Approaching candidates through a social recruiting campaign is one of the most cost-efficient ways to find talent. It allows you to be in full control over exactly who sees your content and therefore what you’re spending your money on. On top of that, if you want to stay ahead of the game and top of mind for your dream candidates – you need to spend your money where your candidates are spending their time. But, diving into the world of social media with the aim to recruit your future talent can be confusing. Thankfully, we’re here to guide you through the 3 big mistakes to avoid in order to create a successful social recruiting campaign!
1. Turning copy into a list of demands
According to Fors Marsh, mobile users spend on average 1.7 seconds with a piece of content on Facebook. This means that the copy for your social recruiting campaign needs to captivate the reader right from the start. Don’t fall into the trap of turning your copy into a list of what you’re looking for in a potential new hire. Instead – make it about them! What do you have to offer that makes you unique as an employer? Here’s a good idea to use your EVP (Employer Value proposition) as a foundation for the type of copy you want to produce. Essentially, you want the candidate to get a sense of what it could be like working for you. Don’t forget to make it short and to the point. A novel isn’t going to stop someone from scrolling – but a good punchline will!
“Do you have a passion for news and creating digital products that stand out? “
Starting off with a question to catch the attention of the kind of person you’re looking for is always a good start. Try to avoid mentioning hard skills when creating your social campaign – this is not a job advert but a way to intrigue the talents you’re looking for to feel like they want to know more.
“We’re looking for someone with at least 5 years of experience within product management”
This will immediately put anyone off. As mentioned earlier – even though there are mandatory skills or qualities you’re looking for. Making your social campaign sound like a job advert before even landing on the actual URL will turn a lot of valuable talents away… Just like when we’re selling something – we don’t start with what we want from them. We always need to begin with what they can get from us.
2. Quantity over quality
Unlike traditional recruiting channels, social recruiting campaigns let you be in full control over who you’re targeting your campaign to. While it might be tempting to make the audience as wide as you can, which… Is understandable, you want to reach as many people as possible to increase the chances of finding the right one. But the “spray and pray” method is long gone and will only end up by you wasting your time and energy. Tempting, but not that cost-efficient.
Say that you’re looking for a candidate with Spanish as their native language, make sure to target your ad only towards people who fill these criteria rather than paying for a larger audience where the majority isn’t even relevant. Always have your candidate persona in mind and make sure you’re targeting only people who might be a good fit. This all depends on your objective – if you instead are aiming to create awareness, reaching a wider audience can actually be a smart move. Why? Because it’s a test period where you’re finding out what works and what doesn’t before you make a move.
3. Use video as a conversion tool
There’s a lot of buzz going on about the power of video in social media. Video ads are a great choice when you want to create awareness around your employer brand and showcase your company culture. However, when it comes to social recruiting campaigns with the aim of wanting people to take a certain action, image ads work in general around 30% better. Running an awareness video for 4 days and re-targeting the people that showed interest in it with an image ad (with a clear call-to-action) for another 4 days will give you 1.3x more conversions. The conversion rate is always higher when you target an audience that has already shown interest than finding new leads.
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