Chances are you use Instagram both privately and professionally. It’s a visual diary of your life and needless to say, people love it! Here at Harger Howe, it’s one of our favorite social platforms for promoting our company culture. But this post isn’t about company culture – no – it’s about updates to the social platform itself! About three weeks ago, Instagram announced a brand new feature they simply dubbed Saved Posts. This new feature is accessed via a small bookmark icon located at the bottom right of an Instagram post. This little add-on may seem inconsequential, but it’s actually a really big deal for visual recruitment. Here’s why:
Later-Sharing and Lifespan Extension
You’ve probably already used the airplane icon to send a funny image to a friend on Instagram, but chances are it was a one-time thing. Consider this – a candidate sees your post for a job opening on Instagram and saves it. They can now share it later on when they have more time.
Though we don’t have specific data yet on the results, we are making an educated guess that with extra time, more sharing will occur. This increased sharing is huge because it means that candidates will keep you in mind longer instead of just scrolling on by, which will generate more interest for your business.
Employer Branding
As noted in Later-Sharing and Lifespan Extension, this update is going to create more interest in your brand because candidates will be saving the imagery. The more often you can get candidates to save your posts, the more likely it will be that they will look for a job at your company when they are searching. An ongoing presence on Instagram, focusing on Saved Posts could increase the conversion rate of passive candidates to active applies.
It’s Like a Private Pin Board
Visuals are powerful, which is why we love Pinterest for recruitment. But, it looks like Instagram may be marching into Pinterest’s backyard with this particular update! After all, Digiday reported in their article Instagram's new 'Saved Posts' feature has big implications for marketers that, “saved posts turn Instagram from a browsing tool into a curation tool, a move that puts Instagram squarely in Pinterest’s territory.”
For now, it seems that this update allows Instagram to function much like a private pin board. The future is unclear – but we wonder whether Instagram will launch something like group grams using this technology thereby competing directly with Pinterest. Time will tell!
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Ultimately, we are very excited about this update in regards to visual recruitment marketing and you should be too! Want to try saving a post yourself? Here are Instagram’s notes:
“You can save posts you'd like to see again. To save a post, tap [the bookmark] below it.
To see posts you've saved, go to your profile and tap [the bookmark]. Only you can see the posts you've saved. When you save someone's post, they're not able to tell that you've saved it.”
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