As a marketing manager or a staffing specialist in charge of the social media marketing initiatives for a staffing firm, developing a strategy can seem like an overwhelming task.
With team members constantly asking you to promote their available jobs to your social community and a surplus or lack of content causing you to reconsider which content to share, a successful social media marketing strategy requires dedication, commitment and most importantly, a plan.
While it’s important to understand the specific nuances of each social platform, a successful strategy comes down to one critical component: defining success before you begin your initiatives. Without completing this critical step, the daily activities and social tactics you deploy are simply post after post into an already overcrowded social media landscape.
Before we look at piecing together a successful social media strategy for 2018, we need to start by answering one question; What are your goals?
When I ask this, I don’t mean your social media tactical goals. Sure, getting more likes on Facebook is a great feel-good stat, but it’s not the goal.
In the words of Jay Baer, “The goal is not to be good at social media, the goal is to be good at business because of social media.”
So, when you think about your specific social media initiatives, what defines success? What makes your efforts worthwhile?
For every staffing and recruiting firm, this comes down to two fundamental goals:
- Generating more qualified job applications
- Generating more job orders
For you specifically, what is your goal? What will define success from the social media tactics you’re deploying day after day?
Once a goal is defined and quantified, the social media strategy and supporting tactics will fall into place. As we look at tactics, whether it’s sharing blog content on your company website or jobs, or visuals on social media, we can always come back to our goal, more applications or more job orders.
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What makes a successful social media strategy? As you look back on two weeks, one month, one quarter, are you moving closer to your quantified business goals?
Are you receiving more applications from qualified candidates, and are you securing more job orders?
If not, the social media strategy and the tactics you’re deploying are just noise in the clutter. You’re simply sharing content (images, videos and links) to be a part of the social media ecosystem.
One Action Item for Success. Everything that you post on social media should have a defined purpose. Look at your company Facebook page this afternoon. Look at the past seven social media posts and identify the specific reason you shared each link, image or video. Are those posts in line with the goal you’re trying to achieve?
Again, what defines a successful social media marketing strategy? A strategy that is in line with your business goals and is designed to generate more applications or job orders.
If the social media strategy and tactics you deploy on a weekly basis generate more applications and job orders, then you have a strategy built for success.
If, however, you find that after a defined period of time you are seeing the same results as before, then you have an unsuccessful strategy and it’s time to go back to the drawing board and evaluate the tactics you’re deploying.
