Social media has created a platform for people all over the world to conveniently connect and share information. More and more people are using websites like Facebook and Twitter to look for jobs. A recent study by Glassdoor1 found that 79% of jobseekers use social media during their job search.
As an eye care employer, it’s critical that you follow the trends of jobseekers in order to find the most talented individuals. Here are three ways you can use social media to increase the number of applicants that respond to your job ad.
Increase Visibility Through Promotion on Larger Platforms
When your business account collects followers on Facebook or Twitter, those people see all of your posts in their feed, where your messages can get the most attention. Quite simply, the more followers you have, the more potential employees you will reach with your news. So how do you get followers?
Your followers will most likely be people who know you, which would include business and community partners, your current and former staff, your patients, and possibly the friends and family of everyone in your network. To reach outside of who you know to get new customers and new employees, you need to leverage larger networks. Appearing on accounts that have thousands of followers exponentially increase the reach of your posts and awareness of your brand.
You can do this by: 1. Creating interesting content that other groups will re-share 2. Targeting “influencers” in your space that have large followers for cross promotions 3. Reaching out to current business or community partners for cross promotions 4. Commenting on influencer posts to get your name under posts seen by thousands
We can help you. Local Eye Site has nearly 8,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook and as the leader in eye care hiring, we’re followed closely by jobseekers. Like, comment on, or re-share one of our daily posts to start to grow your own visibility, or speak to our friendly customer success team about how to feature your job in a dedicated social media post.
Use Hashtags to Increase Reach
Hashtags allow people to search for certain phrases on social media and find posts related to their search. For example, if you are advertising an open position for an Optometrist, jobseekers who don’t know yet know the name of your practice would instead be searching a number of common terms such as #optometrist, #hiring, #jobs, #eyecare, #healthcare, etc.
The best way to use hashtags is to find one that is incredibly specific, so that you know the person looking for the hashtag is not only in your group, but on top of industry news, information, and trends. If you are looking for a specific skill or certification you may want to use #dilating, #COT, #COA or even the name of a specific machine that would need to be used.
Other specific hashtags include speciality campaigns run by industry leaders. For example our latest social media campaign is #HiredByLES. We’ve asked customers of ours to post pictures of their team if anyone on the team was hired using our website. We re-share the pictures to our large following. Take a picture in front of your logo, or amazing office space, and snap your lovely, smart team looking super professional or really silly if that’s who you are!
This way you can show off your culture to thousands of jobseekers online who will probably follow you or check our your position. Either way, new people will hear of you and that’s marketing success.
Show Off Who You Are
Team pictures are a great way to show who you are as a company to attract people to your office. Why are you different? Are you extra fun, extra professional, or super caring? You can show this all through social media. To attract top talent, it’s important to put some work into your social media accounts and demonstrate your employer brand online.
Candidates who see your profiles will either say, “hey this is a place for me,” or “I wouldn’t fit in there,” and the latter is not necessarily a bad thing. The people who don’t fit well with who you are might just waste your time anyway, but the more likely option is that your social content will demonstrate that your practice is a great place to work, which will help you to get more applicants.
Social media has provided employers with the opportunity to connect with jobseekers more than ever. Make sure to take advantage of this amazing resource and give your practice a great image online to attract new employees!
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1https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm