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Estimation question: How many hours do you spend on social media every day?
According to the Digital 2023 Report, almost 85% of the German population is active on social media. On average, people in this country spend around 1 hour and 41 minutes a day on social media. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and co. are therefore an integral part of our daily lives. The focus is no longer just on exchanging information with friends or acquaintances. Finding inspiration for our next vacation, discovering new recipes or acquiring knowledge are just a few of the many opportunities that social media offers us.
This also opens up exciting opportunities for companies: Social media not only enables personal and approachable marketing, but also offers enormous potential in the area of recruiting.
What is social recruiting?
Social recruiting refers to all recruiting activities that are implemented on social channels. For example, companies can share their job advertisements on Facebook and Instagram or promote themselves as an attractive employer through targeted content (employer branding). Campaigns placed on social media are an important part of social recruiting in order to reach the right target groups in a targeted and time-saving manner. Social media recruitment marketing can also include active sourcing strategies, for example by searching for suitable candidates for a position via business networks such as LinkedIn or Xing and contacting them directly.
Social recruiting example: Ideal for special positions
Social recruiting is a particularly good opportunity for small businesses and companies with a lower profile. Social media can be used to greatly expand reach and target suitable candidates. Anika, Recruiting Marketing Specialist at Kooku, has a good example of why even industries with very specific requirements for their applicants should use Facebook or Instagram recruiting to find the right employees.
“We created a social recruiting campaign for a client in the wind energy sector. They were looking for experts for wind turbines – a really special job. Thanks to our tried-and-tested campaign strategy, we found several suitable candidates via Facebook in a short space of time.” This clearly shows that social recruiting is not only suitable for standard positions, but also for jobs with special skills.
Employee recruitment via social media: Which platforms are the best?
In order to know on which platform the recruiting activities are most promising, a target group analysis must be carried out in advance. In the next step, you can consider which platform this target group is active on and where you can best reach them.
If you’re thinking of business networks such as LinkedIn or Xing, you’re not quite on the right track: social recruiting is particularly successful when we reach people in private rather than business mode. This makes it easier to establish an honest connection with suitable candidates. In addition, platforms such as Facebook or Instagram are used by people from all professions. However, there are sectors that are rarely or not at all found on job platforms, such as skilled trades, for example.
5 advantages of social recruiting
Benefit 1: Increased visibility of the job
As already mentioned, 85% of people in Germany are active on social media. This means that job advertisements achieve a greater reach with social recruiting than with other channels.
Benefit 2: Targeted approach
Employee recruitment via social media offers the opportunity to draw the attention of specific groups of people to vacancies. Campaigns can be used to select target groups according to demographic characteristics, interests and behavior. This makes it even easier to address potential applicants effectively.
In addition, passive candidates who are currently not actively looking for a job but may be open or interested in job offers are also reached.
Benefit 3: Shorter recruitment time
Traditional recruitment methods generally take longer than social media methods. With social recruiting, it is not only easy to communicate with each other, but the response time is often shorter.
Benefit 4: Better awareness of the employer brand
Social recruiting is not only effective when it comes to finding ideal applicants, but also when it comes to increasing the visibility of your own brand – keyword employer branding. Through campaigns, a company is displayed more frequently in the feeds of other people and is therefore seen. In addition, finding applicants via social channels signals that the company is prepared to take innovative paths and is also interested in the younger target group, their needs and wishes.
Benefit 5: Cost-efficient recruiting measure
For campaigns via social networks, you only pay for the click on the ad, i.e. for actual interested parties. There are no costs before that. This makes social recruiting a cost-saving recruiting measure.
What are the challenges in social media HR marketing?
Prepare a few simple social media campaigns and the applicants will start rolling in? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. The biggest difficulty today is standing out as a company in social media. More and more companies are trying out social recruiting. This means that the target group receives not just one job advertisement, but five. This is why it is important to conduct professional social media marketing in which the special features of the company stand out and the target group is not lured in with the same old benefits such as a fruit basket or flexible working hours. This is exactly where recruiting agencies come in: The experts know which approach works well at any given time and which benefits really convince the target group.
Social recruiting costs: effective budget planning is the be-all and end-all
The costs of social recruiting vary depending on the strategy and platform. This includes spending on paid job ads or investing in tools to analyze and track campaigns. The exact cost will always depend on a company’s individual goals and resources, but effective budget planning is crucial to getting the best results from social media recruitment marketing. This is where it pays to hire an agency like Kooku to invest your money in a truly targeted and promising way.
At Kooku, we have already helped numerous companies to attract top talent via social recruiting. Why search for needles in a haystack alone when you can have Kooku by your side? Contact us today to find out how we can help you with social recruiting.
