Importance of Social Media for Job Boards

The discussion surrounding social recruitment has been rife this year, which has triggered the cry of ‘death of the job board’ in many online recruitment circles. Social platforms are reporting record numbers of users and we are hearing of more and more social success stories from brands across the world. There’s no doubt about it, social media has become vital to any job board business.

Whilst social media is an incredibly important part of today’s online recruitment industry it is by no way going to prove itself as the job board killer. In fact job boards and social platforms are existing in a delicate ecosystem in which each one keeps the other thriving. Social media platforms in their most stripped back form are content sharing systems, job boards are simply providing these social platforms with content to share.

As the internet has become more and more accessible to a wider range of people, we have seen an emphasis shift to the social capacities of the web. The Job board’s role now comprises of more than pure advertising, the most successful job board businesses provide blogs, advice and commentary on industry news. They act to bring together jobseekers and recruiters and provide them with a space for engagement. Social media has in fact extended this capacity for job boards, allowing further community engagement off site.

Social Conversation

The most important factor of these platforms is the conversation they create. Social platforms provide the perfect opportunity to engage on a more personal basis with the users of your job board. Social media users are not your average consumer, they do not appreciate being advertised at. The key to a successful social presence is to create conversation. Whilst using a Twitter feed, or Facebook timeline to advertise jobs is useful and extends the amount of people who see any given position, a screen full of job vacancies on a social platform is an invitation for social failure, which in turn will have a negative effect on the success of your job board.

Use your social media platforms to build conversation, ask questions, share blogs and articles of interest to your followers and make sure to ask them their thoughts. It is a great opportunity to cement your position as a thought leader but, more importantly it is a great chance to open up communication channels between you and your users. Showcase your knowledge and understanding of the industry, whilst simultaneously gaining insight directly from the people using your board.

Social Marketing

Social media is a great way to market your brand to those who matter. If you manage to break into the right communities social can have a huge impact on the amount of users interacting with your job board, in fact social media users are 56% more likely to recommend a brand to friends.

Use your social media platforms to push out any unique and relevant content you create, share any company successes and advertise features and updates to your job board. However remember not to overload your followers with marketing spiel, a careful mix of conversation and promotion must be struck in order to gain social success.

Today’s jobseekers are becoming increasingly technologically savvy. They are utilizing a variety of platforms to aid their job search. By utilizing social features such as hash tags you create even more chances to drive traffic and attention back to your job board. Create meaningful and thought out posts that are likely to be shared, further extending your reach into the right social communities. This will also help you with harnessing passive job seekers and persuading them to visit your job board. By widening the breadth of the type of content you share you can draw in users that are not specifically looking for a new role, but instead have a general interest in your industry.

Social signals are playing an increasing role in search engine rankings. With Google beginning to place more and more emphasis on social signals it is imperative that you are creating useful content that is easily shared across social platforms. Ensure that all content your create has some sort of social bookmarking option, giving users the opportunity to share your content without even having to leave the page.

Social Listening

Analyze your social platforms, look at the reaction to your posts, how many people click on links, how much of your traffic is coming from social sites and at what time. This should give you a better idea about your audience, giving you a good impression of what gains a reaction from your followers, which will help you with future social strategy.

Job boards provide the backbone for online recruitment but social has allowed their role to extend out into a community building position. Social is most certainly not the end of the job board, it is however an incredibly important tool to utilize in an ever changing digital landscape. Social in fact helps the job boards cause, it puts a human touch to the online recruitment industry, instigating conversation and encouraging sharing between members of a variety of industries.

What do you think?

We would love to hear your thoughts on how important you think social media is for job boards? Will they one day replace job boards or will they continue to co-exist as part of a coherent digital strategy? Use the form below to tell us what you think?

Job boards and social platforms are existing in a delicate ecosystem in which each one keeps the other thriving.

Social media users are not your average consumer, they do not appreciate being advertised at. The key to a successful social presence is to create conversation.

Social is most certainly not the end of the job board, it is however an incredibly important tool to utilize in an ever changing digital landscape.