This week I have spent time talking to and training agency recruiters and corporate recruiters, and there was one issue that was the same in three teams of recruiters, and was it causing pain and frustration to both sets of recruiters

No idea on what to say on the various social media channels - All the teams had been 'told' they now have to use social media in recruitment. Some of the recruiters had taken it upon themselves to start tweeting, updating on LinkedIn and setting up a Pinterest board, but them stalled - they ran out of ideas - they didn't know what to say, tweet, update, post or share!

Aside from some of the things I mentioned earlier this week - two of the companies are actually having new career sites built at the moment - this content piece is the one thing that was causing the most head scratching. They all used LinkedIn, most had Twitter accounts, some had Facebook Pages and one even had Google + page - but the story was the same, "what do we post on them, we don't know what to write about or what content to share, we haven't got time to spend all day on social media".

Sound familiar?

The process is simple in theory - but the execution needs a little work:

1. Make sure you have decided on your objectives for using social media- e.g. more candidates, brand awareness, referrals, SEO, showing your expertise, differentiating yourself from your competition.
2. Now where are your target audience? What social platforms are they on? LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Github, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube?
3. What content appeals the them?
4. How do you create this content?
5. Where do you find good content that others have created that you can share with your audience?
6. Then, how do you share it effectively, minimising time and effort - what tools are available for you to use to help you?
7. Measuring success is important, but how do you do it?
8. It would be great to see how others are doing it as well, to see ideas for content and campaigns (and maybe to use in budget justification)

Sounds easy like this doesn't it?

Social recruiting isn't easy - no one says it is. It is not meant to replace your existing processes, it is meant to integrate with it and add further powers to your recruiting armoury. 

There are many things that you can create, find and share on social media channels - you just need a little thinking about what your audience might like.

For example here are 101 things you can write about - and of course then share, tweet and update across the social channels.

If you want some further ideas, then look at where I share my content and what content I share on the social media channels. 

Maybe we will see you at one of the workshops, and we can help you understand how powerful good content can be for your recruitment effectiveness.

We work with recruitment agencies and corporates to help them integrate social media into their existing recruitment strategy and recruitment processes. If you require guidance, advice or social recruiting training, get in touch today.

NEW for 2013 - Social Media Content For Recruiter Workshops - using the power of social media content to help reduce your advertising costs, build your digital brand and create new methods of candidate attraction. For more information and to take advantage of the Earlybird discount code SIR131, go to the booking page here.

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