“MARKETING IS NOT SALES”
Gary Vaynerchuk (aka. Gary V.)
One of the most basic rules of marketing is to always educate the buyer. This is why marketing is not the same thing as selling. This is important to remember, especially when it comes to recruitment, because your approach to recruiting can greatly impact its results. You’re not trying to sell candidates on a job, but rather, inform them about it and the organization at hand.
In fact, content marketing in recruitment is one of the biggest game changers; instead of sharing a job posting and hoping for the best, marketing teams work closely with an organization or recruitment team to entice applicants effectively. If you are a recruiter who is not a particularly strong marketer, you will inevitably and seriously lose out in the hiring game! Specifically, digital marketing and social media marketing is where the game is at when it comes to recruiting. It’s no longer solely about the job postings or what they entail; it’s about grabbing the prospective applicants’ attention.
This starts by sharing your why. Why does your organization do what it does and why is it the best at what it does? What makes your organization a particularly great place to work? Applicants will want to hear stories about what your current employees think about your company, and they want to know what the company represents. Content marketing allows you to do all of these things.
HOW DOES CONTENT MARKETING WORK?
Content marketing is a process that is often not in your control; Often, the social media platform(s) on which your message is offered will only start to attract the right kind of attention under very specific circumstances. Sometimes this means presenting your marketing in a different perspective or mentality to catch someone’s attention. As Gary V—as quoted above—mentioned in one of his social posts, “There are people who watched my content every day for six years and then, one piece of content made them email me and this was it”.
Recruitment content marketing works in the exact same way. You have to continuously put it out there on social platforms and other digital mediums, and when the right moment comes, it will catch future applicants' attention. In this way, our goal as recruiters/HR professionals is to educate prospective applicants and when the right opportunity comes.
WHAT KIND OF CONTENT SHOULD I BE POSTING?
Employee Spotlights
Employee spotlights are great recruitment content marketing. Everyone loves to hear stories from current employees. These can be done with direct quotes from employees—with or without a picture of them. Employees can also be showcased in short (30 to 45 second) videos. The key to employee spotlights is to showcase how they got started or why they love their job and your company. Through employee showcases, you can also highlight your efforts towards making the workplace more diverse and inclusive. Keep it authentic and real, as people gravitate towards this more often in content marketing. You want to capture an emotional connection with future applicants.
Blogs
Blogs about real situations and problems you’ve solved in the marketplace can allow you to educate audiences of all kinds about your organization, from consumers to prospective applicants. Through the stories you tell, your readers will be able to visualize themselves in similar situations; this is how you can pique their interest in your company. After all, if a worker is not feeling valued for their skills where they currently are, they may be able to visualize themselves being appreciated and acknowledged for their skill-sets in your company.
Pictures
As the old saying goes, a picture is worth 1,000 words! Pictures of a company’s team tend to get the most attention on social media. Social media consumers particularly love looking at pictures of people they know having fun at their place of work. After all, pictures that feature someone an audience member knows personally are four times more likely to gain traction through ‘likes’ and comments.
I know it sounds vain to post pictures of yourself, but this is how things go viral. People love cheering others on, especially when they are spotlighted. So, post pictures of company events like parties and barbeques, new employees, causes/charities you all care about, and other ways you are reaching out to the community. And post those pictures as much as you can; it can continue to show why your organization is such a great place to work and encourage others to want to join.
PowerPoint Slides and Infographics
PowerPoint slides or infographic carousels are great to post on social media like LinkedIn because people enjoy interacting with content. PowerPoints can be a powerful way to showcase your knowledge or ask questions and provide answers on topics of interest. Use visually striking content like graphs and charts to better educate your audiences, and keep words to a bare minimum. No one wants to read a full book on LinkedIn; they want to learn something quickly. This type of content will get you higher levels of engagement, so especially with content like this, don’t forget to put a call to action.
Video
That’s right, the world has gone video. Just like back in the 80s and 90s where music videos were the way to consume music, video today is all the rage on social media. YouTube and YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels are all the rage. You will find your younger audience mostly consuming content on TikTok, and a wider age-range of audience members on YouTube.
Nevertheless, we recommend content marketing on other social channels, as well, like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Just remember to keep your videos short (i.e., 15 to 45 seconds). Your video doesn’t have to be perfect, either; actually, audiences tend to particularly appreciate authentic content. They want to meet the real you, and given that the video and audio is clear, that’s all that matters. Lastly, don’t forget to add subtitles to your videos; nowadays, 86% of videos are consumed without sound, so this will be your main way of getting your message across!
RECRUITERS START CONTENT MARKETING NOW!
As recruiters, it’s not enough to merely sell the job at hand to a potential candidate; our job is to educate audiences on an organization’s story, the position available, and the benefits that come with each. Create meaningful and lasting impressions on your audiences, and find folks who are inspired by your messages. Most crucially, give people a reason to call you versus the other way around using content marketing!
In 4 easy sessions we can help you become a recruitment marketing guru.
