Many recruitment companies and private organisations are benefiting from the so-called branded social recruitment strategy. No different from marketing a product or service through social media, this strategy simply refers to any effort made to create relevant noise to increase awareness of an employer brand. This strategy proves effective because a big part of everyone’s life on a day-to-day basis is made online. No wonder, it becomes imperative for an organisation’s HR management to capitalize this “space” to attract and engage top talents.

The fact remains that a lot of companies are vying for the same top talents and the challenge here is to make a difference. Eager to try or include social media strategy in your recruitment? Here are the basic steps: 

Step 1 – Define and concretize your brand

If your organisation is having a difficult time defining what a brand really is, it’s this: a promise. The moment you see a bottle of Coke, you’re expecting refreshment; a tube of Colgate and you’re expecting clean teeth. Branding is as simple as that, it should right away impart a promise of engaging work experience, corporate stability in the industry or potential for professional growth. The work culture must also be clearly impressed by your brand. When this is well represented, you’ll be attracting the right kind of talents for your organisation without risking positive working relationships among workers.

See also: Science-based Talent Acquisition for Better Recruitment and Engagement 

Step 2 – Spread it out across all forms of online media

Find out what’s popular among the targeted talents and study how they access these channels. In other words, be where they are and start engaging – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms. Create a blog if you haven’t done so and fill it with relevant content aimed at giving prospective talents a glimpse of how beneficial it is to work in your organisation. Then, create an ongoing marketing outreach calendar and prepare your recruitment team for engagement.

Step 3 – Identify and monitor responses

It might take a while before your community of prospective talents engages actively, but when they do, your recruitment team should be ready to monitor their responses. Are they liking or sharing your content? If they do, where do they spread it? Is there a particular workplace issue they respond to when discussed in your social media posts? What could be their concerns? 

Let their engagement with your organisation harbor on trust by paying attention to their issues and concerns. The more your team presents themselves as a reliable source of information, the more they will connect. Feel free to use a variety of resources like webinars, online forums and blog posts to communicate or reply on their concerns.

Step 4 – Execute the funnel system of recruitment strategy

The “funnel” system functions as how you know funnels to be – to shift through the prospective candidates from the real ones. Imagining how a funnel looks like, the top line is where your community engages with you in the attraction phase, working downwards some will begin to connect and human resource management systems might now take place to screen candidates. Moving further downwards the selected candidates are now given the opportunity to join the corporate team.

Social media might no longer be just a trend, but it is also where your talents gather. 

Read also: The Pluses & Minuses of Internal and External Recruitment