Employer branding is booming, and the recruitment marketing-focused social media channels have been sweeping companies.

Just like your corporate marketing, employer branding as know as recruitment marketing can benefit from social media. It’s a platform that lets your company “let its hair down” and interact in a more casual way.

It’s tough to know when it’s time for your company to scale up to a full-blown employer branding social media channel, or if you’re better off combining your corporate and recruitment marketing on the same handle. Three major factors can help you know whether a dedicated channel is the right choice.

Time 

The question of time availability is the driving force behind every social strategy. While social media is a fun, engaging platform, it can also demand a lot of time. And falling behind on social is worse than never posting at all; it says to your potential applicants that you lack focus and accountability on employee programs. That sends warning signs to people who otherwise may think highly of your company.

A bare-bones social media presence demands at least an hour a week per channel. Figure out who will be responsible for posting, and how much time they can commit to your employer branding social. Then you can begin to decide how many, and which, social channels you should pursue.

Content 

Deciding if you have enough content for a dedicated recruitment marketing social media channel has two aspects: content types and content volume.

Content types:

What content types do you have to share? Visuals are a huge part of social media, so being able to shoot photos or videos in your space is key. Because authenticity is such a huge part of employer branding, those photos and videos need to be of your actual employees in your actual workspace. Stock photos can work for typical social media, but they are far less effective when your potential applicants are looking at your feed. They want to see themselves in your space, imagine working next to the people in the photos. Stock photos don’t help them connect to your culture.

And speaking of culture, what can you share? Do you celebrate staffers or share public kudos? If not, you’re going to be hard pressed to find things to post to your dedicated social media accounts. A social channel that’s all job postings will drive away more applicants than it will draw in.

Content Volume:

Speaking of which, how often does your company have public employee interaction and recognition? Depending on the channel, you’ll need anything from weekly to daily posts. While the demand for social media content can serve as a great reminder to show appreciation for your employees, it also must be authentic. Social users are savvy enough to be able to spot an awkwardly staged photo.

Applicant volume

Do you have a small number of positions, or are you in a high-volume or high-turnover industry? This is another big indicator of how you approach your social recruitment marketing strategy.

If you’re looking to only hire a handful of people per year, maintaining entirely separate accounts may not be worth your time. Consider the number of people that will be seeing your posts against the time it will take to maintain them year-round. In that case, feeding employer branding messages into your corporate accounts will likely be the better fit.

However, if you’re looking to fill dozens (or even hundreds) of positions regularly, a separate account is easily worth the time you’ll spend. Breaking the time down into cost per applicant will prove it one of the most cost-effective recruitment strategies available!

Interested in taking your recruitment marketing to the next level? Check out our previous Blog Posts to learn more on topics surrounding sponsorship. Contact Us for specific content questions.