Social is used incorrectly by many businesses and recruiters.

Social is exactly that – a social platform where potential customers are interacting with friends, family and articles that are of interest to them. When you are posting social messages you are interrupting them so you need to be mindful of the context of your content and when it is being consumed by your audience.

Yes it is a candidate market and they have many options and choices with the average time in one role being about 2-3 years. So building a relationship with them on social media is worth the time when you think of the lifetime value of those candidates.

You must have a strong employer brand that is engaging, shares brand culture and is based on the emotion behind the decisions people are making when it comes to accepting a new role. Can you honestly say that you have a strong brand on social and digital channels? Do candidates know much about your company, why you are different and what perks you offer your staff?

Savvy Recruiters go beyond posting job ads. Anyone can do that (and bore your candidates to death). Or you can choose to put some time, money and resources into building a brand that is visible, sought after and be first choice over your competitors.

Consider these tactics if you really want to do it well:

• Have a clear strategy or plan. Make your prospective candidates feel they have a personal connection to your company and some people they can turn to for insights and opinion.
• Create a Brand Employee Ambassador Program – get your staff active on social mediaand encourage company-wide sharing of your marketing messages which will amplify your brand to a  wider pool of people.
• Have a dedicated careers page separate from the main company page.As a recruitment team, you need accounts whose sole aim is to appeal to your target candidate audience..
• Run targeted campaigns to reach your desired candidate audience– consider doing targeted social media ads rather than just random job posts by creating marketing messages that are personal & relevant and reach qualified prospects
• Cross promote channels – and move people from your social to your owned channels to capture their information and data so you can continue to remarket to them. Drive them to your website, landing pages with free downloads, to sign up for webinars, get exclusive content
• Use social channels in specific ways – All social channels don’t need to be used in the same way or have the same content. You might use Linkedin for clients, Facebook for internal and brand culture and Twitter for candidates. Think about where your audience is and use each channel accordingly

 Having effective social channels takes time. It does not happen overnight. Think smarter, think beyond what you have always done and consider how social media can support your existing marketing channels and processes to reach more qualified audiences.