Recruiters fail to utilise the power of social media
Recruiters are failing to successfully utilise the potential of social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
- 55% of online jobseekers in the UK used social networking in the first week of their job search, according to Enhance Media.
- LinkedIn - over 63m users in over 200 countries, 11m are in Europe, growing at 3m per month.
- Facebook - more than 400m users worldwide.
- Twitter - more than 75m user accounts.
Recruiters tend to use LinkedIn as a tool for finding candidates and occasionally researching clients. Potential clients on the other hand can easily use it to research the consultant who contacted them, and will view their profile.
To maximise LinkedIn's potential, recruiters should at a basic level, action these few tips:
- Develop a company profile which helps with your digital footprint on the web.
- Review all of your consultants profiles for consistency.
- Ensure your consultants are developing their networks and connections.
- Build up genuine recommendations from clients and candidates.
- Get involved in groups and discussions to build profile and credibility.
There has been much head scratching going on amongst recruiters about Twitter. Should we be using it? What can we do? How do we go about it? The answer is different for every company but if used properly, it can be an excellent tool to build your digital profile, and ultimately drive traffic back to their own website.
A few introductory considerations would be to link your Twitter updates through to LinkedIn profiles, which is a superb way of sending out company news. It could also develop into a PR channel where unique article content has been written on your website and posted through Twitter.
The benefits
Recruiters now more than ever have to prove their worth and add value. They need to understand the online market and show expertise. There is an opportunity to be more consultative and make additional revenue by helping clients who don't understand social media.
The aim of developing profiles within various social media is to ultimately drive more traffic, whether that is candidates or clients, to your company website. This builds your brand in the recruitment market, generates more fees and can result in a lower advertising spend.
Richard Bray, managing director, RBO Consulting
Please contact us for further information about how we can help with your website design, internet strategy and SEO.
