July 3, 2019
When Facebook first came on the scene during my sophomore year of college, it was a fun site you could use to connect with other people at your school. You used your college ID email to login, and it was locked down to just your campus. Looking back now, that seems light years away from what Facebook has become. There was no way that anyone could have predicted how much a role social media would play in our day-to-day lives, both on a personal and business level.
The numbers
More than three billion people across the globe use social media daily and visit the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram multiple times a day. Furthermore, 54 percent of those users utilize social media to research products and companies. We all tend to look at reviews when making a decision on purchasing an item or hiring someone to perform a service.
Billboards and radio ads used to be the advertising format of choice for promoting a product or service but nowadays it’s about making your product or service visible to your customers where they spend their free time: online.
Social media marketing and your people
Social media marketing is an effective business tool for companies looking to expand their reach outside of their core markets, but did you know that you have a tool that’s just as powerful, and it won’t cost you anything extra? Your employees!
Empowering your people to talk about your business online is not only a key part of an effective marketing strategy, but it also helps foster a sense of culture within your organization. Potential clients love to see what’s going on with your people, whether it’s news of an award win, a social outing, or details of a CSR initiative. Even something as simple as sharing a snapshot of “Pizza Friday” drives home the culture that you’ve worked hard to nurture within your organization.
The idea is to encourage and let the conversations happen naturally. Telling employees what to tweet and when is not the authenticity potential customers or candidates are looking for.
Using social to showcase your employer brand and boost candidate attraction
Social recruiting is more than just posting job listings, it’s taking everything that makes a company a sought-after employer and projecting it outward. Building your employer brand through social media is a great way to give potential new hires a “sneak peek” of what it’s like to work for your company while reinforcing how important your current employees’ roles are within the organization.
In addition, top employers use social media to showcase what they stand for as a business — from company values to their stance on CSR. It can also highlight your company’s use of cutting-edge technology. More companies than ever are using artificial intelligence, gamification, and virtual reality — and social media is an ideal platform to highlight this.
Showcasing great work shows potential hires that your organization not only takes pride in what you do but also the people who make it all possible
Personalization
Sharing what happens in your workplace helps to personalize your business. It shows the human side and opens conversations that may not otherwise happen.
In turn, it gives your staff pride in their workplace when special events and achievements are on display for all the world to see.
There’s a reason it’s called “social media;” the “social” element is integral to it being a successful strategy for your company to get its name out there.
Learn how the Fortune 500 leverage social media in their employer branding efforts in our Fortune 500 Employment Brand Report.
