Are you fed up of inactivity on your agency’s Facebook page? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one! I know it can be difficult to get people to engage. Here are six of my handy tips on how to increase candidate activity on your Facebook page:
Ask your Facebook audience questions
You can put a human face onto your agency by asking your readers questions. People will be happy to answer because, let’s face it, we all love the opportunity to talk about ourselves a bit! Take a look at how Advantage Healthcare Group has done it:
Use popular news stories to spark conversation
You might be tempted just to use your Facebook page for posting jobs, company news, and not much else. Remember that candidates don’t exist in a job-seeking vacuum though: they have other interests which you can use to get a discussion going on your page. Here’s an example from Reed, who used some sports news to get candidates interested, then turned the conversation back around to recruitment:
Always respond to comments
If you want engagement, the best thing you can do is...well, engage! If someone leaves you a comment on a post, keep the conversation going with a response. Even if it’s a question that could be answered by direct message or email, answer publicly so other candidates know you’re listening. It not only makes you seem approachable but also makes it more likely a candidate will take things to the next stage. Here’s an example by Michael Page:
Run a competition
Running a competition is a great way to get some more activity going on your page and it doesn’t necessarily need to cost the Earth. IT Works Recruitment recently ran one with an iPod Shuffle prize, which retails at a lot less than you spent on your last round of job board posts:
If you’re running a competition, it’s a good idea to highlight it as a key status. It’s very easy to do - simply hover over the top right of the status box and click the star symbol. It makes the status box a lot bigger so that it fits the whole page, meaning more candidates will see it.
Use a calls-to-action
This is a great way to get people to interact on your page because it directly asks them to do more than just read what you’re saying. So when you’re posting the latest job listing, you might say something like “Think one of your friends would be interested in this job? Hit 'share' to show them it!"
It’s a straightforward instruction that people won’t mind following. It means that even if the person reading isn’t interested in that particular job, they might know someone who is and can let them know about it. It means more potential candidates as well as spreading the word about your company at the same time.
Use the admin panel to see what’s working (and what’s not!)
One of the many features Facebook has for company pages is the ability to see straightforward data on who’s been looking at what. Under the Admin panel at the top of your page simply click “Insights” which will take you to a graph that looks something like this:
You can then use this to see which content got the most attention and interactivity, giving you a strong idea of what to post more of in the future and, perhaps most importantly, what NOT to post. Knowledge can indeed be power!
Looking for more on recruiting with Facebook? Try our previous posts, Recruiter's Guide to Maximising Facebook and How to Attract Candidates with a Facebook Ad.
