3 Reasons to Invest in Posting and Promoting Job Ads on Social Media

Posting job advertisements to social media channels has become increasingly popular as networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter make it easier to reach passive candidates in the job marke t. Active candidates look to job boards and career pages for available positions, but social media job posts attract a broader audience. Ninety-three percent of recruiters are already using or plan to use social media to support their recruiting efforts, and 73 percent of recruiters said they planned to invest more in social recruiting last year.

Here are three reasons why you, too, should be investing in social recruiting tactics for posting job advertisements this year:

1. Twitter Comes to Google Search

You may have already noticed that tweets are showing up in Google search results, which stems from a deal struck between Twitter and Google to make tweets more searchable. Before, Google would just crawl Twitter’s site for information, but now, tweets will be automatically visible, which will give tweets an even larger reach and a chance to be seen even by people who aren’t on Twitter.

To Do: Create three different Twitter handles for your company: one for the brand itself, one that focuses on careers at your company, and one that strictly meant for tweeting job openings. The job-feed Twitter handle should use SEO strategies to tweet out the most relevant keywords for a shot at top spot in Google’s search results. If you want to see how it’s done, take a look at this list of employers who post their job ads to Twitter for inspiration.

2. Video Job Descriptions on Facebook

You can’t scroll through your Facebook feed without coming across at least a few videos. In an effort to compete with YouTube, Facebook changed its content-recommendation algorithm to favor videos hosted on its own video player. This change paid off last August, when Facebook beat out YouTube for video views on desktop computers for the first time in history. Facebook’s 890 million daily active users watch 3 billion videos every day, and more than 50 percent of people in the U.S. who use Facebook every day watch at least one video per day.

To Do: Create two-minute video job descriptions for each open position to be shared on Facebook. The average job seeker spends only 50 seconds on a job post  before moving on, so think about how much more information you can share with these job seekers in a video, versus a written description.

Plus, videos are more memorable, engaging, and useful, when it comes to making decisions. In fact, according to WebpageFX, 90 percent of people say videos are helpful when making decisions about a product. Encourage passive candidates to apply to your open positions with simple videos that show off your employer brand and build excitement for the available job.

3. Promoting Tweets Has Never Been Easier

Twitter’s analytics dashboard has been available to all users since last year, and now users can quickly promote tweets through the dashboard in just seconds. According to Twitter, this new feature was created for small and medium-sized businesses as a way to boost popular tweets in just a couple steps.

To Do: Promote job advertisement tweets from either the company handle or your personal recruiting handle to target specific candidates and increase reach. Watch this video for complete instructions on how to get started.

Changes in social media features have made it easier for recruiters and employers to promote their open job positions in more interactive and engaging ways. If you haven’t already decided to invest in social recruiting techniques like the ones we just discussed, then I have to ask: What are you waiting for?