Your Facebook Page is your secret weapon. You can quickly communicate your brand on a channel that most of your target audience is already on. You can recruit passive candidates and convert your employees into brand ambassadors! It’s also a great marketing platform. For smaller businesses with a less-developed website, Facebook has most of the required functionality you need!

1. Make sure your images stand out!

Are your images bold, engaging, and effective? If not, they risk being scrolled past and buried in the graveyard of uninteresting status updates. It only takes a second to catch someone’s eye, but less than that to scroll right on by. Check out this quick guide on what makes images pop! Need more reasons? Here’s a list that explains how visuals improve your social media results.

2. Pin a Facebook Post!

A pinned post to your Facebook page is the first piece of content that most visitors will see. Yet, many people do not even know this functionality exists! There are many different uses for a pinned post – read the article.

3. Update your Cover Image!

Like the pinned Facebook Post, make sure you’re using your Cover Image to the fullest potential! Many pages tend to create a single cover image and never change it: this is wasted potential! This article shares 12 creative ways you can use your cover image. Inspire a purchase with delicious visuals! Promote a specific product. Feature some fans, or celebrate moments – the possibilities are endless.

4. Add a Call To Action button!

Most third party applications don’t work on Facebook Mobile. There’s also a set number of tabs you can have visible on your home page that don’t get buried under the More tab. The Call to Action is a quick fix that lets you present the very best of your digital assets up front and centre, on both desktop and mobile devices. Here’s how!

5. Accumulate Reviews!

Honest reviews left by third parties (your clients!) on a neutral website where you cannot edit your own reviews, are the most valuable digital artifact your business can have. Reviews increase conversions, improve SEO rankings, and provide a significant boost to your brand reputation. Reading reviews is the preferred method of researching a business. Ask your customers to leave you one! Looking for more tips and tricks? Check out these helpful links:

• Social Media Image Size Guide, June 2016 edition

• 53 Graphic Design Terms Explained For Marketers

Did you know that 93% of marketers are using social media? And the same goes (give or take one percentage point) for recruiter, which makes sense, considering that social media has proven to be an effective tool for both hiring and marketing.

However, of the huge percentage of companies using social media, many focus their attention on a single network and either exclude or neglect the rest.

If this sounds like you, then you may want to rethink your strategy!

Here’s why using multiple social networks is better than one.

1) You’ll Reach More of Your Audience

While Facebook may be the most popular social network out there, Twitter and LinkedIn are also very popular with job seekers.

Chances are, many of the candidates that you want to reach keep their Facebook account totally private or (gasp!) don’t have a Facebook account at all. Having a presence on other social networks is the only way to reach them.

There’s also the fact that, according to Pew research, more people use multiple social networks than use only one. And the number of multi-network users has steadily risen over the last few years. So, you are far more likely to get your message heard through the internet noise when you target job seekers through multiple channels.

2) You’ll Get Better Search Engine Rankings

The more quality content that you have online that points to your career site, the better your site is going to rank. Social media plays a huge role in this, because the content that you share on social networks points back at your career site, and thus will help boost your rankings. The high page rank influence of sites like Facebook and Twitter will help improve your SEO when you focus on promoting your talent brand, company name, and job posts out to multiple sites.

3) Your Competitors are Already There

Social recruiting is extremely popular and, as its star continues to rise, more and more companies are using multiple social networks to reach top talent.

It is definitely worth investigating how your competitors are using social media, and to discover what they are doing that works, and what they are doing that does not.

That last point is not to be ignored!

Just because your competitors are on Pinterest, doesn’t mean it’s doing them any good. So pay close attention to what they are doing and use them as a case study for which networks to use and which to skip.

Instead of letting them reap all of the benefits and potential applicants that you could be getting, adapt your strategy to target all of the networks that are getting them results.

Learn more about how to spy on your competitors’ social recruiting strategy.

Which brings me to my last point.

Multi-channel social recruiting is more effective than focusing on a single social media channel, but that doesn’t mean you should use every platform available.

I recommend starting with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and then, once you’ve mastered those, try experimenting with different networks like YouTube or Instagram and see what works for you!

We’re always curious as to how you balance multi-channel recruiting. Let us know in the comments.

Does your company have a Twitter page? It’s 2016 and you’ve probably heard of Twitter. Did you know that there are 310 million people that use Twitter, and that 100 million of those are monthly active users? If you’re looking to hire great talent without spending a fortune to access it, try social recruiting on Twitter. Companies typically use Twitter to establish a brand presence. It’s a great way to engage your followers and customers, market upcoming promotions and product releases, and also serves as a platform for providing customer service. What many companies also take advantage of, is the fact that many companies find successful hires through Twitter. By using location-specific hashtags in combination with branding hashtags and hiring hashtags, you can easily tweet out your job openings to the right audience. It’s the ideal location, because without leaving the website, jobseekers can learn about your company culture. In turn, you can learn a lot about your potential newhire by looking at their Twitter page. What are they tweeting? Who are they following? Will they be a good fit, and is it worthwhile to contact them for an interview? Twitter is free to use, easy to manage, and provides a wealth of knowledge on a large platform in bite sized pieces.  Why not use Twitter for your social recruiting? Did you know that Jobcast’s autosharing feature supports Twitter? With minimal setup, automate all of your job postings to be broadcasted onto this goldmine of a network and take your social recruiting to the next step. Here’s a video of how it works! Not on Jobcast yet? Try us for free.

Facebook is a great tool to connect with everyone from your family and friends to any of the other 1.65 billion monthly active users on the site. Did you know that there are hundreds of millions of Facebook Groups that you can join? With that much reach and potential, it’s no surprise that Facebook Groups present a great opportunity to share your job postings with tons of people who share common interests with you and your company.

Jobcast knows that more and more people are using Groups to look for new jobs and further their careers. To help you take advantage of this, we’ve introduced a new feature:

You can now share job postings to Facebook Groups directly from your Jobcast Dashboard!

To start using your Facebook Groups network, just follow these easy steps:

1. Choose any of your job postings and click “Share Job”.

2. Under “Pick Your Networks,” choose “Facebook Group”.

3. Follow the prompts to log into Facebook and then simply choose which group you want to share to.

4. Write a message to include when you share this link.

5. That’s it – you’ve just shared your job with everyone in your Facebook group!

Start sharing jobs to your Facebook Groups!

Log in to your Jobcast account today!

Do the images that you share on social media stand out?

Are they unique, bold… effective?

Creating and sharing clever image-based content can engage your audience on a personal level because people have a stronger emotional response when they are shown instead of told. 

The more job seekers relate to you and your company, the more likely they are to want to work for your company. In this article you’ll learn 4 ways to connect with job seekers using social media images.

#1: Share Your Knowledge With Infographics

The human brain processes visual content 60,000 times more quickly than text, which is probably why we love infographics so much. Infographics allow you to communicate large chunks of information in a captivating and social media friendly way.

For example, this infographic on the nitty gritty of resume formatting by Resume Templates 101 works as both an excellent tool for job seekers and a way for the company to get their name and brand out there.

To make a compelling infographic for social recruiting, you’ll want to pick a topic that you know well and will be of interest to your desired candidates, use some great stats and charts, and conclude with call to action encouraging them to check out your open jobs.

#2: Use Behind-the-Scenes Shots to Show Company Culture

Job seekers see your logo on their social media feed and maybe they’ve even had a look at your Career Site, but there’s so much they still don’t know about your company culture.

How exactly do you treat your team? What office antics go on behind the scenes? Who are their potential new colleagues and what are they like?!

Give job seekers a glimpse of the people and culture that make your company a great place to work with candid images and behind-the-scenes pictures from your company.

This helps candidates to better visualize your talent brand, so they can better connect with your company culture on a personal level.

#3: Action Shots

Invite Jean-Claude Van Damme to your next staff party and take a ton of photos then post them on Instagram!

Just kidding… Unless this is something that you can actually pull of and then by all means go for it!

But in all seriousness, action shots spark the imagination and encourage engagement in a major way.

Use this to your advantage.

When deciding what photos to use, whether stock imagery or photos of your employees, try to select images that suggest movement to spark job seekers imagination.

#4: Just Add Quotes

Quotes layered over photos are an engagement double threat.

You capture your audience’s attention with the image and then get them to slow down a bit and reflect with the quote so that they spend more time with your content.

First choose a quote that will resonate with your desired candidates and represent your company’s values. Then carefully style your post so that both the image and quotation font are cohesive with each other and your brand.

With focus and intention, your images can elevate your social recruiting content to a whole new level! To take it even further, try out Jobcast’s latest feature, Job Cards.

Job Cards allow you to attach images and video to the job posts you share on social networks. Learn more about Job Cards here.

Effective social recruiting looks a lot like content marketing.

An interesting mix of content is what prompts people to follow, Like, and share on social networks. Whether you’re using social to sell sneakers, timeshares, or the latest job opening at your company, follows, Likes, and shares are what will get you the sale.

Companies need to create engaging, targeted content that markets their jobs and employer brand to candidates to accompany their job ads.

The best mix for social recruiting is to post 4 other types of content for every one job posted.

Coming up with different kinds content is one of the toughest aspects of social recruiting… Or social media marketing of any kind.

If you don’t have a Nike sized budget, or a team of creatives at your disposal, content creating can be daunting.

But it doesn’t have to be!

Here are a few ideas for creating social media posts that convert job seekers into applicants.

Employee Profiles

Coworkers matter. We all want to work with people that we like and respect and yet the social aspects of work are very rarely addressed during the recruitment and hiring process.

This is what makes employee profiles such an excellent marketing tool!

Posting images or video of employees talking about their work, their hobbies, even their pets is a great way to show job seekers what an awesome bunch of people they’ll be working with.

How to create employee profiles to grow your employer brand

Company Updates

Posting positive updates and news about what’s happening at your company is a nice way to show off a little.

Employees want to feel proud of the place that they work (especially millennials), so sharing news about awards, innovations, new products, or collaborations is an excellent way to sell job seekers on your company.

Advice for Getting Hired at Your Company

Share tips and insider advice for how to get hired at your company.

Marketers like to talk a lot about content that “adds value” and posts like this are a perfect example of this.

You add value for the job seeker by showing them how to apply and/or interview more effectively and helping them land the job that they’re after.

You add value for your company and your HR team by teaching applicants how you want them to apply and what skills/traits they should highlight.

Cool Stuff About Your Industry

Use apps like Swayy or Buzzsumo to find interesting news about your industry that you can share on your social networks.

Try to share links with a (very) short write up with your thoughts on the subject and a nice accompanying image. If you’re posting to Twitter then always include a relevant hashtag!

Community Outreach and Charity

Posts about the positive things that your company and employees do for the local or global community make for great social recruiting content.

Share stories about your employees participation in charitable events, how your company gives back to the community, or the charitable giving that your organization does.

Day in the Life at Your Company

Job seekers are dying to know what it’s like to work at your company, so show them!

You can follow an employee and create a post based on the highlights of their work day, ask employees to write short paragraphs about their day, or create a video that explores your office.

This Apple recruiting video shows candidates what it’s like to work on developing a new product at Apple:

Apple Recruiter Video

Tour Your Office

Along the same lines as day in the life posts, sharing images or video of your office space is another excellent way to peak job seekers’ interest.

When putting together this kind of post it’s important to make your workplace look nice, but to stay honest.

It may be tempting to hide all the clutter, or only show the nicest offices, but you need to give candidates realistic impression because you don’t want to set them up for disappointment!

Employee Stories

Human interest stories rule social media and luckily for you, you have a lot of humans to draw on for finding this kind of story.

Reach out to staff and ask them if they have anything fun or interesting going on that they’d like to share.

An employee’s stand up comedy hobby, recent marathon participation, or even their amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe are all excellent fodder for a social recruiting post.

Parties and Staff Events

My husband’s company recently took their entire team for a boat tour of Amsterdam’s canals followed by dinner at a super hip restaurant that used to be a pirate radio station back in the 60’s.

The photos and video they took or their staff party would make any millennial clamour for a job with his company!

Even if your staff events aren’t pulled from the pages of Kinfolk magazine, they are still an excellent way to connect on a personal level with job seekers.

Perks

Game rooms, snacks, flexible work spaces and hours, all of these perks can be a part of your social recruiting strategy.

Let’s use flexible work as an example.

Share your own, or another employee’s pic of how they work when they’re not in office. Add a message explaining the post, that you’re hiring, and even a link to an open job.

You’ll also want to add some relevant hashtags if you’re sharing to Twitter such as #hiring, #startup, or #jobs.

Here’s one that I made for us (we’re not currently hiring otherwise I would have included a check out our latest jobs CTA and #hiring for sure!)

Quotes, Kittens, and Memes

Last, but not least share fun stuff! Inspirational quotes, fun pictures, and silly memes may not seem all that relevant, but this kind of content is the backbone of social media!

My favourite way to create posts that fall into this category is to use Buffer’s Pablo app to layer a fun quote on top of a gorgeous image. Works every time 😀

I hope this list provides you with the inspiration that you need to keep your social recruiting content fun!

Surefire tips for upgrading your recruitment style.

With social media use in the professional world having become standard, many companies are using it as a valuable recruiting tool. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer employers a pool of prospective employees that they may fail to reach through traditional, often passive, methods.

One survey from 2014 suggests that a whopping 93% of employers are or are planning to recruit employees via social media platforms. What does this figure mean for us? It means that there is a treasure trove of anecdotal data with regard to what social media recruiting strategies work, which brands have enjoyed the most recruiting success, and what methods garner the most user engagement. Following the examples set by major corporations like Home Depot, Nestlé, and Cadbury, here are a few major ways to help your recruiting campaign take off.

1. Promote Sharing

A cornerstone of the social media experience, sharing can help your recruiting efforts travel far and wide. Encourage your followers to retweet your posts or tag friends who they think would be interested. When you get some sharing activity going on, take a page from Nestlé’s book and thank your grassroots marketers!

2. Take the Campaign Cross-Platform

For professional recruiting purposes, LinkedIn tends to be the go-to platform. LinkedIn users are there to network, job seek, showcase their skills, and promote their companies. So it’s an obvious choice. But will it yield the most success? Not necessarily. Stand alone, LinkedIn is more effective for recruiting than Facebook or Twitter, but if you want to maximize your recruiting success, use at least all three platforms. You’ll have a hard time finding a company that only uses one platform these days, and for a good reason.

3.Interact with Followers

Social media pages are a flurry of activity. Posts and comments filter through at all hours of the day. Use this activity as an opportunity to reach out to users directly and publicly. Home Depot sets the stage on this front, with its rapid-fire responses to user comments and questions. Your followers will appreciate you going the extra mile by showing you care.

You can even take it a step further by signing your posts. While many companies’ social media pages aren’t handled by their CEOs, it’s a pleasant surprise to drop in every once in a while. Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, while not necessarily used to recruit employees, does a great job of adding her personal touch to platforms no one expects her to engage with directly. A simple “-H” at the end of her posts and tweets makes them stand out from tweeting-as-usual.

Marriott put its own spin on personalized interactions will their “Career Chats.” Career Chats are essentially Q&A forums in which the public can ask questions about Marriott employment, and receive real-time answers from Marriott employees who use their real names.

4.Peacock, Just A Little

Show off your company’s unique attributes through consistent social media posts. Just try not to sound like you’re bragging too much! Share what your company can offer its employees that many others don’t. Do you have extended parental leave? Do you offer student loan repayment? Or perhaps your company offers less tangible benefits, like a comfortable office culture, diverse employee base, or a superior work-life balance. Dell’s social media pages boast the community culture it fosters, highlighting the genuine appreciation the company has for its employees. To further the impact of your posts, add another layer of human element a la fast-food giant Taco Bell. Taco Bell succeeds in highlighting company culture through sharing photos of their employees—at all levels—enjoying themselves at work. Whatever it is that sets you apart, your followers want to hear about it.

5.It Doesn’t Have to Be All Recruiting, All the Time

As you might expect, success in social media recruiting is positively correlated with the size of your audience. And what is one of the best ways to build your audience? Broaden your content. Companies that are in the habit of posting text-only, recruitment-oriented posts are more likely to experience follower attrition. Other companies, like Cadbury, have adopted a more holistic approach to publishing content. For example, Cadbury’s ongoing campaign (#FreeTheJoy) features photos and videos from users sharing their joys. While not strictly chocolate-related, such media is successful in bolstering follower counts. Cadbury melds this hashtag-happy campaign with regular relevant product posts, such as recipes that use Cadbury chocolate. Their multilayer approach has paid off in multiple areas from marketing to community engagement, and as a result, also in recruiting.

Big companies can offer a vast amount of insight into structuring effective social media recruiting campaigns. While you can gain inspiration from them, one of the most important elements to remember is creativity and originality. Those are the aspects that your prospects will remember, and what will help your branding stand out from other campaigns.

David Grover is a Communications Manager at Timeo, a useful tool for businesses in the UK. He’s also a freelance career coach, who’s always eager to share his experience. In his free time he enjoys travelling.

Here at Jobcast, our product development team is always looking to build and improve on our product and now, it’s easier than ever to manage your Jobcast account with our newly redesigned Dashboard!

Our users have spoken and we have listened. We know that these are the Jobcast features that you use the most, so we’ve put them on the front page and given you easy access:

• Post a New Job

    – We know that you want to start finding candidates so we’ve added quick access to add your latest job opening.

• Manage Current Jobs

   – Have you found a great new employee through Jobcast? Great – just click from the Dashboard to update or close your current job postings.

• Invite Your Team

  – Give members of your recruitment or management team to Jobcast, it’s as easy as sending them an email.

• Go to your Career Page

  – Want to check in on your Facebook page or your mobile career site? One click will take you directly to your Career page.

• Switch Companies

  – Are you a recruiter managing different companies or a serial entrepreneur? Easily switch between your different Jobcast company accounts from your Dashboard!

…all from one page!

Want to see the changes for yourself?

Log in to your Jobcast account today!

When researching how to help our users boost engagement for their social recruiting, the most obvious answer was more visual content.

It’s been shown that content which includes images or video gets more engagement on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

So, you’re interested in making your social recruiting visual, how do you go about it. “Social recruiting isn’t an Instagram-ready field, like interior design or fashion!”, you lament.

“How can we best create visual content for social recruitment?”

“How can we make sure that every job post, or piece of employer brand content, that we share is visually-optimized?”

These are great questions. I like your gusto. Let me help.

Here are some of the best practices that we’ve dug out with our research. I can show you how any talent brand — no matter the niche or visual orientation — can succeed in creating gorgeous images for social recruiting.

1. Add a cover image to longform content

One thing that every longform post has, no matter the niche or topic, is a headline.

A headline is a visual element just waiting to happen.

Spinning a catchy headline into a graphical element is a commonplace tactic. It’s a tactic you’ll find on most blogs, but also on career sites like this excellent website from Manpower.

We try to create these for Jobcast blog posts, too.

To make our title images, we use a headline or sub-headline, combined with a stock image. You can also choose to include your company logo to really highlight your brand.

You can mix together a number of different elements to come up with yours:

Another consideration is size.

We build our these images at a 2:1 aspect ratio, which is excellent for both Twitter and Facebook.

2. Build an infographic

One of the most popular types of visual content is the infographic.

Check out our infographics here.

Infographics work across a huge number of topics and niches, and are a wonderful way to communicate with candidates in a fun, engaging way.

So how do you go about building an infographic for your content?

There are plenty of great apps, with more arriving by the day, which can help you build out a stunning visual narrative.

My favourite by far is Piktochart, but Infogr.am, Visual.ly, Easel.ly, and Venngage are some other options you may want to try.

3. Get quotable:

There are so many wonderful quotes out there that you can use to make engaging content to highlight your employer brand.

Remember though, you don’t necessarily have to use quotes from famous people! Quotes from team leaders or team members can even be better.

Ask employees for a nice little soundbite about why they love working for your company and turn it into a lovely visual with a program like Photoshop, or an app like Pablo.

I love using Pablo as it’s super easy and totally free.

Here’s how:

1. Copy and paste your quote into Pablo’s text box.

2. Add a byline or a logo to the image

3. Choose the font you like best

4. Choose a background image (you can even blur the image to emphasize the text more)

5. Download, so you can attach it to job posts or on your company site, or share immediately to your social networks.

Summary

Any brand — visual or not — can create amazing, image-based social recruiting content.

We’re working hard to help our users do this with Jobcast. Case in point, we recently added a new feature called job cards. Job cards allow our users to attach photos and video to their job posts. We do provide a gallery of lovely images that our users can tap into (which is awesome), but using custom images is always better.

And now that you’re a whiz with all the above tips, custom images are a snap!

Now, more than ever, there’s no reason not to get visual. Tell us about your aesthetic wins (and bungles) in the comments below.

Jobcast finally got a makeover.

It took a lot longer than we would have like, as these things always do, but the end result is a social recruitment platform ready for 2016.

When was the last time your HR department got a makeover?

In the last five years, the labour market has done a 180, going from an employer’s paradise to one that is candidate-driven. Millennials have taken over the workforce and HR Tech is actually user-friendly (well, friendlier at least!)

Candidates are starting their job search on Google, watching YouTube videos as a favorite way to learn about potential employers, then using their smartphones to share and apply for jobs.

Your HR department can’t afford to look like it did 10 years ago!

Here are 5 ways that you can bring your recruiting into the 21st century.

Focus on Social Media Collaboration

Social media collaboration is critical because:

• Social recruiting must involve the company as a whole.

• It helps break down the walls between marketing and HR.

• It keeps your brand message unified and on target.

HR needs to take ownership of social media and employer brand, but to do this they must focus on collaborating with marketing to create a consistent message.

By appointing a social recruiting lead who can bridge the gap between HR and marketing, you’ll facilitate dialogue and progress.

Take Charge of Your Talent Analytics

Everyone is always talking about the power of data, but very few actually mine and use the data available to them.

Big Data is great for determining your target audience, deciding how best to reach them, and running large surveys about employee performance, turnover rates, and skills development.

For this kind of data, which is very valuable, you may want to consider hiring a data analyst.

But don’t forget about the small data!

You can track a smaller group of your best performers using a simple Excel spreadsheet or Google Doc and then use that data to help inform your recruiting.

Try putting together a survey with the goal of learning more about what attracted these employees to your company, what social networks they use, and what makes them ss good at what they do.

Then USE the data!

Let the information that you uncover dictate where you look for new employees, how your job descriptions are written, and which aspects of your company culture you choose to highlight.

Start analyzing the data, act on your findings, and start seeing real results.

Make Your Application Process Mobile

Here’s why:

• 72% of active candidates say they have viewed a company career site on their mobile device.

• 30% of mobile users abandon sites after 6-10 seconds if they are not mobile-friendly.

• For 27% of millennial candidates, a career site is not considered ‘mobile-friendly’ unless they can complete the entire application process on their phone.

Can job seekers apply for your jobs via mobile? Can they easily navigate your career site on their tablet? Can they share your career site with a friend from their phone?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you need to reassess your mobile recruitment strategy.

Make Your Recruiting Pretty

Job seekers are way more likely to engage with and share your job posts with their peers if they include a nice image.

So, please make photos and pictures an integral part of your recruiting.

There are so many tools available to you:

• Pablo by Buffer

  allows you to create a simple shareable image in 30 seconds.

• Canva

  is great for making more detailed images and playing with text designs.

• Job cards by Jobcast automatically attach stunning images to your social media job postings.

Your career site, and the application process in general, should also be visually appealing, as job seekers will judge your company based on its cover!

So pay attention to the look and feel of your website and ensure that design plays a deciding role in which recruitment software you choose to use.

Stop Wasting Your Precious Time

Sharing a job post to multiple social networks manually takes more than just the click of a button.

You have to format the job post for each different network, set up the posts to share on each of these networks, add images to each post, and then share them at different times throughout the day depending on that network’s optimal share-time.

If you want to reach your audience on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, then this process can take up to three hours per job. So, 10 jobs per month could cost you up to 30 man hours.

Automating this process with Jobcast takes no time. Really.

Okay, not really, it does take about 10 minutes to set up.  

But after the initial setup, you’re done.

We’ve brought Jobcast into the 21st century, mostly in response to our fantastic users and their suggestions. I hope that the suggestions in this article will help you do the same.