Facebook
The core attraction of recruiting over Facebook is its sheer size. At the end of September 2020, there were 2.74 billion monthly active users4, so arguably more people will come across your recruitment on this platform than on any other. Facebook has its own powerful built-in search engine, Graph Search, which allows you to search against publicly-listed profiles, meaning you can pinpoint people in certain locations and even roles or companies (if they’ve made that information available).
One of the most popular recruitment tactics on Facebook is to set up a company page to share photos and videos of employees to reflect a more three-dimensional view of your organisation’s culture. Barclays, for example, has a dedicated Facebook page for early careers and graduate recruitment, showcasing stories from people who have been through its internships, apprenticeships and graduate schemes alongside links where candidates can apply. As with LinkedIn, Facebook groups can be another cost-effective option to get your employer brand out there: student or alumni groups are a good option, or specific-interest groups related to the role or your industry.
You can of course post a job ad on Facebook on your personal timeline, but this will be limited to your friends or friends of employees. Paid-for posts offer the option to boost and target your reach depending on the criteria you’re looking for – using a general “we are hiring” ad is a more cost-effective option if there are multiple roles, but for hard-to-source skills a specialised post could attract more attention.
Twitter
With limited word counts in each post, early social recruiters used Twitter as a way to simply post links to jobs, but it has evolved since as an effective way to entice potential candidates in to see more of your brand. For one, it’s easier to start a conversation with your audience as there is no barrier of being ‘connected’ to someone, you can simply follow relevant talent and reach out to them. However, getting to know potential candidates is a good idea rather than sending direct messages or tagging them in tweets about jobs: what content do they publish or retweet? Who do they follow and does this reflect their professional interests? Are there people they interact with that could also be worth targeting?
A subtler strategy is to use Twitter to amplify your employer brand and recruitment marketing efforts and show off the company’s personality. The character count allows you to embed links to videos or longer blog articles that showcase your culture. Social media scheduling company Hootsuite does this well: its Hootsuite Careers (@hootsuitelife) includes a range of stories from how the company has responded to the Black Lives Matter movement to how it supported an employee to relocate. For cost-conscious recruiters, perhaps the main advantage of using Twitter for recruitment is that it is completely free.
Instagram
The picture and video-led platform is often favoured by younger audiences so is good for showcasing workplace culture, or using imagery to spark a conversation with potential candidates. There are around 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram, and 71% of them are under 355.
Claire Stapley, a recruitment marketer who has worked on a number of hiring campaigns, says that content has to add value to the target audience if it is to be effective. “This shows you’re credible and know your demographic. Generation Z, for example, are thinking about inclusion and an organisation’s impact on the environment and are less concerned about salary,” she says. “It’s not about sharing how great your company is, but outlining initiatives you may have, content you’ve written or something relevant from another platform. As long as it’s in line with your brand values, that’s great.”
The type of content you could share on Instagram can be broken into three key areas: people, events and environment. People stories might include celebrating an employee’s achievement, events could showcase the social side of the business, while environment can give candidates a feel for what the workplace itself will be like. Choosing the right hashtags is critical on this platform – you could create a dedicated hashtag for your brand as well as use popular ones such as #nowhiring, #jobs and #jobsearch. Cisco’s dedicated @wearecisco account is a good example of life at the technology company; there are few direct references to open roles but a huge mix of stories and videos about its employees and ethos.