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It is spring.

Spring is the BEST time to clean up your social recruiting.

Mostly because of the whole spring cleaning thing, but also because:

A - It's usually around this time that our New Years resolutions start to slip

B - It's reaaaaaaally nice out and becoming more efficient will give you more time to chill in the sun and eat popsicles

I know how important popsicles are to you, so I'm going to share some tools that will make staying on top of your social media strategy a breeze!

Check out these 5 effective tools for improving social recruiting, marketing, and reach!

1. ShortStack: The ShortStack app organizes all of your content, resources, docs, and videos so that you can access them from a single platform. You can use ShortStack to run contests, polls, data collection and analytics. I'm having a blast playing around with the free version and suggest you do the same.

2. Trello: Do you collaborate with other human beings? If so, the Trello app is a game changer. We've been using Trello to organize, track, and, improve the efficiency of pretty much all of our projects at Jobcast. It's easy to use, and makes communication amongst team members super simple, which is difficult considering we all work remotely and from different countries!

3. Swayy: Are you using Swayy yet?! I told you about it like three weeks ago! Swayy is my favorite new content aggregator. It gathers data from your social networks to suggest new content that is perfectly suited to your target audience. I've definitely seen major improvements in the variety of my content strategy since adding Swayy to my arsenal, but even more importantly, it saves me tons of time!

4. Jobcast: Of course I would say Jobcast, but come on, we automate your social sharing, integrate seamlessly with your ATS which means you only have to share a job post once to have it appear on all of your social networks and major job boards, and we even have an awesome scheduling tool. The Jobcast Facebook recruiting app is a huge time saver for anyone using social media and Facebook to recruit.

5. Powtoon - Recruiting videos increase rate of application, improve engagement, and are a generally great way to express your company culture! Powtoon is a great little app that makes it very, very easy to put together short animations that you can use for both recruiting and marketing. Check out this short video I made using Powtoon. It's pretty decent considering it was my first attempt at using the app... and I am definitely not artistically gifted!

Now it's time to take a much needed break and enjoy some delicious icy treats :D Happy Link Loving and barbecuing!

Facebook has been doing a little spring cleaning of late. Okay, a LOT of spring cleaning. Not much new there, except that most of their recent updates are geared towards Page owners and, as such, anyone using Facebook to recruit. Yes, that’s you! Not only that, but one of these updates is the re-introduction of a truly fantastic recruiting tool, and another marks a complete shift in how you use Facebook ads to promote your job posts, and target candidates.

Here’s what you need to know about Facebook’s most recent updates

Important Facebook has (finally) updated their Pages manager for IOS. As a Page manager you may now Pin and unpin posts to the top of your Timeline, make photos from your Timeline and albums your profile image, and create and edit events from your iPad. Pages got a re-vamp. Well, most peoples’ Pages did! If your Page hasn't been updated yet, it should happen shortly. Here’s what you’ll notice:

• A new layout with the right column of your Page displaying your Timeline, and the left column dedicated to information about your brand. This information will depend on your business, but you’ll likely see details about Page Likes, posts, apps, and video along with contact information including a map, and hours of operation.

• Apps will be displayed less prominently, in the left column, or under the “More” tab in the navigation menu.

• A “This Week Box”, which contains new messages and Likes, information about your current ad campaigns, and unread notifications.

For the new FB Page layout dimensions check out this article by Inside Facebook

Very Important You can now Facebook stalk your competition automatically and in complete secrecy. The new “Pages to Watch” feature allows you to select up to five pages to monitor. Facebook does notify Page managers that they are being watched, but doesn't tell them by whom, so your secret is safe! I have my five, do you have yours?

MOST Important Facebook ads have changed a LOT! Facebook will no longer be offering sponsored stories starting on April 9th. When I first heard this, I must admit, I was pretty grumpy! Until I read FB’s explanation and learned that they plan on adding social context to ALL Facebook ads. Social context is pretty much the key to FB ads’ high ROI, so now I’m totally okay with it. The Core Audiences feature of Facebook ads is now much more widely available even more targeted than before. This is great for recruiters because it allows you to target potential candidates by location, demographic, interests, and behaviors.

Here’s a breakdown of all the recent changes to the Core Audiences feature

Lookalike Audiences are back, and now they bring some serious value for your Page! You can use this feature to generate multiple Lookalike audiences with which to target users similar to your pre-existing fan-base. This is an incredible way to insure that the jobs you promote with Facebook ads get seen by your target market.

Here’s a detailed explanation of how you can use Facebook Lookalike Audiences I’m sure that as soon as I publish this blog post there will be at least ten new Facebook updates I wish I had included! How do you stay on top of the ever evolving medium that is social media? Oh, and just in case you didn't know; the best way to spring clean your Facebook recruiting is by installing the Jobcast Facebook recruiting app. I'm sure you already knew that though ;)

If a job is posted on Facebook and no candidate is there to click “Like” does that job post even exist? Yes. Obviously! That job post may exist, but it’s certainly not helping anyone’s hiring efforts. Facebook recruiting is awesome; it’s being used by most of the top employers out there these days because it works. It works really really well, but only  if employers make driving traffic to their Page a top priority. Unfortunately, many employers still treat Facebook the same way they would a job board. They post their jobs and move on. Trouble is; Facebook is NOT a job board! You must drive traffic to your Page in order to see results. On Monday we were lucky enough to have the very clever Gareth Cartman contribute e a guest post on our blog. In his post Gareth explains how you can use SEO to improve your recruiting and get your job posts seen by potential candidates. If you haven’t already, I highly suggest you read Gareth’s post, and then check out his other articles over at Clever Little Design, where he shares even more great tips for improving your reach and growing your brand. Once you've paid Gareth a visit, take a look at these links for even more ways you can get potential candidates' eyes on your job posts: My all time, number one, top pick for improving your social recruiting is Facebook ads. Find out why I think they are so effective for recruiting, and learn how to use Facebook ads to target qualified candidates in this white paper. If Facebook ads are choice number one for boosting your job posts’ reach, then what's choice number two? Twitter! Twitter is the perfect place to advertise the jobs you post on Facebook and your career site, if you have followers that is! Check out this post by Media Bistro to learn the easiest way to get more Twitter followers. Visual content boosts engagement. This is a true fact; Facebook also gives visual content higher priority when selecting what to display in users’ news feeds, so it's kind of a big deal. Check out this post by Heidi Cohen for 5 tips that will improve your visual content. I saved the most comprehensive for last. This post over at Creative Market is heeeyuuuuge, but worth reading from start to finish because it is chock full of easy to implement advice for driving traffic to your site(s).  Seriously, don’t skip this one. I hope these links help you ensure that you never again post a job without a candidate there to click the Like button. Happy Link Loving! Oh, and definitely sign up for our news letter… You won’t regret it!

Facebook ads are my favorite tool for social recruiting. Whether you want to reach passive candidates (and seeing as they make up 86% percent of the workforce, who wouldn't?), increase application volume (obviously!), reach more qualified candidates (even better than quantity I'm told), improve retention (did you know that candidate failure often costs 1.5 times their annual salary?), or all of the above (um, YES!) Facebook ads are your best bet. In our experience Facebook ads can mean the difference between zero candidate interest, and a landslide of applications from qualified talent. In fact, we've helped many of our clients create effective Facebook ad recruiting campaigns that have done exactly this! Facebook ads have higher ROI, and a better click through rate than any other form of web ad. Facebook ads allow you to narrowly target candidates based on the skills you need. They can even help you build a talent pool of qualified candidates by encouraging them to like, and promote your Company Page. The Jobcast team has learned a lot in our years of experience using Facebook ads to help employers succeed at social recruiting. We've compiled some of the best tips and tricks we've found and created this white paper to share that knowledge with you! Download our free white paper guide to Facebook ads now, and improve your hiring today!

Targeted Facebook Ads are the best tool for reaching the right candidates for your jobs. With Facebook Ads you can ensure that your job posts and Career Page connect with candidates who have the skills your company requires. Narrowly targeted Facebook Ads reach their intended user base over 90% of the time! And, the ROI on Facebook Ads is five times higher than typical web ads because they give you access to Facebook’s massive social graph. Download this white paper and get all of the information you need to start using Facebook ads to connect with qualified candidates now! You’ll learn how to:

• Reach candidates who have the skills your jobs require

• Make your job posts viral

• Target talent based on cultural fit

• Optimize your recruiting ROI

• Plan smarter hiring campaigns

OK – show of virtual hands. How many of you have googled a candidate to see what comes up?

I’ll admit it. I’ve done it, and it’s not very HR of me – but some candidates who may have thought they were perfect will have ended up on my “do not invite” list because of their terrible Twitter feeds full of booze and profanity. Some had written blogs full of poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Yeah, we google everyone.

And they’re googling you back, if they’ve got any sense. But what if they’re desperate to work for you, and they just don’t know it. How are they ever going to find out?

Sure, you can post on job boards and you can get a great recruitment agent on board – but sometimes the best people are the ones that have targeted you, and not the other way round. Being findable is half the job these days – so here’s our quick & easy guide to ensuring that you can be found – cutting down the hassle of going out & doing the finding!

Optimising your career pages

This is a simple quick win. A lot of people search for the job title they want, and many search for the company they want to work for.

For instance, they might be searching for “PHP Developer London”, or they might be searching for “Your Company Careers” – so make it easy to find the right page first…

1) Ensure that your page title (meta title) includes Job title + location + Company name + “Careers” – so it could be “PHP Developer London | Your Company Careers”

2) Ensure that the H1 includes the Job Title and the Location. Search engines tend to read pages from top to bottom, looking for key information. The page title and the H1 are two of the first things they look at.

3)  Ensure that you put the job title within the body of the text, and write at least 200 words. ‘Thin’ content doesn’t tend to rank well. Be as descriptive as you can.

4) You’re going to be competing in the search engine results – so make your Meta Description as captivating as possible. Add in a call to action, and you could gain a larger proportion of the clicks from the results page.

Optimising for users

A lot of SEO these days is actually about optimising the page for your users. Google know when a high proportion of your visitors bounce back from your page to the search results within just a few seconds. If that’s happening a lot, you’ll get demoted in the rankings.

It’s only fair.

So do what you can to make the user experience a nice one.

1)  If you have a video promoting how great it is to work in your company, use it. My former employer did this & significantly increased time on site. It’s cheesy, but it works.

2) Make the text readable. Nobody likes big blocks of text. Separate out paragraphs, use sub-headings, let people skim-read (because that’s what they do).

3) Be clear with your calls to action. Don’t hide them, don’t exaggerate them, just be clear about what visitors are going to do & what they’re going to get.

4) Make it quick. Page load time is a ranking factor – if you have big images on the page, or lots of fancy code, you may be slowing yourself down, and pushing yourself down the rankings. Keep your pages as light as possible.

Everyone’s googling each other, and it’s your candidates’ responsibility to ensure that they’re keeping their own online profiles clean. It’s your responsibility to ensure that a) you can be found, and b) your careers pages are read.

PS

This awesome post was written by guest blogger Gareth Cartman.

Gareth is director of digital marketing for Clever Little Design, and has experience in HR, marketing & publishing. You can find him @clevergareth on Twitter or on the CLD blog:http://www.cleverlittledesign.co.uk/blog.

Gareth’s blog is a wealth of information, and extremely fun to read. He’ll be contributing his expertise and clever ideas regularly on the Jobcast blog, so if you have any questions for Gareth, let us know in the comments!

We've been talking a lot about content strategy on the blog lately. Our most recent post was about three kinds of content that are effective for social recruiting. Today's Link Love is a perfect example of one of the types of content we suggested in that post: the shout-out. There are so many awesome bloggers and writers sharing their knowledge of recruiting, employer branding, and social media on the web. They work hard to provide us with free content to learn from. I don't know about you, but I think they deserve a little love (if not a lot!), and one of the best ways to give them the love that they deserve is to shout them out in a blog post. Link Loves are one of my all time favorite forms of content because they give credit to those who deserve it, spread knowledge to those who need it, and facilitate connection and discovery, which is pretty much what social media is all about.

Here are 5 articles to help make your content strategy even better

• Content is King in Recruitment Marketing - By Courtney McGann

• Align Your Social Media and Recruiting Strategies - By Hillary Wolfmann

• Are You Breaking Walter's Rule When Sharing Your Content on Social Media? - By Andy Headworth (This one is both informative and HILARIOUS!)

• 20 Best Content Distribution Platforms- By Heidi "Queen of Content" Cohen

• How to Make Your Website a Party People Want to Attend - By Jerrod Morris

I'm off to try and get this website party started! Happy Link Loving :D

Last week we featured content marketing pro, Megan Lunetta, on the blog. She shared her tips on how to use research and data to create a content strategy that resonates with your target market/ideal candidates.

Megan explained that you cannot simply post “selfish” content, i.e. ads and job posts, and in order to grow your reach, talent pools, and employer brand, you’ll need to have a strategy that includes varied content which provides value to your desired audience.

One of the best ways to set up a content strategy that provides real value, and doesn’t bore your audience to tears, is by following the 4:1 rule. The 4:1 rule is, exactly as the name implies, a ratio for determining what to share, when.

Basically, for every one selfish post that you share, share four “unselfish” posts.

We all know what a selfish post looks like: It’s a job post, a Facebook Ad, or a referral contest, but it’s the unselfish content that often gets neglected in many content strategies. Yet  it’s this unselfish content that is usually the most enticing to potential hires. It’s the type of content that shows visitors what your organization is all about, and gets them excited about the prospect of joining your team.

Even more importantly, unselfish content is awesome because it is the most fun to create… How very selfish of me!

There are so many different kinds of content that you can create to give your audience the value and variety they crave, but I have a few favorites.

Here are the 3 most effective kinds of content for social recruiting:

(In my not so humble opinion!)

Employee Profiles

What

A simple write-up about one of your current team members, preferably accompanied by a quality image, or even better, make it a video! You can present employee profiles in question and answer format, or as a story.

Why

Employee profiles show potential candidates, and your current team, that you value your staff. It’s also a really nice, feel-good way for potential candidates to learn about your business, without having to listen to a recruitment version of a sales pitch!

How

Do:

Make it about the employee, who they are, what they’ve achieved, and what are their goals.

Include a visual. Visual content almost always outperforms text and links. Video is awesome, but a flattering pic of a smiling employee is always a win.

Get them talking about what they love about their job. It’s always nice if you can include some flattering commentary about what makes them a great employee.

Don’t:

Lead with selfish questions, such as: “what do you love about working for our company?”

Shout Outs

What

Again, the name says it all: simply give a shout out to one of the bloggers, experts, or social media accounts in your field (or at least in a similar ballpark) that you think is doing a really good job, and that your audience would benefit from learning about.

Why

Social sharing is caring. People love finding out about cool Twitter accounts and helpful blogs, and your potential hires will love you for helping them to do so! There’s also the added benefit of forging connections with the people whose content you share, and you get a little social media karma to boot.

How

Do:

Follow social media accounts and bloggers in your field, so that you have a wealth of great content to share.

Include personal commentary when you post links, such as a quick note about why you loved the particular article you’re sharing.

Post a variety of content: video, blog posts, re-tweets, all from a variety of sources.

Give credit, and let the person that you are “shouting out” know by tagging them in your post. Then they can re-share it to their own audience, or maybe they’ll even share one of your posts in return.

Don’t:

Share content you haven’t actually read. This can get very, VERY messy. Trust me. At least skim through everything you post.

Don’t shout out terrible content, even if that content’s creator promises to promote you in return. Just like mom, your audience can always tell.

How-Tos and Guides

What

Step-by-step instructions for accomplishing, or becoming better at accomplishing, a task, or a thorough explanation of a topic relevant to your audience.

Why

How-tos are one of the most popular forms of online content. Think about it: why do you use Google? Because you need a question answered or you want to learn how to do something. Same goes for your potential candidates!

How

Do:

Make sure your guide or how-to is relevant, timely, and helpful. To do this, simply ask yourself: Is this a topic that is important to my audience? Is this topic still somewhat unknown, or confusing to people? Does the content I am sharing actually shed light on this topic? If you answer yes to all three, you’re good to go.

Example: “How to get hired by your dream company?”

Don’t:

Dumb things down. If you’re ideal candidates are highly-skilled graphic designers, create the kind of guide that highly-skilled graphic designers would find useful!

These are my top choices for diversifying your content strategy, but there are so many more great types of content you can share. We’ll save those for a separate post though, because another key to creating valuable content is: shorter is sweeter. (And at this rate you may start calling me the sour patch kid!)

Happy social recruiting, and remember to sign up for our awesome newsletter!

I may not work in human resources, but having grown up with both parents working in HR I feel like I can very safely say: HR is tough. From navigating finicky policy to navigating finicky staff, from trying to make everyone happy to trying to find awesome new employees… who you will then have to make happy, it just plain tough! That's why it’s important to stay motivated. Otherwise you'll just burn out, or worse, have a social media meltdown! But how can you stay inspired? Life coaches are expensive, and motivational posters are pretty dorky… So instead, check out these cool articles for some totally free, and un-dorky HR inspiration: We’ll start with the most inspiring dude on the internet; Seth Godin. This guy just inspires the heck out of people, every time!

Check out this blog post about creating a wowday. Okay, so that’s probably as dorky as a motivational poster, but reading this blog post is far less conspicuous, so at least no one will know! Looking outside the box when recruiting can help you stay motivated and help you find better candidates. This article suggests three unexpected sources of candidates who could make great sourcers! In order to stay motivated it’s super important to feel like you’re making a positive change through the work that you do. This article is all about how to make sure HR is adding value. Some people are just insanely awesome motivators. Rayanne Thorn is one of those people. Her blog posts are always inspirational and whip smart. In this post she shares some great thoughts about multitasking and shares some great advice to get you motivated and ready to face the day! I’ll leave you with her 6 edges of success: 1. Risk 2.  Motivation 3.  Center 4.  Balance 5.  Focus

6.  Act, as in DO!

Couldn’t have said it better, wouldn’t even try! Happy social recruiting :D

You can call it what you want: content marketing, journalism, or just plain writing, but having useful resources for your audience is a pretty big deal (even in recruitment). You savvy readers out there know that having content can help guide those of us not yet ready to buy in making the big decision down the road. Creating killer content can be puzzling. By honing in on your inner “Sherlock Holmes” power of deduction, you can see what the rest of us don’t see. If you can do that, your content can become some pretty powerful stuff. Who knows? It can even lead to your readers advocating for your brand… and that’s what we all want, right?

Be an Expert Audience Detective

As the great detective once said, “My name is Sherlock Holmes.  It is my business to know what other people don't know.” As Social Media and Content Marketing pros, it’s your job to be experts on your brand and your customers. Before you start writing, put your detective hat on and discover your audience: where are they; what are they reading; and what gets their attention. Don’t know where to start? Take the first step by researching your customer. Put yourself in your customers' shoes and create buyer personas to understand your audience and their pain points. After all, you want to prove that you can solve their problems.

Strategy! Strategy! Strategy! Sherlock Holmes used strategy and reasoning to solve complex cases. Do not write content just to have content! Start by mapping your content to the different stages of the buying cycle (awareness, education, comparison/validation, purchase). Case studies are not enough. Potential customers are not all ready to buy; some need to be educated about the problem you’re trying to solve. Now it’s time to build a content marketing calendar you can stick to! Leverage people around you to contribute based on their specialties and interests. Don’t forget to build relationships with influencers by sharing their content and featuring them in your own content. This can potentially lead to some awesome co-branded content! Next, get to writing! Not everything will work for your audience, but that’s why you must test and learn. For example, try blogging for the awareness stage, webinars and industry information for the education stage, case studies and demos for the comparison stage, and product information and data sheets for the purchase stage. You may be surprised by what works with your audience.

Look at the Facts Sherlock Holmes doesn't make assumptions, because “it is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.” Be smart about your content marketing by looking at the facts. Once you develop your strategy and know the goals for your content, dive into the analytics and customer behavior to understand what is and is not working. Stay ahead of the game by measuring your content with performance scorecards.

Just like Holmes, you should be demanding, “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay.” Looking into actionable metrics based on your content’s goal can give you great insights about your content marketing strategy. Brilliant content marketing campaigns utilize marketing tools and best practices for success. Amplify your content in a smart way by promoting your content on social media, featuring content in email newsletters, leveraging paid advertising, hosting content on external websites, and reaching out to those influencers. Don’t forget to re-purpose, rewrite, and reuse content in new and different ways. Gather all the facts, pay attention to the details, have a plan of attack, and let your powers of deduction get to work!