know your strategy and adhere to these best practices for the result you seek
We all know the social media world is growing, ever changing, and dynamic. While most organizations realize social media are needed to support their employer brand and recruiting efforts, keeping up with the rapid pace of change is challenging. Ultimately, realize social media are just one of many channels you need to effectively support your brand, yet it is critical for you to understand the impact social media can have on your brand. The viral nature of social media can quickly impact your visibility and determine your ability to attract talent.
How do companies fall short in their social media efforts? We see several common pitfalls.
- Lacking a strategy. Trying to participate on all channels without defining goals, determining the target audience, aligning resources, and putting the appropriate metrics in place won’t help you achieve the desired results.
- Lacking two-way communication with the audience. Put the social in social media! Personalize responses, respond to questions/posts in a timely manner, and share content to get the audience interested in building a relationship with your organization.
- Sharing the wrong information. Many organizations share information about their company, products, or services yet forget about the information that means most to its target audience: interesting details about the workplace, culture, commitment to diversity, or community involvement and unique traits of the employer.
- Not telling the “real” story. Job seekers want to know the facts about working at an organization. Share your message in an authentic, personal manner. Employee testimonials, photos, and videos are a great way to showcase an organization’s distinctive attributes.
- Sharing information inconsistently. It’s important to not only share a variety of information but to also try to follow a predetermined schedule. Ideally, organizations should strive for consistent social media sharing on a daily basis or, at a minimum, several times per week.
- Failing to drive traffic to the career website or use a correct working link. Surprisingly, many posts, updates, or tweets do not include a link back to the career website so job seekers can easily learn more about the organization or apply for job opportunities. Also, sometimes when career sites or social media properties are updated, broken links may occur. Organizations need to ensure their social media postings contain only live links to the career site.
- Failing to use employees as ambassadors. Set your employees up for success by providing guidelines on how to optimize their personal profiles, leverage their networks for referrals, and share relevant information about your organization or job opportunities.
Managing social media isn’t always an easy task, but it is worthwhile for increasing brand awareness. You might find that it can be fun, too!
about the author
Follow on Twitter
