Growth is tricky. Just ask 70 percent of all failed startups, since that’s how many fail due to premature scaling. There’s an art to it, and when you hit the stage at which you’re looking for new employees, you’ll need to be on top of your social media game in order to land the best.
As with any issue that faces businesses, there’s a research report to help. “Inside Social Media: Course corrections ahead” is a paper released this year from our friends at Universum Global. Here’s a quick look at the highlights from the study on social media recruiting.
Know Your EVP
The Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is an integral element for any business using social media to drum up employees. If you don’t know what you provide, you can’t offer a clear, clean, enticing social media post. So how do you put one together?
“Your EVP must capture the essence of what it’s like to work for your organization. We often tell clients the EVP must fulfill five key requirements: it must be attractive, true, credible, distinct and sustainable. “
Use Your Current Employees
Here’s a classic tip for recruiting businesses: Rely on your current employees to locate potential new ones. You’ll need to know the regulations of your industry so that you don’t step out of line, but using a few brand ambassadors can turn up the best and brightest applicants.
And it’s easier said than done. From the report:
“Thirty-nine percent of talent leaders rank high on using employee referrals, but only 8 percent truly feel best in class, according to LinkedIn.”
Pick the Right Social Network
Don’t try to get on all social networks. Pick the one that fits your business. The Economist, for instance, recently dumped Tumblr and Pinterest in favor of LinkedIn. And LinkedIn might not even be right for you, according to the report:
“While the company is guarded about users’ habits, it appears time on site is dropping even while LinkedIn has invested a massive effort on its news feed. In 2012, time on site was 17 minutes; in 2014, the figure dropped to approximately 10 minutes. Many employer brands put the majority of their efforts into LinkedIn because it’s the ‘career site’, yet LinkedIn might not be the right platform for all social recruiting and employer branding activities.”
Beware Vanity Metrics
While vanity metrics are fine for getting attention from customers, they’re not a practical way to gauge your growth:
“Not all attention is good attention. Don’t over-focus on vanity metrics, such as views or likes. Instead, ask whether your message is reaching the right people and whether those individuals are taking any kind of meaningful action based on your message. Ultimately you’re not looking for attention, you’re aiming for engagement.”
What should you look for? Shares, retweets, and any analytics that tell you what demographic is viewing your pages.
Stay Visual
“Our research shows highly visual messages – whether photos, infographics, or videos – connect more effectively on all platforms.”