Everyone wants to be seen or heard on social media. There are so many platforms each offering their own ways to share content and interact with a wide range of individuals. So it’s not surprising that businesses of all sizes, and from just about every industry, are using social media to engage with people and advertise their goods and services.
But for the most part, recruiting agencies don’t seem to be using social media marketing to bring in new business. At Elevano, we’re leveraging social media (along with other digital marketing techniques) to build an online presence. Through this, we’ve found a way to reach new clients and candidates, and provide content that resonates with wider audiences in tech, human resources and entrepreneurship. We’ve seen social media marketing work for our agency, but if you’re still on the fence, then read on to find out more about how social media can help your business.
The New Way to Reach Consumers and Clients
Social media marketing has emerged as a way for companies to create targeted campaigns that appeal to specific demographics. But as more and more brands turn to social media to supplement their other marketing streams (such as print, email or TV marketing, for example) social media has become just as popular, and competitive, as any other platform or medium that works to give brands a voice, and to reach consumers.
There’s one major feature that sets social media apart from those more traditional marketing avenues, though: it’s the ability to actually interact, in real-time, with your target audience. If a company posts about a new product on Instagram, they’re able to receive and measure feedback from their audience in the form of likes, comments and shares.
With these engagement metrics, brands can inform and improve their product strategy. Social media also provides companies with a direct line of communication between them and their audience (such as potential and current clients or consumers). Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter take customer service to a new level by providing real-time communication streams. What’s more is that those exchanges between consumers and companies (unless sent via direct message), are on display for other visitors to your socials to see. Of course, this can be both a good and bad thing for businesses, but altogether, it gives your brand a better sense of transparency.
So, what does all this mean for agency recruiters?
When you think of the type of companies that utilize (or benefit from) social media marketing, do you immediately think of recruiting agencies?
Probably not…
After all, how do you market your recruiting services on Instagram with as much success as a brand announcing a new product?! It’s a daunting task to make your mark amongst all the noise on social media– and there’s a lot of noise.
In addition, there’s the struggle that many recruiters already face with engagement on social networking sites like LinkedIn, which tends to be the result of professionals not wanting their superiors or colleagues to catch them interacting with agency recruiters. It makes sense that third party recruiters might struggle to see the value in social media marketing for their business.
The truth is that your content probably won’t resonate with people in the same way that that clothing brand does. But it doesn’t have to: they’re not your competition! Agencies that provide similar services to you are. As agency recruiters ourselves, we’ve come to realize that not a lot of recruiting companies know how to leverage social media marketing to bring in new business. It’s probably because they don’t think it’s relevant to their industry– and you might still think that too. Well, consider this: whether they sell goods, services, or both, companies have used marketing and advertising techniques for a very long time. So why would marketing on social media be industry-exclusive?
Every Industry Should Leverage Social Media
The reality is, in this digital age, everyone is glued to technology. Whether that’s their laptops, their tablets, their smartphones, their smartwatches… (you get the picture!) technology is everywhere and more accessible than it ever has been before, and social media is, too. If you’re not actively investing your time and effort into reaching people on those devices (ex. social media apps) then you’re losing out on a devastatingly big portion of your target demographic.
Remember that it’s not just people you can advertise to, it’s also people who will advertise for you:
Let’s say you’re looking for a new restaurant, for example. You do a quick search on your phone, you pick one, get directions and off you go… but not before you check up on the restaurant’s Yelp page, read a few more reviews on Facebook or Google, and maybe even take a look through their Instagram. You leverage social media to make your choice. Better still, you use social proof to see what people think about a business before you visit.
Typically, the more traditional forms of marketing (like an ad on TV, a flyer in the mail or an email in your inbox) have never had these channels of communication before. Yes, somebody could reply to an email campaign, but that response (good or bad) isn’t going to be seen by anyone other than employees of the company.
Take us at Elevano, for example. We quickly realized the importance of social proof. We had plenty of happy clients and candidates leaving us great reviews via email, but had no way of leveraging that feedback to generate new business. After all, a company can sell itself all it wants. But unless they have the social proof to back up their claims, it’s just not going to resonate as well as it could. That’s why we implemented a transition from email based feedback to public reviews on platforms like Facebook and Google. Now, we actively ask people who work with us to share their experiences online. Through this, we’ve built up over 100 reviews in a short period of time on Google: so anyone who searches for our company automatically sees what real people think about our company and the services we offer.
It all comes down to this. People want to know what others think about services or products before investing their own time and money.
Social media gives people the power to do that. It also opens up a channel of communication from businesses to consumers, and consumers to other consumers.
Whether it’s the comments section of your post on Instagram, or a review on your Facebook page. Social proof via social media heavily influences how others perceive your company. If you do a good job of managing this engagement, then your business will do well too.
So, where do you start?
Of course, the exact way a company leverages social media will vary across industry type, but ultimately, everyone is using the same platforms to get their message across. This means that recruiting agencies can (and should!) be doing everything to leverage technology and social media to drive candidates and clients to their company.
Strategy is everything when it comes to social media marketing. For recruiters, knowing exactly what kind of content you want to produce can be difficult. Do you want to advertise your clients’ roles on social media? How about start conversations up with HR and salespeople? Or maybe you want to share your tips with fellow recruiters.
Whatever your goals are, market research is a great place to start. You should already have an idea of your target demographic. Find out what speaks to them, and the platforms they’re using. You’ll probably find that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter dominate while sites like Medium, Quora, Reddit and YouTube can be introduced as you ramp up your content efforts.
Experimenting is everything when it comes to a solid content strategy. You need to be willing to adjust your content to cater to your audience, or you won’t resonate with them. Don’t make content for content’s sake! Everything you post should have purpose, and you’ll see better engagement as a result.
Once you’ve taken some to come up with a content plan, don’t wait to execute it! The world of social media is fast paced, so come prepared and watch as this marketing avenue helps to bring in new clients and candidates for your agency.
One final piece of advice
Before we go, it has to be said: whatever you decide to do with your social media marketing plan, remember to know the platform you’re using! Every recruiter’s favorite site, LinkedIn, has purpose-built chat functions for you to speak to potential candidates or clients. But Instagram doesn’t. Neither does Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. So remember, it’s fine to use social media to bring in new business, but you need to be authentic first.
Find ways to connect with people, and you’ll see just how beneficial social media marketing can be for your agency!
