Let’s face it; social media is radically overtaking every other way of captivating the talent. With over 3.2 billion users, it has become the new sweet spot for the employer-employee matchmaking. According to the best social media for employer branding and recruitment marketing, LinkedIn, 49% of all professionals are following companies on social media with the intent to stay aware of their jobs.
But in the arena of social media and recruitment, you need to be on the same page as your talent audience because your talent might also be looking for you.
How can businesses use social media marketing to increase talent engagement, particularly with millennials?
Step 1: Choose your social media platform wisely
It’s simple; the more pop and mobile-friendly platforms you choose, the more visibility you get. Facebook, though, claims most user-base, is already over-peopled, over-used and out-of-trend for any kind of branding. The next heir to the social media branding throne is Facebook's photo based sharing platform, Instagram, with a potential reach of advertising to over 802 million subscribers, 70% (approx) of the users being millennial.
Instagram is the fastest growing social media, mostly used by and for alluring demographics below the age of 40. Employers efficiently utilize it to flash their brand EVP, career story with appropriate graphics and creativity. But to generate more opportunities and catch the eyes you ought to make your picture worth a thousand words.
Step 2: Take control of your own narrative
The career page is a ‘digital-pictorial handbook’ that provides visual insights to measure the positive growth; talent can experience under the employer brand. It puts your reputation, employee experience, engagement as well as loyalty on public display.
Leading brands like Google, Facebook invest on independent Life@(workplace) accounts to showcase their work culture, events, and everything amazing that happens inside. Which makes any individual with access to Instagram carry the proof of their amazing work culture in his pocket? Result: They top the charts as the ‘most desired employers.’
Step 3: Employer Brand Awareness
A. Things to post to recruit and attract millennials (Gallery):
Got a new office party coming up? Or an event lined up? Share it with the whole world. The central idea is to basically post anything that portrays a positively active outlook of the organization.
Here are a few more ideas to add to your archive:-
1. Snapshots of real-life inside the workplace would prove the authenticity of the work environment and how things go around inside the walls.
2. Promote progressive philosophy through workplace diversity, for e.g., Lesbians who tech program by Google. The impact you make on diverse individuals is going to elevate your respect as an employer.
3. Feedback of employees or maybe an intern is more relatable and trust-building. Include testimonies of employees describing how the brand helps them in their personal growth along with professional. It is something viewers look up to.
4. Feature team heads, top managers in the picture to inspire the candidates as well.
5. Present yourself as a trailblazer in your field. Share visually appealing on-job tips and interview hacks. It can also include insight into your recruitment process and practices.
6. Awards and nominations make you stand-out as a recognized reputed employer
7. Couple branding campaign videos with trendy hashtags
8. Showcase the innovations taking place inside your labs, upcoming projects
9. etc.
B. Things to post (Stories)
Instagram now personalizes a unique timeline for every individual’s feed page, based on the stats of what the subscriber mostly spends his time watching. The content viewer interacts more with is pushed to the top. It won’t be much of a surprise if this new algorithm is actually hampering your reach by de-prioritizing or filtering out your content.
You cannot always rely on the posts you share. But the hack to still get that attention is through stories.
Instagram stories do not run on an algorithm (until now) so it displays them in chronological order. Here are a few ways to generate engagement through stories:
1. Bring the eyes back on your content (post) by sharing it as a story with a link to the post affixed
2. Trigger excitement by putting countdowns for upcoming events, downloadable face filters and schway hashtags around it
3. Get their feedback with “polls”- whether they like the new furniture installed in the office?
4. Interact through quizzes and giveaways, take in their questions and bring your champions in the field to answer them
5. Go live! Show around the office or a BYOP(Bring your own pets). Stimulate a craving to be a part of the same among the talent audience.
HASHTAGS (Mandatory add-on)
Hashtags are the simplest way to start a trend, popularize a trend or follow up to a trend in vogue. A survey done by Agorapulse concludes Instagram posts with at least one hashtag get 70% more likes and 392% more comments than those without hashtags.
1. Use a branded hashtag in every Instagram post
2. Include a balanced amalgam of relevant general location-based hashtags
3. Catch up with the trends to reach more talent audience
4. Launch a marketing campaign or giveaway using dedicated campaign hashtags
Step 4: Measuring success or analytics of Instagram
The success of your posts is measured by the engagement rate it has received in a particular time-frame.
HOW TO CALCULATE ENGAGEMENT RATE
Engagement rate = (Likes + Comments) / Followers x 100
You can skip this by integrating third-party KPI tools in your strategy. SEO reporting tools like AgencyAnalytics, Google Data
Studio, Sproutsocial, SEMrush provide social media analytics. These tools render analytics of the hashtags, impressions, and engagements.
Filter out the target audience, the best time to post and convert engagement into interviews.
Step 5: Instagram handles that are inspiring and why
The whole motivation here is to be a Unicorn in the sea full of recruiting and social media leprechauns. here are some employer branding pages to motivate you:
i. Redbull
· Innovative stories, promoting trendy events and extreme sports.
· Targeting the adventure enthusiast talent audience by speaking their language.
ii. Google
· Develop a sense of familiarity like assigning nicknames Googlers(current employees), Xooglers(former employees), Nooglers(new employees)
· Google’s Instagram handle is sheer people (and events around it) empowering and so is their brand voice.
iii. Lifeatatt
· Direct link to the website careers page in the bio
· Demographics