November 15th, 2019
Social media is one of the top tools used for job search and gathering information about the employer. However, there is a lot to learn in order to make the best use of each platform. At Catalyst, we are actively keeping track on the evolution of this touchpoint by evaluating the candidate’s behaviour ( The Most Desired Employers Study) and examining the local employers market (The State of the Employer Branding).
In this article, you will find data-driven insights on how to leverage social media in your organization’s recruitment strategy.
Channels
When reviewing which platform would be the best fit for your Employer Branding purposes, it’s important to define where does your target audience spend most of their time.
30% of entry-level candidates use Facebook to find information about potential employers. At the same time, 37% of experienced hires use LinkedIn (Most Desired Employers Study 2019)
LinkedIn has become a key resource for professional networking among the experienced level candidates and is proven to be the most effective channel in terms of sourcing applicants according to HR managers in Romania.
18% of applicants came through LinkedIn, while Facebook delivered only 5% (State of Employer Branding 2019)
Surprisingly, when we look at paid campaigns activated on social media last year, we can see that 43% of companies choose Facebook to allocate their budget and only 20% invested in ads on LinkedIn, though, in the end, it delivered more applicants.
Therefore, if your main objective is to recruit experienced hires you should focus your efforts on LinkedIn. However, in terms of brand awareness, Facebook is still at the top of the social media game.
Content
Most job seekers research an employer profile through social media when they already secured an interview to see what it’s like to work inside the company. Employers must ensure they maintain high quality, engaging levels of content that relate to questions on company culture, benefits and opportunities open to company employees.
From our observations, the most successful organizations use their Employer Value Proposition to drive their social media content strategy. However, results from the State of Employer Branding reveals that the majority of organizations in Romania operate on social media without EVP set in place.
So, if your company lacks an EVP it’s like a ship without a steer, drifting off into the seas of content and social media. On the other hand, companies with EVP have a stable sense of direction and those are ones that manage to build strong employer brands in the long term and get the right talent on board.
Engagement
The whole point of social media is people connecting to people. While a lot of companies focus on capturing the attention of job seekers, it’s vital to keep your current employers interested, too. Keeping your workforce connected with what you are doing by tagging them or re-sharing company-related posts they have shared on their personal accounts will drive more traffic and make your engagement rates skyrocket.
Here are more tips that will help you increase engagement:
- Post at peak activity time of your target audience.
- Ask puzzling questions, open up for discussions, create competitions and use a call to action.
- Listen to your potential candidates and respond to comments and questions.
- Reciprocate – share comment and like other people’s content and they, in return, will be more likely to interact with your posts.
- Give employees access to your employer brand materials and let them share it to their networks.
- Including a link can drive twice the engagement compared to posts without links
Our surveys indicate that 71% of companies in Romania plan to optimize their social media activity in terms of recruitment. So, don’t let your employer brand fall behind and keep refining your social media strategy according to data-driven insights from the local market.
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