Your Social Media presence; so what if you have a great product, where are your people?
So you’re a cool company, you’ve amassed a great following, people know what you do, but heck they haven’t got a clue who you are.
But if they know what we do, they know who we are; right?
Wrong!
The RAC, for example, is a well-known company and brand. We all know that when a mini disaster strikes, like your car, won’t start, or your tire has popped, they’ll help you on your way.
But what most of us won’t know is the true size and scale of the company, its culture, the type of people who’ll work there and what makes them a great employer and place to work.
Based on the presence of @RACRecruitment on Twitter only 414 people are in on the secret and this is unlikely to change anytime soon!
Hat’s off to them for giving it a go, but with mixed levels of content with a lack of variety and consistency, there seems to be a lack of a structured strategy.
Maybe if you’ve worked there or you’ve interviewed there or even been on a careers day or event, then you may have some idea.
But for the majority of other people who spend large proportions of their spare time on social media; where are the careers online billboards for most organisations, the interactive sessions and where is the consistent EVP (employer value proposition) messaging to signpost future high performers to their company?
The answer is that; RAC is giving it a go, with mixed success, however, the rest of the market hasn’t often cottoned onto the fact there are huge opportunities for social media recruitment marketing.
The fact is that this is often over looked. Brand first, marketing first, operations or sales first and recruitment, well we’ll get there when we can!
It’s still crazy how many companies understand the importance to recruit great people but expect the magic fairy at the bottom of the garden to make it happen.
Social Media is no different and it poses the same problem we’ve had for years within the recruitment sector. A lack of an understanding around what happens behind closed doors.
I’ve had Hiring Managers in the past tell me they’re an experienced recruiter; “I’ve been conducting interviews and assessing candidates for years, I’ve conducted 100’s of interviews”, they say. Intimating I have nothing to offer on the subject.
Perhaps in the early 90’s, this may have proven them a skilled sifter of cvs and interviewer of candidates. But times have changed and this is a new age where finding talent has become a truly mystical art and serious hard work!
So how is Social Media related?
I hear the same things I’ve heard for years in recruitment. Client says: “I’ve got content, I’ll just share it”. You may as well say I’ve got cash, I may as well spend it! So we know once that cash is spent, you’ll never see a penny again and probably you’ll be left with a handful of things you neither wanted nor needed.
An impulse is a powerful tool for giving you the energy to potentially run very fast in the wrong direction. Good social media just like good recruitment takes a strategy, planning, and technology. You can insist you do it yourself, however, the reality is most don’t have the time, the inclination or the skill to achieve the desired results.
So what’s everybody else doing? Well if you’re really good, you’ve got a great EVP, a good content strategy, a commitment to creating a wealth of content and somebody to advise and support on community management and paid promoted posts, with a primary focus on recruitment.
Graduate pages have a tendency to perform better than other pages!
Perhaps it’s because they invest more time in the channels, the content is better, or maybe it’s just the people running these pages are more engaged and enthused because they are better connected to the audience they are communicating with.
But there is no reason why it shouldn’t be the same across all the channels.
Aldi is a great example of what can be achieved. It’s simple, the messaging and the imagery is good and consistent and most importantly they are responding regularly and positively to all comments. With 66,000+ followers, they seem to be doing pretty well
Well done Aldi! You have your competitors squirming in more ways than one.
So you have created your company pages with enthusiasm, that’s great. But unlike Aldi, they are now sat there doing nothing only highlighting your company’s inability to manage these challenging social channels.
Well, ‘No social media presence is better than a bad social media presence’, well that’s at least what we say when we have no idea what we’re doing!
So what’s the answer, pay a consultancy to do it all for you?
Yes, that’s an option. But first, you should break the journey to the top of the mountain into its constituent parts.
It’s all very well everybody getting excited about climbing to the top of Everest, but if you don’t have a team, a breathing apparatus, some good solid equipment and a strategy in place, you’ll find yourself in a real mess and nowhere near where you wanted to be.
A social strategy is as important as the planning that goes into climbing the highest mountain or strategic assessment of a business’s goals and objectives. Without it, potentially huge amounts of energy are invested into achieving very little results.
So start here with the 7 simple steps to a great social media marketing plan:
- Set some social media SMART objectives.
- Complete a social audit of your company and a select group of competitors.
- Create a social media strategy that is in line with your EVP and/or your values.
- Pick your channels and create or improve and optimise your social media accounts.
- Create a content strategy focused on quality, which is achievable based on the time you have to allocate. You don’t have to cover all social channels at once! Be amazing at one rather than mediocre at three.
- Give yourself realistic mini goals that step by step will help you towards the first marker on your journey to the top of the ‘social’ mountain.
- Put your plan to the test and iterate.
Now you’re ready to go! You won’t just have an amazing company and product, but everybody will know who you really are and why they should come and be a part of your wonderful team.
Social Pathfinder 