6 Tips to Boost Your Organic Social Media Recruiting Efforts

The first thing you have to do to increase your company’s visibility on any social site is to optimize your profile. These platforms are essentially mini search engines, so brush up on SEO tactics and apply them to your social media presences.

That being said, social media sites usually have recommendations on how to complete your profile and make your page more helpful to your target audience. You’re not required to fill in every blank, of course, but the most crucial ones include:

• Your username
• Your profile photo
• Your “About” description
• A list of services offered
• A link to your website

Make sure to indicate in your profile that you’re actively recruiting employees so that the social media platform’s algorithm can index your content properly.

There are social media sites that allow you to create and/or join groups as your business page, which is useful in building communities and establishing your presence. There are benefits to both creating your own group and joining an existing one, so weigh your options before doing either.

There are also some industries, like real estate, that benefit more from social media groups. If you’re feeling a bit stuck in your current recruiting efforts, you can get some real estate recruiting ideas here. Hopefully, the suggestions in the link can help you broaden your scope and improve your results.

That being said, the primary advantage of starting your own social media group is that you’re in control. You also have access to the topline data of the members, so you can more easily tailor-fit content for your audience. Meanwhile, joining an existing group gives you access to an established community. This means that there’s a higher possibility for post engagement, increasing reach and interest.

Do note that social media groups are often focused on community building. Thus, don’t make your content too much of a hard sell. Rather, provide tips for getting hired or share industry insider knowledge. You’ll see a good example of this in tech and software groups, where members share the latest news and updates. Following this norm will make your content feel more natural, which is more appealing to more social media users.

The most popular social media channels have millions of users. This is advantageous, because you already have a ready audience for your recruitment content. On the other hand, it’s also unfavorable because you can’t be sure that your recruitment content is being seen by the right people. In the end, it doesn’t matter if a million people see your job posts for, say, an office manager if those who are seeing the ads are chefs.

To overcome this hurdle, you should always make use of the native targeting options of social media platforms. Not all sites will have the same features, but they will usually allow you to tweak a few settings to suit your needs. If the social media site allows, target your content based on gender, age, location, and interests. If there are no targeting options available, use hashtags so the algorithm can categorize your posts.

It can be tempting to put as much information as you can in one social media post to make it more “hard-working.” However, this isn’t as effective as you might think. In fact, a potential candidate may actually be turned off by your overloaded content that doesn’t have a clear direction.

For efficiency and effectiveness, make sure that a single post has a single goal. Whether that’s to redirect an applicant to your website or get them to send you an inquiry via a chatbot, stick to one message. There’s a place and time for longer types of content—such as your website’s blog—but social media isn’t usually it.

Split testing or A-B testing is a good way to gauge which types of content work best for your recruitment efforts on social media. What’s great is that most platforms provide you with ready access to a bunch of crucial data, such as reach, types of engagement, and audience demographics. Through processing and analytics, you can derive insights that will help you develop more effective organic content for your job posts and recruitment ads.

Last but certainly not least, interact with your audience. Engagement is one of the biggest factors that tell social media algorithms which content to push more on the timeline. Interacting with people through replies will also help form stronger bonds and a more positive reputation. Even if the people who come by your page or content aren’t currently looking for a job, they’ll certainly remember your company if you interact with them.

Good luck on your recruitment efforts!