As part of my job, I am always tracking analytics, monitoring engagement and adjusting my strategy. Social media is like a wild animal and each day is a new opportunity to tame the beast. New social properties and recruitment strategies pop up daily and it is our job to stay on top of them. With the popularity of social media for healthcare recruitment increasing all the time, we thought we’d show you some of our top recruitment marketing social media secrets for the healthcare industry that you might not know.
1. Times They Are A Changin’
It’s extremely important to stay abreast of changes because if you don’t, you can run into many issues. Images with the wrong aspect ratios may not render correctly in ads or posts and certain networks may be shifting toward a new demographic so you could miss your audience. Simply knowing how to use one platform for recruiting is not enough and that is ultimately why we recommend that recruiters place their trust in us as advertising agency professionals. We want you to focus on candidate searches (which is a big enough job already).
2. You Have to Pay!
There are two sides to this element of recruitment marketing. First, there’s the time element. Healthcare recruitment marketers spend time creating content, following relevant stories/trends and building a following. These services take time and the best way to make this happen is to assign a dedicated person to work towards the goal of a solid talent acquisition pipeline.
Second, since social media platforms (especially mainstream ones like Facebook and Twitter) are only as effective as their reach and relevance, you will have to assign an ongoing budget for recruitment ads, post boosts, and at least initially, building followers.
Also, it should be noted that Facebook announced as early as 2013 that they were going to limit organic reach and tailor ads more appropriately. After that announcement, it became fairly clear that paid reach was going to come into play with existing fans. Though you will receive some organic candidate traffic, if you want to reach a wide audience of contenders then assigning a dedicated budget is absolutely essential.
3. There Isn’t a Secret Sauce
Each brand is and should be different. For instance, marketers seeking to recruit younger patients that may be looking for a new healthcare provider or hospital could choose to share health tips! According to MediaBistro “18 to 24 year olds are more than 2x as likely than 45 to 54 year olds to use social media for health-related discussions.” However, hospitals looking to recruit physicians might choose to share useful information like top iPad apps for physicians in order to pull in potential hires. In our business, we have to think about the ultimate recruitment goal for social media with respect to the client we are promoting and the initiatives they are running.
4. Your Audience is Social
The evidence is irrefutable. Healthcare professionals are avid social media users. According to MM&M’s Healthcare Marketer Trend Report 51% of healthcare providers (HCP) are using social media as an advertising channel.
Trust us when we say, reaching your audience is doable through social media, which is why we recommend a consistent effort when it comes to social.
5. It Takes Time
Building anything is a continual activity. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are healthcare talent pipelines. Sometimes it takes passive healthcare candidates multiple views before they will click on a job ad. In fact, most of these candidates will refer back to other social media career pages to learn more about the healthcare system prior to actually applying.
We help our clients build lasting recruitment strategies that bring in the best audience. Try giving social media recruitment a sustained chance to see a maximum return on investment.
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Ultimately, social media recruitment is about commitment to staying active and current. Want to learn more? Subscribe!
