Recruitment: The Wonders of Social Media
Revel in the first of a three-part blog series on how to best succeed in recruitment season! This week we'll be running through how to best use social media to your advantage, in a time where more people than ever (especially freshers!) are searching the web for new and exciting opportunities.
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Recruitment Social Media Checklist
Before you start reading, ensure you have completed all the tasks below in order to set a foundation for succeeding in social media promotion.
1. Invite 500+ people to your Facebook event
2. Change your profile picture or cover photo to the marketing materials provided
3. Add the relevant marketing materials to your Facebook event
4. Share your Facebook event on sports club, society pages and Freshers pages
Choosing your Platform
It's likely that your RAG already has an established Facebook page. If not, this is step one in optimising social media. Beyond this, you should seriously consider branching out to other platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat to broaden your horizons and increase your reach. Your digital strategy should reflect the level of engagement each platform generates. In most cases, Facebook or Instagram are the best for this, especially over the first weeks of term when new students are looking endlessly for new opportunities.
Note: If you are leading outside of a RAG / fundraising society, it's best to rely solely on Facebook and Instagram.
Post Frequency
Generally, according to algorithms, you should be posting on Facebook no more than once a day and Twitter between 1 to 5 times a day. Instagram is different in that the algorithm changes according to the relative change in your posts, so consistency is key here. That is, if you post 10 times a day for a week and the week after you post 5 times, your engagement will slow relatively compared to if you were consistently posting 10 times a day.
Videos: why and how?
As is becoming common knowledge, the vast majority of social media platforms have complex algorithms that dictates how many people see your posts. Videos tend to benefit the most from these algorithms. In order of value, the algorithms prioritise text-only posts, then pictures, then videos. It is vital, then, for you to get as much video content out as possible, even if it's recorded on your phone as the quality has improved massively over the years. Try and get these videos shared by your sabbaticals or communications officers to expand reach.
Snapchat and Instagram
Social media users are, naturally, in different mind-sets when using different apps. This is why other methods of engagement, such as Snapchat geofilters are super important, especially at Freshers' Fairs. They provide an authentic angle to your content that other societies will not often provide. Try engaging your audience with popular or relatable figures from your campus in your stories and snaps.
Staying Organised
1. Try a third-party scheduling app, such as Hootsuite.
2. Schedule your content weeks (or even months) in advance to ensure you don't miss any posts when it comes to Freshers' Week.
Miscellaneous Tips
1. Know your audience: for example, solely focus on posting inspirational and thought-provoking photos on Instagram, rather than other platforms.
2. Try not to sound like spam. Provide a variety of useful content, such as stories of past participants or other forms of endorsement.
Extra Resources
Hootsuite's blog has some great tips on social media communications in general.
Social Media Today tracks updates in social media platform algorithms and feature additions.
Gary Vaynerchuck has a ton of content on his blog about how he succeeded in marketing.
