Nowadays, almost everyone is using social media. Whether it’s TikTok or Instagram, the number of social media users has consistently increased year after year. In fact, the average person now has six different social media accounts.
As social media usage continues to expand, organizations are finding ways to utilize different platforms for employee recruitment. Recent data from The Muse indicates that 92% of companies are using social media for recruiting purposes. Millennials and Gen Z, in particular, are comfortable using social media to advance their careers, as 73% of individuals aged 18-34 have found a job through social media.
While recruiters often turn to social media to learn more about potential job candidates, many aren’t fully leveraging these platforms for recruiting and hiring purposes. Many hiring teams are only beginning to recognize the power of employer branding in their social media recruiting strategy.
This guide will explore some of the more advanced social media recruitment strategies that organizations can use for hiring and will provide practical steps for taking your social media recruitment strategy to the next level.
Background: What is social media recruiting?
Social media recruiting is the use of social media platforms to find, attract, and hire new employees.
A social media recruitment strategy can be used to reach a wide range of candidates. It’s also a good tool for building a strong employer brand and connecting with potential employees on a personal level.
Using social media to recruit employees is both an active and passive process. One common approach is to actively post job openings on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. Recruiters can also use social media to reach out to potential candidates who are not actively looking for a job, as well as to ask for referrals, and even to collect resumes. Facebook, for instance, allows you to create a job posting and collect resumes directly on its platform.
Social media can also be used to build a strong employer brand. By sharing positive stories about the company culture and the benefits of working for the company, recruiters can attract top talent. A formal employee advocacy program hosted on social media can be used to connect with potential new hires. By sharing behind-the-scenes photos and videos, recruiters can give potential employees a glimpse of what it’s like to work at the company.
A quick look at different social media recruitment strategies
Clearly, social media can serve a number of purposes in your recruitment strategy. Often, hiring teams create a social media recruiting strategy that can accomplish a number of different things at once. Here are a few different ways to use social media for recruitment or employer branding:
- Advertising: This is a great way to reach a large number of potential candidates quickly. You can target your ads to specific demographics, interests, and even keywords.
- Networking: Connect with potential candidates on social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. You can also join relevant groups and forums to get involved in the conversation.
- Content marketing: Create and share valuable content on social media that will attract and engage potential candidates. This could include blog posts, videos, infographics, and more.
- Employee advocacy: This strategy involves getting your employees to share your company’s content on their own social media accounts. This can help you reach a wider audience and build trust with potential candidates.
Any social media recruitment strategy should utilize authentic, consistent messaging. Potential candidates can spot a fake from a mile away. Make sure you’re regularly posting and engaging with followers and let your brand personality shine through.
How employee stories improve your social media recruitment
Employee stories are a great way to make your brand stand out to potential candidates. They can help humanize your company and make it more relatable to your target audience. When people see real people talking about their experiences working for your company, it can help them to get a better sense of what it’s like to work there and whether your culture would be a good fit.
Second, firsthand accounts from your employees help to build trust and credibility with potential candidates. When people hear positive experiences from current employees, it can make them more likely to believe that your company is a great place to work. This can be especially important in competitive hiring markets, where potential candidates have a lot of options to choose from.
Third, employee stories can help attract top talent. When potential candidates see that your company has a strong and engaged workforce, it can make them more likely to want to join your team. People are more likely to want to work for companies that they believe in and that they feel represent their values.
Finally, employee stories can help boost your social media engagement. Content shared by employees gets 8x more engagement than posts shared on your company pages. That’s a much better ROI for your efforts than other types of paid marketing, for instance. When you share positive stories about your employees, it can help to attract more attention to your social media accounts and generate more engagement with your content. This can be a great way to build your brand with a wider group of consumers.
3 Brands that use employee stories in their social media recruitment strategy
Looking for a little extra inspiration? Companies like Google, Salesforce, and Jackson Walker all use employee stories to help achieve their recruitment goals.
Google’s dedicated “Life at Google” page is where Google employees share stories about their work, their teams, and their company. These stories are often reposted on Twitter and Instagram, such as this video highlighting a day in the life of a Google employee, Seonah.
Salesforce takes a very similar approach to showcase life inside the business. The company calls its site “Life at Salesforce” and specializes in video content that can be shared across platforms. This tweet from Salesforce CBO Ebony Beckwith shows Salesforce’s strong leadership and mentoring mentality, which may appeal to potential candidates.
Finally, law firm Jackson Walker used Clearview Social’s employee advocacy platform to showcase their attorney bios on social media. This allowed them to reach prospects unacquainted with the firm, specifically, companies that were expanding or relocating from other regions. By sharing LinkedIn-focused content of the firm’s leaders via Clearview Social, the campaign boosted page views of the firm’s LinkedIn company page by 20% and engagement with posts doubled.
Get started with Clearview Social
Social media recruiting is a long-term game. But, with the right tools, you can start to build a presence that attracts potential candidates and speeds up your hiring results.
An employee advocacy platform can streamline the mechanics of running your social media recruitment strategies. Clearview Social makes it easy to plan, post, and measure content shared on behalf of the brand. Companies can use it to efficiently find fresh, high-quality content to share with their audience and team.
Likewise, Clearview Social sends a roster of potential content to employees at once — including employee stories. Each team member can then share approved content with one click. Moreover, users can pick and choose the pieces they want to share, share everything with one click or opt into auto-sharing with no action required.
To learn more about how Clearview Social can help your business realize its social media recruiting strategy, contact us and book a free demo today.