It goes without saying that we are living in a world utterly consumed by social media. You only need to look at your own activity or around you on a busy commute and everyone is participating, whether that’s from a personal point of view or from a business perspective. And this is particularly prevalent where millennials and Generation Z are concerned, the generation who have been brought up on gadgets and the web.
One study shows that the motivations for using social media differ, from filling up spare time, keeping in contact with friends and relatives, to staying up-to-date with news and even to meet new people. Statistics show that a whopping 2.46 billion people use social media worldwide and so it’s only natural that the importance of social media should be noted, both in terms of your HR strategy and your sales and marketing strategy. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn are growing at a ferocious rate; they are incredibly powerful and so it makes business sense that HR departments leverage social media in fundamental ways:
Talent acquisition
It’s extremely difficult to find candidates with the skills, attitudes, ability and experience to fill a specific position in your business. Social media can certainly play a part in making this a more efficient process, actually making it a tool to aid the talent acquisition process. It’s also an extremely cost-effective and intuitive tool which allows you to engage with a much wider audience, giving you the ability to improve on your current recruitment techniques.
Employees often use social media to promote events at their company, to show their friends and family what they’re doing or even to have a moan about their workplace. Obviously positive PR means that potential candidates are able to see what a great company you are, and this is fantastic publicity as well as cost-free and extremely organic.
The power of LinkedIn
LinkedIn from a recruitment point of view gives recruiters access to communicate and connect with a more diverse set of potential candidates who may fit the description of your “ideal candidate”. You could use your company page to advertise your role/s. LinkedIn works by ensuring target candidates are made aware of the role and the suitability for them based on their skills and experience, in their particular industry.
There is also a jobs tab at the top of the site whereby candidates can search for a specific role in a specific location, making the search extremely simple for the candidate and extremely targeted from a business point of view. This can work in support of traditional methods of recruitment and advertising.
The best thing about LinkedIn is that it’s incredibly intuitive and aids HR professionals or managers within a business to recruit talent with very little input or effort from their side. Those candidates who are perfect for your business, who are in fact not actively looking at that point in time, are also made aware of your role and they may see something which sparks interest and makes them think about potentially leaving their current role. This works through job feeds or news feeds.
An insight into candidates
For those candidates who have expressed an interest in your advertised role, social media allows you to information gather and build a picture around their application and CV. It’s essentially a great way to vet candidates. As mentioned previously, most people are on social media in some way, shape or form. Yes, their profiles on some platforms may be private, but do some investigation work and use social media to paint a picture of the individual. Of course, you wouldn’t use it as a stand-alone tool for recruitment in this way, but you can certainly avoid making some serious recruitment mistakes and will be able to potentially determine if the person is a fit for the culture of your business.
Culture
We’ve discussed culture extensively within our blog and as we all know, a company’s culture plays a huge part in attracting and retaining talent. So why not use social media to promote your company culture in a direct way. We’ve spoke about how this can happen in a very indirect way with individual posts; however, social media is such a great communication tool, it would be criminal not to use it to its fullest extent. Communicate your company’s values through regulated and planned content. Publicly display your culture from using your company’s Facebook and LinkedIn pages to promote recent company events with posts and photos to creating team building hashtags on Twitter. It’s up to you to manage your online reputation and an active presence immediately presents a company as innovative and forward-thinking, fun and rewarding.
Social media has transformed the way we communicate in our personal lives, and now it’s important to make sure that businesses use social media strategically in-line with their business strategy and goals. As an HR function or manager, make sure you understand the power and value social can bring, especially with regard to talent acquisition and retention. If you would like help and guidance where social media is concerned, please contact me now on: 01453 297557 or email enquiries@peepshr.co.uk.
