Expert Interview with Shane Barker on Tips for Better Social Recruiting
By Cheryl Morgan
When it comes to using social media to grow your business and attract new talent, it helps to talk to someone like Shane Barker, a digital marketing consultant named the No. 1 social media consultant in the nation by PROskore Power Rankings.
Shane is an expert in business development, online marketing and SEO who has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and a number of A-list celebrities.
He recently spent a few minutes answering some questions for us about social media trends and what companies can do to improve their social recruiting. Here's what he had to say:
What services do you offer? Who should be using them?
I do consulting for businesses on how to increase traffic and then convert that traffic into paying customers. We create, strategize and execute the whole process from start to finish.
How did you become so passionate about social media?
Social media is the natural progression of human communication, enabled by the technology at hand. I believe that the Internet has opened up new channels of interaction that allow people worldwide to connect, collaborate and find commonalities. This has a positive impact not just to the individuals, but also to the businesses that can reach users directly with much less effort.
What excites you about social media today? What trends or headlines are you following closely?
Social media helps you get in touch with people directly. It ultimately improves the chance of conversion, which makes me excited. I've been closely following the development of the latest new additions to the user-generated content revolution, Periscope and Meerkat. Both are live-streaming apps that allow users to transmit videos through social media at a tap of a touchscreen. By taking live video viewing to a whole new level, they let you spread good content to a wider audience to enhance overall social media presence.
What are your favorite digital marketing tools today?
I love Buffer, Mention and Buzzsumo. They are my all-time favorites. These digital marketing tools offer invaluable opportunities to evaluate which elements of your social recruiting strategy are working or bombing in real time.
Why should businesses be using social as part of their recruiting strategy?
1. It increases your reach beyond local candidates to those nationally and internationally.
2. Social media recruitment has low costs with a high return on investment.
3. Job candidates can be searched geographically and found with higher accuracy.
4. Available job openings can get filled quickly. This will reduce vacancy rates because social media has high usage and fast response times.
5. Access to top job candidates will be faster than your competitors'.
6. Social media increases the employer's brand visibility online and establishes a front-line image for the company to attract qualified candidates.
What are some best practices for doing this?
My advice would be to first establish your presence with a strong social media profile and lots of followers. Having a high number of followers will positively influence your online presence. Build an intuitive website, connect with your targeted audience and use social media tools to simplify your work. Don't be shy about sharing your company culture, and keep yourself open to your audience. Most importantly, keep posting valuable information about your company's achievements on a regular basis to pique the interest of job searchers.
What are the most common mistakes you see businesses making when it comes to social recruiting?
1. Many businesses don't analyze which social channels are producing the highest ROI. This is essential to avoid wasting time on accounts that aren't cost-effective.
2. Companies miss out on the opportunity of using industry-based or niche groups/communities to connect with people with common interests.
3. Some are also missing out on paid campaigns. LinkedIn has so far proved to be the best in social recruiting, so using its paid advertisement will be worth the investment.
4. Very few people connect social recruiting with content marketing, but it's really helpful for companies to build audience and trust through epic content.
What companies do you think do an exceptional job using social media to inform potential job candidates about their company culture and mission? What can we learn from them?
There are so many, but I would like to focus on General Mills and Intuit. They've done a really nice job of using social media on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. They planned everything so well and utilized their highest-achieving channels to reach a maximum audience.
The companies utilize both quantitative and qualitative measurements to analyze what works and what doesn't work for their recruitment and employer branding. This is the end goal.
What advice on using social media do you find yourself repeating to clients over and over again?
Try multiple social media platforms to better understand where your potential customers are located. Also, build your brand presence before you start reaching new users. People love transparency, so use social media to reduce the gap between users and your company.
Connect with Shane on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Request a consultation to discuss your social strategy.
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