When it comes to recruiting in the competitive job market, you’ll need every advantage you can get. Fortunately, social media has leveled the playing field, allowing small businesses to compete with big firms in that area.

Enter social recruiting – the process of recruiting candidates through social media platforms. Today, sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn provide employers and recruiters a huge opportunity to connect with candidates, and you should too.

To make the most of the benefits that such networks provide, here are several strategies you can use for up your recruitment game.

Optimise your company’s LinkedIn page for search

LinkedIn isn’t the largest social media platform, but it’s where professionals go to network, post jobs and look for employment opportunities. To make better use of social media for recruiting, you have to make your company’s LinkedIn page easier to find.

You can do this by:

• Identifying the keywords related to your business. List down what your business offers, your industry, location, and specialties. To determine you have the right keywords, use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest.
  
  
• Incorporating the keywords in your company description. All these are searchable text for Google, but make sure you write for humans and not search engines.
  
  
• Accomplishing the “Company Specialties” section. It’s under the “About” tab on your company page. There, you can add up to 20 specialties. Putting in more specialties increases others’ chances of finding your company on LinkedIn.
  
  
• Making sure your company page is complete. This includes all the information about your organisation, and even a header image and logo. Completed company pages get double the visitors than those with incomplete pages.

Join LinkedIn groups

You should go where candidates are – in LinkedIn groups. By joining the platform’s specialised communities, particularly those relevant to your industry, it’ll be easier for you to find recruits, including passive candidates, i.e. those not actively looking for a new job.

To pinpoint the top talent (passive or otherwise), participate in your respective communities and network with members who are actively involved and trying to establish themselves in their niche.

Being in the same group adds a layer of trust. This approach is better than adding people on LinkedIn out of the blue.

By networking with your niche’s major influencers, you can approach them directly for new openings even before publishing any job ads.

Showcase your culture

Social recruitment isn’t just about contacting candidates; you need to make your organisation an attractive work destination by sharing your company culture online. For instance, you can:

• Take plenty of photos and videos of company events (e.g. outreach programs, celebrations), then share them on your profiles. Rich content typically gets more engagement in any platform. Plus, the video gets 1200% more shares than text and image combined.
  
  
• Add text to your visuals. Your audience wouldn’t simply look at photos and images because they’re there. Put in the eye-catching text on your visuals based on interesting statistics and quotes. For convenience, use design tools like Canva or Stencil.

Involve your employees

Your employees are the best people to share and talk about your organisation. Why? Because it shows they’re engaged and proud of your company, adding to the authenticity of your employer brand.

Furthermore, asking your employees to share the company’s posts on social media broadens your company’s reach online.

But to help employees become comfortable in highlighting your company and projecting a consistent brand, you’ll need to create social media guidelines. Here are a few tips on how and where to start.

Stream live events

Live streaming is an effective tool you can use to a) promote your company, b) develop your employer brand via social media, and c) show your company culture to potential candidates.

You can capture various events like:

• Company announcements
• Q&As with company leaders
• Giveaways

Best of all, live streaming is incredibly easy and affordable. You just need a phone with a good camera, a steady internet connection, and a video-streaming app like YouTube, Facebook or Periscope.

Don’t forget to do a practice run before broadcasting, so that you and your employees know what to expect during the real thing.

Make and share branding videos

Producing branding videos and sharing them on social media will help potential candidates relate to your company. Viewers will see the people behind the organisation, and this humanises your employer brand – because brands need faces.

If your video resonates with your audience, they’ll share it on social media. This will increase your company’s visibility and allow you to engage with more potential applicants.

Moreover, humans are visual creatures; we process visual information more efficiently than text. And when it comes to consuming online text, we don’t read – we scan.

Engage more candidates via Instagram

Facebook may be the world’s largest social network, but Instagram has the highest user engagement among all of the top social media platforms. That means you get more likes, shares, and clicks per post, which should be great for your employer brand.

With Instagram, you’ll also be aiming at a younger demographic of applicants. According to the Pew Research Center, 67% of the network users are under 29.

Mix up your posts

It’s quite boring if all your social media posts are about your organisation. If you keep doing this, your audience might tune you out. Instead, mix up your posts with a variety of topics.

Here are a few ideas:

• Share your followers’ content.
• Answer to your followers’ questions.
• Post job openings in the form of images.
• Report on industry trends.
• Hold social media contests.
• Shout out your favourite customers.

Use social recruiting software

Social recruiting is effective, but you don’t have to do everything separately in each social media platform; that’ll take a lot more work.

To streamline the process, use programs like HRS, Recruiterbox, and Bullhorn, which allow you to synchronise all of your organisation’s social network accounts, schedule posts, prepare automatic responses, and more.

Recruit via our Hotlist

To make your recruitment campaign easier and more effective, hire your virtual staff through Remote Workmate. Unlike freelancing platforms where you do everything yourself, we do all the heavy lifting for you, including payroll and onboarding.

You can actually choose from our pool of top candidates right away. Simply visit our Hotlist at:
https://remoteworkmate.com/hotlist

You can browse a wide range of profiles on our Hotlist page. Once you find a qualified VA, simply fill out the form at the bottom and we’ll get in touch with you at first opportunity.