Social media provides a wealth of opportunities to attract people from a variety of backgrounds and demographics. This series of videos covers everything you need to know to optimise your social media usage.
Social media platforms evolve quickly, which makes it vital to stay on top of the latest guidance and trends. Marketing expert Paul Ince from has produced a series of videos looking at the social media landscape and the opportunities it presents for recruiting new staff and helping the retention of existing team members.
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Guidance and tips on using social media to find and keep the right people.
Videos topics include:
Explore the current state of social media and how it can be used as part of values-based recruitment.
Tips:
- Consider your overall objectives and document these so that your activity on social media is focused on an end goal rather than adding to online ‘noise’.
- Your time is precious – social media shouldn’t take away from other priorities. You can probably spend less time than you think on delivering a good result.
- Quality content beats quantity every time.
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Learn about the essentials you need know in order to be able to create better, more compelling content that delivers results.
Almost all platforms work on the same principle of presenting content that users of the platform wants to see. Some of the platforms have similar content formats so understanding this generally will help you apply your knowledge to the many social media options.
Tips:
- Profile pictures and cover images are an opportunity to showcase your organisation.
- Your cover image can be used to highlight careers opportunities or showcase your great work. Adding a call to action within it is a good way to remind people to apply.
- When planning content, consider getting a good mixture of job opportunities, behind the scenes, employee advocacy, events etc. An account that is one long list of vacancies can be offputting.
- Stock imagery can be helpful but it’s preferable to use your own photography when posting.
- AI imagery will often not produce images that are an accurate representation and can contain bias – use with caution.
- Write in a more casual tone of voice – think about how you would talk to someone in real life.
- Consider the questions a candidate may have. This will give you many content ideas.
- Remember to be mindful of your responsibilities when including people you support in content, especially if they are vulnerable.
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There are many choices to make in social media. A key decision is which social media platforms you will manage.
It’s easy to justify a presence on all platforms, but managing several platforms requires resource. Being more selective will allow you to work more efficiently. This video goes through the major platforms to help you understand where you should focus your efforts.
Tips:
- Pick one to two platforms to master before considering broadening your audience.
- Select platforms based on functionality, target audience and effort required to manage.
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All social media platforms use algorithms to determine what a user of the platform sees. Each platform’s algorithm is unique.
In this video, we consider what an algorithm is and what you can do to maximise the chance that your content is seen by the right people you are looking to attract.
Tips:
- Include keywords (words that define your target audience or job role) in your content so that an algorithm can identify more easily what it is about.
- Be specific when talking about roles and the qualities you are looking for.
- Being relevant to your audience is the number one thing your content needs to be.
- Don’t use phrases like ‘Comment below’, ‘Like and share’ or ‘Tag a friend’ in your post.
- You can see the impact of algorithms, and how your content performed by reviewing the analytics within each platform.
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Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world with over 3 billion active users. With broad demographics that include people you can support, their loved ones as well as potential new recruits and existing team members. This makes it a great choice for the care sector.
In this video we look at Facebook and the many options within a Facebook page that is worth setting up.
Tips:
- Complete as much information on a page as Facebook allows, particularly in the 'about' section.
- Use 'get message' options to encourage people to send a direct message about opportunities.
- Engagement is crucial on Facebook. Actively interact with comments and encourage more.
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LinkedIn is a popular platform for those working in recruitment and for people seeking new career opportunities. It’s viewed as somewhat different to other social media platforms, often given the title ‘the professional network’.
In this video we consider whether LinkedIn is really that different to the other platforms.
Tips:
- The power of LinkedIn is in the personal network a user can build. Get your senior team to review their profile page and start sharing your organisation’s content.
- Company pages can be used to post job opportunities. You’ll get one listing for free, then you’ll need to pay to list additional vacancies.
- PDF documents perform well as content on LinkedIn. You can reuse files you already have such as brochures, presentations etc.
- Use 'Notify Employees' on a company post to let your team know there’s something worth sharing to their network.
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Instagram is a popular platform that is focused on visual content. Often seen as a place full of influencers and beautiful content, it’s growth and feature-rich functionality make it a big player in the social media world.
This video discusses the essential information about Instagram and gives an overview into the many different areas that can have an impact on recruitment and retention.
Tips:
- Reels gives you a chance for your message to be spread outside those people who are following you already.
- Adding location tags to your content help Instagram understand who it’s for and increases the likelihood of it being seen by people in that area – good for recruitment into a physical setting.
- A Creator account will give you access to the full music library as well as the analytics tools and contact options available to business accounts.
- Link your Instagram accounts and Facebook pages together to make posting on both platforms easier.
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TikTok has changed the way we view social media. Primarily a video content app, it has had other platforms copy its features in order to retain a share of the social media landscape. But TikTok’s innovation is rapid and has captured people’s attention, particularly young people.
This young demographic consumes a lot of content so TikTok is a platform that recruiters should consider to reach it. In this video we look at why this is and what you need to know if you’re looking to branch out into TikTok.
Tips:
- Most users stay watching the For You Page – content that the platform thinks a user will be interested in. Creating content relevant to your audience should be your primary focus.
- The first couple of seconds are crucial when trying to capture attention. Put your key message here.
- Use trending audio and templates to increase reach.
- Consider using younger members of staff in content to ‘talk to their peers’.
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There are many more social media platforms that are available for you to try. It may well be that your target audience is using these platforms.
Here we will discuss some of the other platforms that you could consider.
Tips:
- Think about whether you have the resources to manage additional platforms.
- X is changing, pay attention to its policies and its direction.
- Don’t get distracted from your objectives by shiny new things.
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There are thousands of tool available to you to help you produce better content, manage multiple accounts, source images, generate videos and more. For every task you have to do, there’s probably an app for it.
In this video we look at our recommendations of some tools that will help you save time, make your content stand out and generally make your life easier.
Tips:
- Not all tools are easy to use. Try them out and see if they feel intuitive.
- Some are worth the subscription, others are not. Read reviews to see what others say about them.
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In our final video in the series, we look at how you can get your team in on the act of recruiting new staff and advocate for your organisation as a great place to work.
Using your team shows authenticity and builds trust with your audience. Telling their story, showing how they support people and the other brilliant work they do in their role opens a window to their work and they type of organisation you are.
Tips:
- Showcasing your team can be a motivating exercise in itself.
- Find existing team members who are happy to be part of content.
- Show the work they will do, but remember to keep the people you support safe.
- Have a robust social media policy and ensure your staff understand the impact of them posting on their own social media accounts.
- Using CareFriends helps with word of mouth recruitment.
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