words (aka use keywords! See what I did there?)

Let’s say you work for a technology organisation and you want to drive tech talent to your social pages. You’ve got to make sure you’re using the right terminology.

I won’t bore you with the science behind SEO. But if your talent is searching for ‘tech roles’ and you’re using ‘tech’ and ‘roles’ in your social content, the search engines (Google, Bing – you know the ones) will do all the hard work for you.

2. Put some study into your strategy

I wouldn’t DREAM of suggesting you’re not ‘down with the kids’ or anything. But with trends changing as often as the wind, it’s not easy to keep up-to-date with the type of content your target audience wants to consume.  

Before you put anything out there hoping for the best, have a look around at what competitors and relevant publications are talking about. And how they’re packaging it.

More importantly – is what they’re doing working in terms of engagement?

3. Get with the crowd

There are so many places for the talent you’re looking for to hide. Forums and dedicated groups can be a treasure trove so it’s important to make sure you’re pushing your content in the right direction.

For example, if you’re looking for marketing professionals to join your business you’ll probably be aware there are countless marketing-related groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Tap into these digital watering holes, find out what these potential hires are talking about and use paid ads or sponsored content to target your dream candidates.   

4. Reward your Referrers

Referral schemes will always be one of the top ways to attract talent, and a lot of companies offer incentives to existing employees for bringing someone on board.

But does your business transfer that reward scheme over to sharing on social?

If you estimate that each employee at your company has approximately 400 connections on LinkedIn and 300 Facebook friends, your extended network starts to look a lot bigger.

By offering an internal competition for the highest number of shares of your social job ads you’ll turn your employees into your biggest advocates.

You’ll also boost your chances of hitting your target audience directly. After all, who’s more likely to be connected to the people you’re looking for than the people you’ve already found?

5. Communication is a two-way street

The best way to get people interested in the content you’re pushing out is to show interest in what they’re doing in return.

An employee leaves a review on Glassdoor? Respond! Whether it’s positive or negative (ESPEICALLY if it’s negative).

Someone comments on one of your posts on social – let them know you’re listening. It doesn’t have to be War and Peace – they just need to know there’s a person on the other end of the line.

The more you humanize your social approach, the greater chance you’ll have of getting people to buy into your business and relate to who you are.

Hopefully these tips will give you the foundations you need to create a proactive approach to your social hiring. But if you want to carry on the conversation, feel free to get in touch: lauren.fowles@bps-world.com.