By now, the majority of small business realise the key to future growth relies highly on online presence. The World Wide Web as a marketing platform provides so many great opportunities to expose your brand and broaden your customer base. In recent years we have been introduced to a new term known as ‘Social Media Marketing.’ Businesses of all sizes and types are embracing social media through sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, #Twitter and YouTube to build new connections, increase exposure and increase awareness and customer interaction with your company.
Through content sharing, collaborating, blogging, uploading, tweeting and posting social media is now a successful marketing strategy used to help create excitement and interaction about their business.
The advantages of social media aren’t restricted to customer marketing purposes. More and more businesses are now also turning to various Social media sites to recruit candidates.
Using social media as not only a marketing platform but a recruiting tool can hold many benefits for your business. The number one rule in social media is to engage your followers, connections or friends.
Twitter is a great platform for sourcing candidates and brand candidates. However, simply tweeting a job opportunity is not using Twitter to its advantage. You need to engage not only your followers but your employees as well. Twitter is a social media marketing tool, so have some fun when you tweet. Share articles relevant to your particular industry, tweet about current issues and interact with your followers.
Try to respond to every question and @mention as interaction and engagement is vital to not only your followers but in order to gain new followers. Using hashtags (#) like #accounting #jobs #sydney you have made your job posts searchable. If you’re not convinced, try doing a Twitter search for #jobs in #sydney and see how many opportunities appear.
According to Alexa.com, Facebook is the second most trafficked website in the world trailing only Google. A major benefit in using Facebook as a recruiting tool is the ability to ‘share.’ If your current employees send out job postings that link to your company’s page, your job opportunities can reach a much wider audience. You can also send messages about job openings to fans of your company page by using the ‘build audience’ function.
LinkedIn is a directory of professionals and companies. According to many, it is known as the ‘professional Facebook.’ The key to LinkedIn begins with a professional presence. Building your company’s profile is vital in order to attract your target market. The more relevant information on your company profile; the better. Similar to Twitter and Facebook you need to engage and interact with your connections.
By posting helpful content for your target market, it shows you are active and focused on providing value. Using LinkedIn for recruiting means accepting all invitations to connect. The true value of your network is measured by size so the more connections you have, the better. Growing your network is by no means as easy task, it takes time and devotion so be sure to invite everyone you know to connect. By joining relevant profession/industry groups your company and its job opportunities has the potential to reach a wide range of networks, groups and job candidates.
Social Media is all about creating a network and building on that network. Candidates are now looking for alternate ways to search for jobs other than the conventional methods of job searching. Find what Social Media platform works best for your company and start interacting and engaging with your current network. By posting, sharing and tweeting your company’s job opportunities, it also gives your company great brand exposure, so it is a win-win situation!
