Social Media As A Hiring Tool For YOUR Business?

Eight ways to leverage social media as a hiring tool..

Related Article: How Social Media Fits Into YOUR Hiring Plan?

If you're not currently using social media in your hiring process, you're in the minority:

A 2017 CareerBuilder survey found that 70% of employers now use social media to screen potential hires.

But it's not just about checking a candidate's timeline for angry rants or questionable photos — social platforms can also be a great recruiting tool. According to Betterteam, nearly 95% of recruiters use social media to post and promote job openings, and 59% of employees say they chose their current workplace in part because of the company's social media presence.

No matter how you choose to incorporate it, social media can ultimately help you find and evaluate top talent for your organization. Eight members of the Forbes Agency Council shared their top ways to leverage this tool for hiring.

Related Article: YOUR Brand In The Age Of Social Media?

1. Find Behaviors And Writing Samples In Past Posts

The popularity of social media continues to grow both in personal and professional use, with a lot of the content staying around forever. Use social media platforms as both a medium for checking potential hires' past post types and quality (for instance, have they posted anything that could harm your brand?), as well as finding fresh writing samples. -Timothy Nichols, ExactDrive, Inc

2. Evaluate A Candidate's Personality

Segmenting potential employees not only by their expertise but also by their personality traits is very important when recruiting creative roles. Having contrasting characters and opinions is key to develop an innovative team that can produce integral and original concepts. We've used social media targeting tools to find different archetypes for a more comprehensive recruiting process. - Carlos Machicao, Wild Pixel Media

Related Article: YOUR Social Media 2.5 Billion User Reach?

3. Promote Your Opening On All Social Channels For The Widest Reach

When we advertised for a position that was specific to the industry we serve, we incorporated the job posting into all of our owned media channels. The position was posted on our website and promoted through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and our weekly newsletter. We added Facebook ads to help extend our reach.

The results were more qualified applicants and fewer dollars spent on recruitment. - Nicole Mahoney, Break the Ice Media

4. Use LinkedIn For Targeted Recruiting

When we need someone who already has experience in our industry for an upper-level position, LinkedIn has helped pull in talent with resumes that fit the exact profile we are looking for.

This platform has allowed for focused recruiting. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram assist to provide further insight on the candidate. - Meredith Xavier, The Ligne Group

Related Article: Finding YOUR Target Audience On Social Media?

5. Encourage Employees To Share Their Own Experiences With Your Company

Don't just use social media as another job listing platform. Enlist your staff to not just to share the post, but to share their experiences. People want to work someplace that other people love. If your staff share firsthand experiences, their testimonials become your calling card instead of basic job listings. - Craig Greiwe, Rogers & Cowan

6. Use Appropriate Social Channels To Show Off Different Aspects Of Your Company

Social media gives companies and candidates the tools they need to creatively share. We utilize Twitter to educate, Facebook for culture and LinkedIn to share company achievements. LinkedIn Video is an up-and-coming tool that must be leveraged to engage and educate. I even suggest using Snapchat geofilters during large conferences where key talent comes together. -Nyma Quidwai, Blue Water Ads

Related Article: Putting The "Social" Into YOUR Social Media?

7. See If Candidates Are Engaging With Your Brand On Social Media

It's important for us to see a potential hire engaging with our company or industry on social media. Rather than asking, "Are you familiar with our clients?" we can know if they did their research and if they "like" our clients by seeing if they've engaged online or not. -Jennifer Wentzo, coded{PR}

8. Inspire FOMO In Candidates With Your Social Presence

Instagram has enabled us to brand and differentiate ourselves as an employer. We communicate culture and workplace experience through a distinct voice and a focus on our people, not our services. This has the added effect of making sure we stay interesting internally. We want potential candidates to feel major FOMO (fear of missing out). -Mike Skeehan, Salted Stone, Inc.

Guest Authored By Forbes Agency Council. Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Follow Forbes Agency Council on Twitter.

Related Article: Trends YOU Should Be Using In 2018?

"If you're not currently using social media in your hiring process, you're in the minority:

A 2017 CareerBuilder survey found that 70% of employers now use social media to screen potential hires.." -Forbes Agency Council

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO  where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

How Social Media Fits Into YOUR Hiring Plan?

I’ve said it countless times: Meet your audience on their platform of choice. We’re no stranger to this tactic in the world of PR, digital and social media marketing agencies..

You use social media for business strategies, but are you making the most of this cost-effective tool in your hiring process?

Related Article: YOUR Own Marketing Agency In 7 Steps?

How Social Fits Into Your Hiring Plan

At my company, we’ve expanded this theory above and beyond consumer and B2B marketing and into the world of social recruiting.

Businesses know that millennials are the largest generation in the U.S. workforce, and social recruiting uses digital platforms to meet future employees where they are: online.

A candidate’s digital presence serves to supplement a resume, but that’s just the beginning of how social media can reshape your hiring plan.

Social platforms essentially facilitate conversations, be it between individuals or brands and consumers. When qualified candidates are in the final rounds of consideration, social media can serve to show which ones are already contributing to digital conversations.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Platforms Strategy?

What To Look For In A Social Profile

Common sense keeps most candidates from posting questionable content on their public profiles, but that’s just the basics. Identifying skilled candidates means recognizing potential. Are they retweeting articles by industry thought leaders? Do they have LinkedIn endorsements for skills that can add to your agency’s capabilities? What type of content are they resharing or interacting with?

A designer’s Instagram may serve as an unofficial portfolio while an account exec’s blog posts may showcase their aptitude for branded content creation. In many cases, personal profiles show a distinct voice, visual identity or overall brand. A sense of awareness is a sign of emotional intelligence, which is on every recruiter’s radar.

While a social media profile doesn’t need to be sterile or professionally branded, it should convey a sense of that candidate’s relationship with social media. Someone who is passionately plugged-in can bring that curiosity and drive to their work. And, on the other hand, for those who display highly negative or concerning behavior on social media, you should be mindful of how they would fit in with your culture.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Brand Voice?

Make The First Move

Your agency can strategically reach out through social channels for cost-efficient results, from directly engaging with passive candidates via LinkedIn to targeting the ideal applicant with Facebook ads. By customizing an ad’s audience on Facebook or Instagram, you can boost messaging to reach a finite demographic.

For example, if you are using social advertisements to recruit for an entry-level position, your agency can pay to target ads to recent graduates as opposed to an experienced audience or passive candidates. You then effectively spend less while reaching more realistic candidates. By targeting likely candidates online, agencies can stretch ad spend while increasing efficiency.

It’s a unique advantage for both the candidate and the employer to connect organically online. Savvy job seekers know to use their public social media platforms as a tool to share their skills; it’s up to your hiring team to identify these standout candidates.

Guest Authored By Kelly Ehlers. Kelly is Founder and President of Ideas That Evoke. An influencer and social media agency focused in the beauty, lifestyle and luxury markets. Follow Kelly on Twitter.

Related Article: Social Media Platforms For YOUR Career?

“It’s a unique advantage for both the candidate and the employer to connect organically online.

Savvy job seekers know to use their public social media platforms as a tool to share their skills; it’s up to your hiring team to identify these standout candidates.."

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

How To Make Social Media Pay?

Quantifying the tangible value of social media can be tricky, but travel marketer Nick Livermore has some handy tips to measure its ROI..

The state of social media marketing in 2017 is better than it's ever been. According to reports there was a 61.5% increase in businesses' media spend across social channels -- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat -- in the first quarter of this year.

This strongly suggests that social media is moving ever closer to the center of marketing budgets.

But something doesn't quite add up. There lingers a perception that social media is "fluffy", and unable to deliver or contribute to the sales ambitions of a business. That social media is only good for brand awareness.

While brand awareness is useful, the perception surrounding social media also isn't true. In fact, measured correctly, social media can be shown to contribute to critical points in any business' sales cycle.

Related Article: Promoting YOUR Social Media Content?

Why The Misconception?

The issue stems from the ways in which we choose to measure success on social media.

These are the metrics that platforms like Facebook spoon-feed us. Little to no legwork is needed to report on these, so that's what we choose to do.

Attributing actual value to social media is more difficult, but it can absolutely be done.

Attributed Sales Modeling

Here's where things get a little more involved, but this particular method of measurement is essential to understanding what social media is actually delivering for your business.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Sales Targets?

This is especially the case because of the sheer number of marketing channels there are: from email to social, direct to pay per click (when a company pays Google to appear as a sponsored site when customers enter an agreed search term on Google).

The attitude that "they booked directly from pay per click, so it should be attributed 100% of the value of that sale" is somewhat archaic in 2017.

This is especially true in the travel industry where consumers now perform their research across a relatively large number of sources and long period of time.

Clearly, in 2017 it's important to understand the role each of your marketing streams has in driving online bookings.

The first step towards achieving this is to ensure that your Google Analytics (GA) is set up correctly.

Related Article: The Art Of Winning Social Media Conversions?

Get an expert to appraise how you are currently using GA to ensure you are correctly mapping the purchase and customer journey and that all goals are correctly created.

This is a one-off requirement -- do it once and you'll reap the rewards of the data from that point onwards.

Deciding How To Attribute

Once you have GA tracking set up properly you can use it to see exactly how your clients are making their purchasing decisions.

In GA, this may look something like "Social Media > PPC x3 > Direct > Purchase". This might be the case when a new user spots a post you make on social media and clicks through to your agency website, for example. The next day, they might type your site into their search browser.

Related Article: Money YOU Left Behind on Social Media?

The problem with attributing the full value to the last click involved in the decision is that the "direct" traffic has been your most important source.

In fact, it's probably more accurate for you to give equal weighting to social media, pay per click and direct traffic.

There are other attribution models, but I advocate the usage of those that intelligently distribute value to contributing marketing streams.

For instance, you might give equal value to the first click involved with the purchase, and the last. Or, you might consider a model which attributes increasing value the closer you get to the "last-click" in the purchase cycle.

In this time of multi-channel marketing, this is vital not just from a social media perspective, but to properly understand where your money is best spent.

Guest Authored By Nick Livermore. Nick is a Travel Marketer at TTG. TTG was established as Travel Trade Gazette in 1953, as the world's very first weekly travel trade newspaper. Follow Nick on Twitter.

Related Article: Must Know Skills To Master Social Media?

“Only by taking the time to truly understand the role social media is playing in the purchasing journey of your clients will you be able to realize the return on investment it is having for your agency.." -Nick Livermore

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Maximum Impact Social Media Trends?

With more and more brands trying to connect with audiences across an array of social channels, the attention span of people is on a decline.

Related Article: Your Fractionalized Video Marketing Content?

Businesses need to quickly figure out what’s best for their audiences in order to generate better engagement and increased brand loyalty.

Here are five crucial social media trends that will have the maximum impact on your social media strategy in 2018 and ahead.

Ephemeral content will provide the best engagement rate

Snapchat has led to the popularity of ephemeral content. With 10 billion daily video views, no marketer can ignore the platform that Snapchat provides. It is the best way to reach younger millennials and generation Z.

Ephemeral content is short-lived, and the longest it can last is 24 hours. After that, it disappears forever.

This might sound scary to marketers, but the considerable popularity it has received so far has forced them to develop strategies for ephemeral content marketing.

Related Article: YOUR Social Media Video Marketing?

There are several advantages that Ephemeral content offers:

• Content that is short lived is thought to be more authentic versus sponsored ads or spammy posts that lasts longer and push customers into making purchases.
• The content is lost within hours, so it effectively raises the potential of FOMO (fear of missing out). As a result, audiences take fast action and marketers gain from it.
• Users can access content easily with the help of Snap Codes or QR codes.
• Ephemeral content gives you potential customers’ attention, which is undoubtedly the most prized commodity on the internet today.
• Have a plan in place to reach audiences with the help of an ephemeral content marketing strategy that essentially revolves around producing content (videos and pictures) that is able to engage audiences in the shortest possible time.

Related Article: Important Social Media Network Updates?

Content that engages audiences on a personal level will be liked the most

84 percent of millennials do not trust traditional advertising, so it does not makes any sense to create content that is written from a selling point of view. People do not like content that is not relevant to them. Instead, content that is personalized and based on user personas is more likely to be read and shared.

People do not like content that is not relevant to them. Instead, content that is personalized and based on user personas is more likely to be read and shared.

With buyer personas, you get an exact answer to what your audience wants instead of guessing it. It is much better to prepare content that solves users’ pain points.

Know your target market and create a user persona based on the person’s age, gender, education level, income, likes, location, etc.

Adopt a storytelling approach and narrate the story in a manner and language that your audiences understand best.

Related Article: Creating Engaging Social Media Content?

Reach out to influencers and ask them to share your brand stories.

eMarketer predicted that opinions of around 45 percent of people who buy on the internet are affected by the opinions of other people.

Influencers are people who are connected with your audiences at a personal level and can provide the best engagement, often leading to direct sales, with simple recommendations.

Platforms like Influence.co can help find influencers related to a particular niche. Moreover, contacting influencers also brings search-engine-optimization gains, as brands are able to reach a much wider audience in the shortest possible time.

Engage with the audiences on a personal level. Comment on their posts, share their voices, tag them and respond to them when they need you.

Related Article: Influencing The Social Media Influencers?

Businesses leveraging the power of social chat bots for customer service will win the game

Gartner predicted that by 2018, around 30 percent of our conversations will be assisted by machines.

A chat bot is a software application built to simulate a human-like conversation. It is like a friend to the customer. It assists people 24/7 and helps improve revenue by building lasting relationships with potential customers.

For businesses that have thousands of followers, adopting a personalized marketing strategy for every customer that requires responding to followers’ comments can be a daunting task. Chat bots can assist by creating one-to-one interactions with each follower and responding immediately to the questions posed by them. They are fast, they initiate timely responses and they are always polite no matter how rude the customer’s replies are.

Brands that use chat bots for customer service will certainly win the hearts of audiences and ultimately defeat their competitors.

Related Article: 2018 Future Social Media Trends?

Livestreaming and interactive broadcasting will be the next big thing

Facebook already offers livestreaming via Facebook Live, and businesses must use it to reach their niche target audiences.

Livestreaming requires commitment from audiences, so it will automatically keep the uninterested ones away.

Moreover, with interactive broadcasting channels like Agora, one-way livestreaming is converted into two-way streaming, which allows people to chat with each other.

The best part is that your audience is not required to download another app. It integrates with existing apps and allows brands to reach consumers in real-time.

Related Article: YOUR Live Event Social Media?

AI and image recognition have already begun to transform social media marketing

Social media is no longer a text business for marketers. With around 3.2 billion photos being shared every single day on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the trend is moving toward visual content.

With tools like Einstein Vision for Social Studio, brands now have the power to search for pictures related to their brands on social media. This product from Salesforce uses artificial intelligence algorithms like Einstein Image Classification for image recognition, coupled with visual search, brand detection and product identification.

Brands quickly need to capitalize on this visual phenomenon, as people are more likely to share and comment on posts that contain images. With AI in place, it has become easier for marketers to find visuals that do not have text keyword mentions in them. Moreover, image processing will provide better metrics and accurate data to uncover the minute details that remained inaccessible before AI.

Guest Authored By Guy Sheetrit. Guy is CEO of digital marketing agency Over the Top SEO. Follow Guy on Twitter.

Related Article: Your Image Based Social Media Impact?

“We expect a lot of changes in the social media landscape in 2018, which means that the role of social media marketers is expanding.

Mobile-first is the strategy to adopt, and you only need to combine the power of inbound marketing with the above discussed strategies in order to take your business to the next level.." -Guy Sheetrit

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldbrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)