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Be sure to add regularity to your strategy to reel in the recruits.

For today’s job recruiters, social media is an indispensable resource. Platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook allow you to source top talent, which contributes to the success of your company in a big way. But when it comes to social media recruiting, simply showing up is not enough. Above all else, your recruiting strategy on any web platform needs to be consistent. Specifically, you need consistency in the aesthetic, narrative, schedule, and engagement of your posts. Otherwise, you risk damaging your recruiting outcomes in a few ways:

It deters prospective applicants

One of the first things that your recruits will do before submitting their applications is evaluate your web presence. This means that blogs, social media, and websites will be scrutinized. However, social media can influence an applicant more than other channels. It does this by demonstrating your general likability, engagement in the relevant discourse, and can demonstrate a high-functioning internal structure through marketing efforts. The latter is where consistency plays an especially major role. If your company appears to lack support in the marketing and branding areas, an applicant may abandon any thought of applying to work with you because of the perceived hardship—unless, of course, they would be hired to foster these missing elements.

It fails to attract highly talented applicants

Failure to incorporate consistency in your social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn, may translate into failure to get your vacancies noticed by desirable applicants. One such area of consistency is in profile completeness (for your recruiter and company profiles alike). It’s essential to thoroughly complete each social media profile you make. On LinkedIn, this includes things like peppering your page with relevant and concise keywording, which can then be used to promote certain jobs to certain demographics. For more tips on how to make your profile more complete, check out these recommendations from LinkedIn.

It discourages relationship building

While brand and aesthetics might be the more obvious facets of consistency, communication is also a big one. Consistent communication is the primary way in which you will build relationships with prospective applicants. Left unchecked, your connections will write you off or may even become suspicious of rare and impersonal messages sent their way. Before that happens, make a concerted effort to cultivate relationships on social media through direct messaging, interacting with posts, and sharing insights and information. Just be sure not to overdo it! Not sure what to say? Monster has some insights that can help you break the ice.

It confuses your audience

Across all marketing channels, your ‘look and feel’ needs to be consistent with your logo displayed in an obvious place. Forgoing this basic marketing tactic can lead to utter confusion among prospective applicants as well as the general public. They aren’t likely to spend much time at any given page in general, but if you make them spend that time trying to discern whether they’re at the right page or not, you’ll likely forgo repeat visits or application follow-through.

If you do find yourself with an inconsistent presence across social media, don’t get too discouraged. It can be fixed! However, it’s important to address this issue before you put much of your resources into recruiting. And by that, we don’t mean limiting yourself to one channel (“Consistency is guaranteed if there’s only one, right?” Wrong!). While you may have little control over these marketing adjustments yourself, you can bring the issue to the table and work with your social media and marketing team to design an enticing web presence to attract new talent. 

James Pointon is a content marketing specialist with a passion for social media. Currently, James is supporting OpenAgent, where he uses his knowledge for online promotion. You can connect with James on LinkedIn.

Live streaming is becoming a normal part of social media, and it’s now one of the most useful tools in the marketing arsenal. For recruitment, it can be an invaluable tool, something you wish you had started using years ago. With solutions like Periscope now making it easier than ever to get started, here’s all you need to know about live streaming recruitment.

Getting Started

Let’s begin with a look at how to set up your Periscope account. You will need to download the app and then connect it to a Twitter profile to have everything set up in a matter of seconds. Make sure that you use the right account: a corporate profile can work very well as you will have instant access to those that you already follow on Twitter. You only get a 24 hour window to share broadcasts, so if you want to save them for later, turn on the auto-save function in your settings.

Quick Tips

Now you are all set up, what do you need to think about before you broadcast? Make sure that your broadcasts are open to the public for all sessions, so that you can reach as many people as possible. Then use the ‘share to Twitter’ function so that your Twitter followers will all know that you are live. This is a good way to get as many viewers as possible.

Localization is key for recruitment, so use the location-tagging feature to highlight where you are broadcasting from. This will let candidates know that they are looking in the right area. You may lose a few viewers who aren’t anywhere near your location, but that doesn’t matter – you only want those who would be interested in working with you.

Also make sure to respond to comments as they come in. The communication in live broadcasting should be a two-way street. Don’t just ignore those who make the effort to reach out to you.

Information Sessions

Candidates will love to be able to see the person they may end up interviewing with, and they may have questions that they want to get out of the way before they apply or come for interview. That’s why you should have information session for your open positions. Internal recruiters can take charge of these, setting a time and date for the session – this can even be included in job ads to give candidates a heads up. This highlights the positions for your followers and allows them to know more. Make sure your recruiters know what they can and can’t discuss from a legal standpoint before they begin.

General Promotion

So how can you use Periscope for promotion outside of these sessions? People love to watch “day in the life” sessions, where you showcase how someone in your organisation spends their day. You can also live stream events that your company may hold. The only limit is your imagination, and it seems so far as though people are willing to watch just about anything!

Alternatives

A quick word on alternatives: you can also use Facebook Live, although this is perhaps seen as a little informal and less professionally-aimed. Snapchat is another option, but you will need to build up a big following before you use it as outside cannot get access to broadcasts.

Live streaming is becoming much more prominent in the world of recruitment, and now is a great time to get involved. Don’t be the last company to get on board with this new way of doing things. Try Periscope as soon as possible and you’ll be an expert in no time.

Joan Herbert is an Assistant Manager at Bank-Opening-Times.co.uk, a curious individual, avid reader and a passionate creative writer.

Today, it’s mobile devices (not laptops or desktop computers) that make up the most internet usage. With the number of social networks (like Facebook or Twitter), messaging platforms (like Whatsapp), and mobile apps (services like Netflix or games like Pokemon Go) at our fingertips, this should come as no surprise.

Think about how much time you spend looking at your phone, checking your email or snapping a photo of your lunch. For many people in today’s world, their smartphones are practically an extension of their hands.

There are currently 2.6 billion (with a B!) smartphone users across the globe. If you’re not optimizing for mobile, then you’re leaving behind a lot of users, and most of these users are very engaged – 70% of mobile searches lead to online action within an hour.

You need to take advantage of the sheer number of users, being mindful of how you design your website and making it easy for visitors to take action right away. Users who click on your job posting, careers site, or any other link that you share won’t stick around for long if they have a hard time viewing the content on their phones or tablets. 

With such powerful small devices in our hands, people are becoming more and more accustomed to using their mobile phones. This is made clear by the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, where you can only publish or post content using a mobile device. Mobile usage isn’t just limited to social media – there’s an app for everything from fitness to banking to hailing a ride (hello, Uber!).

With all of these options, why shouldn’t people be able to find and apply for a job on mobile devices too? Mobile has become a big part of our lives, so you can’t ignore it now.

Did you know?

Jobcast already optimizes for mobile. While Facebook doesn’t support installed apps on your Page, Jobcast links will still work. Whenever a potential candidate clicks on a Jobcast posting from a mobile device, they’ll be redirected to the applyto.co Careers Page that Jobcast hosts for you or straight to your own website. You can also collect applications straight from a user’s smartphone! 

Reel in the job applicants with a few simple tweaks to your recruiting strategy.

Not only are job seekers competing with one another these days, but so too are job recruiters when it comes to attracting prospective employees. With recruiters saturating the social media sphere, it can be hard to stand out. But with a little pizazz and strategic planning, it can be done.

Stay current on trends within each platform

Coming up with different variations of just one item of content can be a lot of work, but it’s important to take this route over the easy way (using the same post, as is, across social media networks). For example, if you intend to recruit on Instagram, your best bet it to use a GIF without audio, whereas on Facebook you will have a longer timeframe and opportunity to use audio and subtitles.

Know what goes where

Determining what kinds of marketing to filter through which channels depends on the primary reasons an audience is on a network in the first place. Users flock to Facebook for social and news updates, Instagram users are keen on bite-sized visually oriented posts, and LinkedIn users want to know about news pertaining to their careers. Of course, you can overlap some content, but keep in mind that many of your connections are following you on multiple platforms and may not want to see the same thing repeated at every corner of social media.

Integrate entertainment value

Create content that not only delivers your message, but also has the added layer of entertainment value (bonus points if it’s humorous!). While not within the realm of social recruiting exclusively, you can learn a lot from JCPenney’s content strategy. Their example here has a lot going for it—humor, personality, hashtags, and glimpse into company values. Aside from everything (both obvious and implied) that you can incorporate into posts like this, you will also likely see an uptick in reach that the post has. Connections will be more inclined to share it with their networks, which can take it further than even paid advertising could. And who knows, it might go viral!

Use content types that attract readers

These days, plain text doesn’t cut it. Social media users want to see visuals, infographics, and short videos than the relatively boring text-only posts. What’s more is that multimedia posts are more likely to show up in newsfeeds anyway, so try to use plain text sparingly—and when you do, keep it short and sweet or make it more interactive by positing a question and creating a dialog around it.

Anticipate what job seekers are looking for

Appealing to job seekers by posting content that emphasizes what they value in an employer can help you gain applicants that may not have applied for the job title alone. Nowadays, job seekers want to know about what it’s like to work somewhere. They want to know what the workplace culture encompasses, benefits like parental leave and vacation, and company values. Consider posting interviews with company employees that explain why they enjoy working there or emphasize each way the company gives back to the community.

As you go about your social recruiting, it’s important to pay attention. Use likes, shares, and other metrics to determine what your audience is most responsive too. Then shape your recruiting campaign accordingly, always listening to your followers and numbers to ensure that you maximize your time and effectiveness.

Elizabeth Lee is a passionate blogger and content specialist involved with PACK & SEND. When she is not preoccupied with work, Elizabeth follows her second passion – traveling.

Your team is already full of great people and as it turns out, great people know more great people! Candidates hired through employee referrals result in higher quality hires, faster hires, and employees that stay with companies longer. If you don’t have an employee referral system in place, you’re missing out on a potential gold mine of talent. Want to tap into this? Keep reading for some tips to start getting more referrals.

Leverage Social Media

You probably already know that with Jobcast, you can connect your company’s Facebook page, Twitter account, and LinkedIn company profile. This is a great way to get the word out about the opportunities at your company, but you can take this one step further by combining social recruiting with employee referrals - did you know that your employees can connect their personal social media profiles too? With so many users using (and actively engaged on) these networks, you instantly expand your network whenever one of your team members gets involved.

Make it easy to share

Try to eliminate any barriers that could prevent employees from sharing your posts on their own social media accounts. Offer employees sample posts (it’s a lot easier to copy and paste a status update) and give them the flexibility to edit and adapt messages as they see fit (while staying appropriate). Creating and providing your team an Employer Brand or Employee Advocacy Guide can help posts stay on message.

Make sure employees want to share

Let’s face it - some parts of the job will be more fun than others. While you may be excited about finding a great candidate with years and years of technical experience, your employees might be excited by the fun culture at your company or the awesome benefits you offer. Think about what working at your company actually looks like and what makes you stand out from the competition. Ask your employees what aspects of their jobs they want to share - you’ll probably be surprised that it goes beyond the fun perks.

What’s in it for them?

Who doesn’t like a little bit of competition? To encourage your employees to go that extra step in sharing out opportunities with your company, find ways to make sharing fun. This could take the form of something as simple as a small gift card or some branded company swag. You could even turn sharing into a game, where teams with the most (or the best) referrals win a prize.

The rise of employee referral programs is expected to be a lasting trend, so you should get on the bandwagon. Do you have more tips or personal experiences with referrals to share? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter!

The most efficient way to enhance social media efforts is to develop a solid social media strategy. Every serious content marketer has a social media strategy template he or she can refer to in order to keep their goals in check. Finding your content niche that forms the best connection with your audience should be your top priority. This list should help you get an insight into what types of content you could use to enhance the effects of your social media efforts.

News

News is the type of content that definitely gets far more shares online overall. But, this only works if you are in the news industry. This type of content can be used for other businesses in very specific cases. For example, to determine the right time to launch a new product and to decide how to advertise the super cool new features your product will offer to customers.

This is why newsworthy content scores many shares on social media, especially in the technology and entertainment industries. If your business is about something else, you may want to focus on other types of content. In case you are new to the web, you can seek professional help to easily start, run and grow your online presence.

List Posts

Some of the most shareable types of content online are list posts. People love reading content that has a certain number of points, finishing with a brief conclusion; straightforward and easily skimmable, these type of posts help audience quickly get the underlying message.

Research shows that lists proved to have very reliable social traction, reaching more than 20 thousand shares per month.

Images

Social media posts that have an image attached are more likely to be clicked on, liked and shared. Twitter, for instance, discovered that tweets that had images attached received a whopping 300 percent more engagement than the plain text tweets. The option to attach up to 4 pictures in one tweet makes it easier for users to tell a whole story in just one post.

This proves to be a great way for businesses to enhance their social media efforts. On top of that, there are many free online tools that can help you edit the images you want to share in order to draw more engagement.

Many people think that it is inappropriate to use gifs in business-related posts. But, new trends show us that this might not be the case. Gifs are entertaining and they can certainly become some of the most engaging pieces of content out there.

Content That Evokes Emotions

In order to engage more people, your content has to be able to tell a short story and spark the audience’s emotions. People are emotional beings and the best way to make an approach and get the desired effect is to give people what they want. The more emotional value your post has, the more likely it is going to be shared.

Although the posts invoking negative emotions do work, experts recommend that marketers go with the ones that invoke happy emotions. Studies show that positive ratings are correlated with social media content that inspires people to feel happy. You want to make sure to use an emotional language to achieve the best results.

Infographics

Recent research shows that infographics are shared a whole lot. They have the most potential to become viral and widely shared. Experts say that people are reacting to infographics the way they do because they are incredibly engaging and, because we process visual information a lot faster than any other type.

There is no better way to enhance your social media effort but to use visually appealing content in order to get your audience to actually look at it and read it. And, the pictures that go along with the text also help people better understand and remember the content faster.

As you can see, there are many types of content you can utilize to achieve the desired goals for your business. Every type of content can be highly customized in order to achieve the desired effects. Beside doing research and following the social media strategy you’ve designed, you should always keep an eye open for feedback. This way, you will make sure to provide your target customers with the type of content they appreciate the most.

Anja Skrba has been blogging for over five years. You can find her at FirstSiteGuide.com where she shares tips on blogging basics and trends, or follow her on Twitter.

Your employer brand plays a huge role in helping job seekers decide whether or not to apply for a position. After all, 75% of job seekers consider employer brands before even applying for open jobs. With 79% of job seekers likely to use social media during their job search, it's important to think about where social media and your employer brand meet. Living and working in an increasingly digital world, there are more and more opportunities to connect with job seekers and show them why it's so great to work with your company. An important thing to consider is the audience you're trying to reach - this will help you identify which social media channels you should focus more of your effort on. We've done posts on using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram to build up your employer brand. To wrap up our series, we'll be having a closer look at two platforms that could help you connect with niche candidates: Pinterest and Snapchat. Pinterest's audience is predominantly made up of women, and Snapchat's users skew younger - if you're looking to target or connect with either of these groups, getting on these social media networks could give you a big boost in exposure and relatability.

Pinterest

Pinterest has over 110 million active users and is the social media network of choice for women aged 18 to 34. With an engaged user base that spends an average of 98 minutes on Pinterest and views 2.5 billion pages each month, there's (growing!) opportunity for you to connect with potential employees. Thanks to how easily users can share photos and visuals on Pinterest, it's a great way to show off your company and the people who work there. By creating Pinterest boards with different themes, you can share more targeted content. For example, you can create a board that lets visitors "Meet the Team" by pinning photos of your employees with quick bios. You could also create a board showing off your cool office space, what a day in the life of different roles is like (how about one for your IT team and another for Marketing?), or even a board about all of the fun perks your company offers. Did you know that 80% of the activity on Pinterest is made up of users re-pinning existing content? As people more often re-pin content rather than create it, other users help you do the sharing. You can take advantage of this by getting your employees to jump start the sharing by liking and re-pinning your posts. This should be particularly easy if you're showing off the employees themselves or the fun things they get to do at work!

Snapchat

Valued at approximately $18 billion, Snapchat has quickly become a big player in the social media landscape. With over 150 million people using the mobile app on an average day, Snapchat isn't just for teens anymore (though the majority of its users are under 24). Snapchat's introduction of Live Stories (which let people see events unfold around the world from different perspectives) and Discover content (which is produced by a number of media companies partnered with Snapchat, including Buzzfeed, The Food Network, and CNN). With Snapchat, you have the opportunity to show off your company in an informal way - Snapchats are typically quick, casual photos or videos with captions, doodles, and stickers added. Snapchats photos and videos are typically 10 seconds or less, however you can use these to create a Story, which is viewable for up to 24 hours. Using your story allows your friends to engage with you at their leisure. Use your Story to Recently, Snapchat introduced the ability for organizations to create custom Snapchat geofilters (filters that appear based on the user's location). One way to encourage your employees to act as advocates for your employer brand is to build Snapchat geofilters for your office, allowing them to show off a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to work for your company. Users are more engaged on Snapchat that other platforms, so when your employees send Snapchats about your company, their friends are likely to see it. Before you get started with Snapchat, it's important to note that it can be a lot harder to track metrics or see the immediate impact of what you're doing. Unlike other platforms, everything is self-contained in Snapchat - you aren't able to share links that send the audience directly to your Careers page. This limited functionality also means that you may get less information to work with. While you can see the number of friends (potential viewers) you have, exactly who has viewed your Snapchat Story, and the number of people who have taken a screenshot of one of your Snapchats (meaning that they're saving it for later), Snapchat doesn't offer comprehensive reports like Facebook's page Insights and Twitter Analytics.

Catch up on our posts

This is the third post in a series looking at how your company can use social media for employer branding. Check out our posts looking at Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as Twitter and Instagram.

Want to get started? Click here to get working on your employer brand with Jobcast today!

More and more job candidates are using social media in their hunt to find the perfect job, with LinkedIn taking the clear lead. But as an employer, are you taking full advantage of social media to find the perfect employee?

According to Michael Page, 77% of employers already use social media to find job candidates. If you haven’t started yet though, we have 5 simple tips to help you. However, could social media be used for more than just promotion and searching?

Social media screening involves digging deeper and researching candidates through sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. The process allows employers to find out more about a candidate, beyond their standard 2-page resume and covering letter. 

What are the advantages of social media screening?

Social media is a key platform for communication today with more than 2 billion social media users. Although much of the content that is shared on social media is public, only 20% of employers are looking at this during their recruitment process.

• Hiring a new employee can be both expensive and time-consuming. Picking the wrong employee will just add to the money and time spent. Social screening can therefore help businesses get it right first time, by providing information which allows more informed decisions to be made. In fact, research from Jobvite shows that 55% of recruiters have reconsidered a candidate based on the information they found in their social media profiles.

• 61% of reconsiderations are due to negative reasons, for example, a candidate may have lied about their skills on their application, posted something inappropriate, made negative comments about their previous employers, shared confidential information about their employer, posted about drinking and drugs, or may display poor communication skills.

• Social media screening isn’t just to pick out the negatives though. It can also be used in the candidates’ favour, by revealing things that may not have been included on a CV. This could be to their advantage during the decision process. For example, they may have carried out charity work, display strong writing skills or be very creative.

• Beyond checking a candidate’s skills to ensure they can do the job proficiently, social media screening can also be used to help decide if a candidate would be a good fit within your team and company culture.

What are the concerns of social media screening?

Before starting social media screening within your business, there are a number of things that you should take some time to consider:

• Social media screening raises a number of ethical questions, such as whether employers really should be snooping into a candidate’s personal life and if so, where to draw the line before it becomes an invasion of privacy?

• Although vetting a candidate’s online presence is not unlawful, discrimination laws still apply, in the same way as screening a printed CV for example. Recruitment decisions should therefore not be affected by factors such as age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and political beliefs.

• Information online may not always be accurate and doesn’t necessarily show the whole picture. It’s therefore important for businesses to be careful about believing everything they read about a candidate via their social media profiles, as it may not be a true or complete reflection of them.

For further advice to help minimise your concerns, the Chartered Institute of Professional Development have created a helpful guide, sharing good practices for businesses to follow when conducting pre-employment checks on applicants.

The answer to whether to carry out social media screening or not seems to be a split one. At the end of the day, the decision is up to you. There are many benefits to your business, but it’s also important to proceed with care, consideration to people’s privacy and caution to possible legal implications.

Do you use social media screening in your business, or do you plan to in the near future? We’d love to know your thoughts on the subject. Leave us a comment in the box below, or tweet us @jobcastnet.

Elizabeth Harmon is a writer for Open Colleges, one of Australia’s leading online education providers. She is a Social Media Consultant with a number of years’ experience in the field. She has worked with a growing list of clients around the world, helping to build successful social media strategies, create effective content and much more. Follow her on Twitter @Liz_Harmon.

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+opencolleges

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OpenColleges/?fref=ts

Website: www.opencolleges.edu.au/careers

Did you know that 79% of job seekers use social media in their job search?

The list of social media networks just seems to keep growing, and with a growing emphasis being placed on creating a strong employer brand, it might be tempting to jump on all of them. Before you do this, it’s important to consider that each of these networks will reach a different type of person and will require different types of content. To find success, you’ll need to identify which social media platform aligns with your brand and culture and also lets you connect with your target candidates?

It can be hard to decide which platforms your employer brand should have a presence on, and maybe even harder to figure out what kind of content you should be sharing on each of these social media networks.

In order to help give you a clearer idea of the social media landscape, we’re dishing out some posts and having a look at some of the biggest social media networks, including ways you can build them into your social recruiting strategy and elevate your employer brand.

In our first post, we took a closer look at Facebook and LinkedIn. This post will focus on the two of the easiest platforms to connect with candidates on: Twitter and Instagram. 

Twitter

Twitter users send out an average of 500 millions tweets each day. Due to Twitter’s format of serving out bite-sized pieces of information (140 characters per Tweet), it’s a great channel to constantly be sharing and taking part in conversations, both with your customers and job seekers.

Start talking to others and growing your employer brand by engaging with accounts that mention you, joining regularly-occurring Twitter chats, and even hosting Twitter Q&A sessions! As Twitter runs in realtime, it may seem fast-paced at first, but this quality gives you the flexibility to share content again and again. Since information can flow so quickly on Twitter, be sure to take advantage of its media options – use images that will catch people’s eyes (Tweets with photos can get up to 313% more engagement!) and test out videos.

One of Twitter’s biggest impacts on social media was bringing the #hashtag mainstream. Develop a hashtag for your employer brand (check out Hootsuite’s #HootsuiteLife and Starbucks’ #ToBeAPartner) to use when you share out employer branding content, and encourage your employees to use it as well! This allows job seekers to search through the hashtag to see real examples of how your employees are talking about your company.

Instagram

Instagram recently hit a milestone, reaching 500 million monthly active users. These users are very active, posting an average of 70 million photos every day. If you are looking to hire young millennial talent or are thinking about long-term hiring, Instagram is where you should be. It’s considered the most important social network among young people (the same young people who will be entering the workforce soon).

Did you know that 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual? It’s really true, a picture is worth a thousand words. Using Instagram, you don’t have to stick to words – you can easily show off what a day behind the scenes of your company is like. Take it one step further and mix in a few videos! Instagram recently extended their maximum video length to 60 seconds, which you can use to do quick office tours or lightning profiles of employees.

Engage your current employees by taking the same branded hashtag that you’ve introduced on Twitter and bringing it to Instagram. Get your employees to share their unique, real, and candid perspectives, and engage them when they do! When you like, comment, and even repost photos using the hashtag, this will encourage them to share more and more (which means all of their followers will keep seeing how great it is to work for you!).

Want to hear more?

Stay tuned for future posts, where we’ll have a closer look at Pinterest and Snapchat. For now, click here to get working on your employer brand with Jobcast today!

Did you know that 76% of companies have indicated that social media is their go-to method for sharing and growing their employer brand?

With so many different social media networks and so many different audiences to reach, it can be a little overwhelming figuring out where to start building your employer brand. In order to prevent yourself from become discouraged by all of the different choices in front of you, it’s important to identify one or two platforms to start off with. By choosing key channels to focus on, you will be able to use your time and resources more effectively. Once you feel that you have a grasp of a platform, you can begin to introduce a new network into your employer branding strategy.

Each network offers you different ways to share content and engage with online communities, so how do you figure out which social media network you should start off with?

To help you out, we’ll be posting an overview on some of the most prominent social media networks right now and share some examples of how you can use them to build up your employer brand. The first post will focus on the two of the most popular platforms: Facebook and LinkedIn. 

Facebook

Facebook is likely the first thing that pops into your head when you think of social media. With over 1.65 billion monthly active users, Facebook is a great channel to connect with tons of people.

With a company page on Facebook, you have the ability to share status updates, photos, and videos that highlight what working at your company is like and what your culture is like. Beyond the basic features, you also have the ability to add Facebook Apps (like Jobcast) to your page. With these applications, you have much more flexibility – you can host contests, create photo walls, or even host your own Careers site right on your Facebook page!

You can also take advantage of individual networks and groups on Facebook to help build your brand. You likely have a Facebook profile, as do your recruitment team and employees – use these networks to spread the word about your company to your Facebook friends! By leveraging these networks, you can greatly expand your reach and make passive candidates more aware of who you are, what you do, and what types of opportunities you’re offering.

• Jobcast tip

  : Images go a long way toward engaging people on social media – make the most out of your Branding options with Jobcast. Through your Jobcast Dashboard, you can add banner images to the top, side, and bottom of your Careers Page on Facebook. You can even go one step further and add a video showing off your company to the sidebar! Click here to watch our video tutorial on Branding.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has solidified its status as the social network for business and professionals, with over 433 million people signed up on the platform. LinkedIn is widely used and one survey showed that it was also the most effective social media network to find new employees.

On LinkedIn, people can follow your Company page, which means that status updates and announcements will appear in their LinkedIn feeds. You can also position your company as a leader in your field by having your employees publish insights and opinions on news and developments in your industry. Just like you can on Facebook, you can also create and join Groups on LinkedIn.

Engage your current employees to boost your employer brand on LinkedIn – they are 70% more likely to engage with the updates on your company page, which means that their own connections are more likely to see these updates too! These employees’ profiles can also act as a source of information for job seekers doing research on your organization and the different opportunities you offer. You can also invite employees to join LinkedIn Groups, where they can start discussions about working at your company and other topics that interest them.

• Jobcast tip: you can add your personal LinkedIn profile to Jobcast and share out new job openings automatically just like you can with your company page. Check out this video tutorial to get set up Autosharing!

Want to hear more?

Stay tuned for future posts, where we’ll have a closer look at Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. For now, click here to connect your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles to Jobcast today!