How I’m Using “The Big Four” of Social Media
Deciding on social media as a recruitment strategy was a little daunting. Yes, other companies were using social media to promote their products, but I hadn’t seen many other organizations, at least in this area, using Social as a way to receive applicants. Like a lot of others, when I first came to social, I didn’t have specific or individual posts planned for each platform. I thought of posting as a whole, rather than appealing to the right crowd in the right place.
Overtime, what I began to understand was that posts that were home runs on Facebook, were useless on Linkedin. If a photo wasn’t very high quality, it may receive plenty of engagement on Twitter, but it would receive very little attention on Instagram. In our last Intro to Social Media class, we dove into each of the “Big Four”, AKA Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin, and discussed the differences and highlights of each platform. The two that I have found to be the most beneficial for my brand has been Facebook and Instagram. This is what I have learned about my audience and my posts for both of these platforms.
Facebook is all about communities. After all, on my own personal Facebook, I hardly have any friends or followers that I don’t personally know, and the same is true for many Facebook users. When I scroll through Facebook, I’m expecting to see posts that are relevant and related to my own life, because it’s the content of my real life friends and friend groups.
I have found that the posts that result in the best engagement on my business Facebook page, are the post building and speaking about our work community. For example, we recently had a Team Member Picnic. The post that I wrote on this event received some of our best engagement yet. No, it wasn’t directly promoting our jobs or our job openings, but it was promoting our very own community. The traffic that these posts help drive to our Facebook account also helped promote our other posts, such as recent job opportunities or career paths in our organization.
My personal favorite social media network has to be Instagram. With my photography background, a social network that focuses on images and interest content through pictures is appealing to me. And this is what draws a lot of Instagram users to the platform.
For a long time after creating my Instagram, I didn’t focus on this draw. I instead posted most of the same content I was posting on Facebook, and what I saw were very different results. These posts, which were doing so well on Facebook, were receiving very little engagement. Even my following for the page was lagging behind my Facebook page.
When I scroll through my best performing posts on Instagram, they all have one thing in common; they are all high quality, interesting photos. In fact, my highest performing post on Instagram is about Hershey Park tickets selling out. I wouldn’t expect this to attract much attention outside of our community, since our discount is only eligible for Team Members. But the photo accompanying this update is unique and appealing.
Understanding what attracts visitors, and hopefully applicants, to my page helps me to better create attractive content. I have a story to tell about my brand, and I also have goals to achieve. And while it may take more time to post separate content on each of my platforms, the payoff is wroth it.
