With the advent of social media in the enterprise, it’s important to understand how the technology—and the human networks it creates—can help your business, inside and out. In a recent Frost & Sullivan survey of almost 2,000 IT decision makers around the world, the majority of organizations reported using social media for marketing and customer engagement. Social media management has been especially beneficial for quickly obtaining customer feedback (35 percent of respondents), improving collaboration (33 percent) and identifying user trends (29 percent).
But smart companies are realizing that social media can also benefit the organization and its employees. So while the travel industry uses social media to increase company/brand exposure, the energy relies on it sector to identify user trends, and the education field leverages it to receive customer feedback quickly, retail is relying on social media to support remote teams, while finance and agriculture tap the networks to improve collaboration.
However, an additional benefit of social media didn’t even make it onto our list: employee recruitment and advocacy. Although these are often overlooked, they can deliver significant value to an organization—and you probably already have the necessary tools in place. What you need now is a culture change, so that managers and employees are ready and willing to embrace their role as brand advocates across their own networks, and beyond.
After all, it’s always better to attract candidates who already know something about your business, have some sense of your pay scales and benefits, and arrive with a positive impression of the way you work. Recruiting from within your employee network ensures candidates come to you with an understanding of your corporate culture, management structure and, most importantly, what it’s really like to work at your organization. And if they’re coming to you through a friend, they’ve already decided that you might be a good fit. That means that if you end up offering these recruits a job, the chances that they will take the offer, perform as expected and remain in the position increase significantly compared with cold hires.
How do you do this? By taking advantage of the viral nature of social media, which makes it easy for employees to spread the word about your company, their role in it and any open positions that need filling. By leveraging your employees’ loyalty and enthusiasm for the organization, you can recruit more and better people, shrink hiring times, lower costs and increase retention:
- Grow your talent pipeline. Increase the reach of every job posting by empowering employees to quickly share new opportunities across their personal and professional networks. Build a stronger brand with employee advocates who amplify positive press and thought leadership.
- Source better candidates. You’ll have more and more accurate information to help ensure you make the right decision when candidates are sourced by employees—and so will they, leading to better outcomes all around.
- Shrink hiring time. Candidates are more likely to apply for jobs at trusted employers with a strong brand and a widespread presence in the market. People trust their friends and colleagues and are more likely to take a job when someone they know recommends it.
- Lower recruiting costs. More inbound candidates and faster time-to-hire will deliver measurable cost savings and a better return on your investment.
- Increase retention and loyalty. Candidates who are already familiar with the ins and outs of your business are more likely to stay and deliver strong results, limiting learning curves and reducing churn.
Interested in building a stronger employer brand and engaging your employees to hire more efficiently? As a next step, we recommend researching potential technology partners like Dynamic Signal that specialize in employee advocacy and social recruiting.
