Do you think Twitter is relevant as part of your recruiting toolkit? This post is all about why I think it is THE next big thing for recruiters & also a great tool those up and coming millennials are using to check out a perspective company’s culture. Sharing your culture is key as millennials list culture/future colleagues within the top reasons in choosing a company along with meaningful work, work-life balance & advancement opportunities. Here’s why I think it is really going to become the next big thing:
Millennials/university attendees are a growing population on Twitter so now is your time to get a program built and get ahead of your competition. I love this quote from one of Twitter’s founders: “We think of Twitter as it’s not a social network, but it's an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world.” – Evan Williams. Twitter is the best tool within recruiting for sharing information, learning about your industry & sharing your company culture with perspective employees. It’s even better than Facebook for culture sharing as most people don’t protect their tweets so 99% of twitter is an open network = open sharing. It is easy to welcome people and people are not protective of their tweets (unlike protective profiles in Facebook) so there are not the same potential privacy pitfalls.
Here are some Twitter DO’s:
- Have an internal Twitter lead
- Set up a corporate ID – reserve it NOW even if you aren’t sure if this is the medium for you (@companyname or @companyjobs are great handles.
- Use #hastags to organize information about your company & make it searchable (example #companyname). Hashtags are also used to pull information off of twitter onto your website if you have a twitter feed.
- Maintain a ratio of 1:10 of broadcast PR messages to participation to ensure you are answering the “what’s in it for me?” question for your followers
- Choose follows wisely – choose people relevant to your industry. Don’t just follow anyone.
- Share relevant information
- Respond to people who mention your handle. Create dialogues.
- Have someone create a list of employees & maintain with new employees. This creates a list people can follow to see what people at your company are saying.
- Tweet information that is timely & relevant for your candidates – recruiting events, tips for applications, tips for interviews.
- Engage people so ensure that whenever someone @mentions you (meaning they quote your twitter handle/name) – you respond to have a conversation
- Have contests or ask questions to get your followers engaged
- Tweet photos of recruiting events or new employees or your office to share your culture
DON’T
- Don’t think you HAVE to be on twitter. Ensure it makes sense for your industry & your target market
- Auto-follow people back – this shows you are only trying to have a high number of followers versus connecting with relevant people
- Spam with direct message auto responses when people follow you
- Don’t use it as a PR tool; have conversations & engage!
- Don’t just jump in without seeing what your competitors are doing
- Don’t forget about doing your research – use great website’s like mashable to get tips/tricks for getting started from the very basics
Did this help? Which of the DO’s are you current doing & which are intriguing to you to try!?
Not sure how to even get started? Check out this great tool kit on getting started and maximizing your use of twitter at: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/
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