Social Media Campaigns: Still Having Them Run for You, or Running Them Yourself?

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Contents

• Reaching passive candidates through social media
• Outsourcing social media recruiting? Not such a great idea.
• How algorithms and artificial intelligence help in social media recruiting
• Measuring results in real time
• Adjusting the job ad regularly
• Frequently asked questions

TL;DR

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You can run recruiting social media campaigns yourself or outsource them to an agency. Doing it in-house with AI-supported recruiting software is usually a better fit and cheaper, because nobody knows your target audience as well as you do. AI-supported recruiting software analyzes your job posting automatically and turns it into audience-specific ads on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms. You keep full control over budget, run time and real-time reporting and reach passive candidates far more cost-efficiently than through external providers.

!A recruiter setting up a social media recruiting campaign for Facebook and Instagram on a laptop.

Author: Dominik Becker · Published: October 13, 2021

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Social media campaigns have become essential in recruiting, but they take work. So why not outsource all of it to an agency that knows social media inside out? For many recruiters, that thought feels obvious. Yet these services are often expensive, and the results usually leave a lot to be desired. It works far better with recruiting software that has artificial intelligence built in. With it, you can set up a social media campaign in no time and save money on top.

Reaching passive candidates through social media

... and win your talent over!

Did you know that nearly one in three candidates no longer looks for a job actively, but waits until the right company approaches them with an offer? According to the Recruiting Trends study by the University of Bamberg, many people find that far more convenient.

But how do your job postings reach the right candidates fastest and most accurately? One approach that works really well is running paid job ads on social media. With the right settings, you can deliver them specifically to the talent you are looking for. The ads consist of an image, a headline and a short description, and they show up as a sponsored post right in your target audience's feed. A click takes candidates to your full job posting. From there, they can apply directly.

Sounds good, right? For anyone who is new to it, recruiting on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms has a catch. For your job postings to actually reach the right candidates, you enter very specific details about your target audience into the networks. It is not just about age, region, preferences, gender, education, occupation and hobbies. In a very long process, the network also asks you for parameters your colleagues in marketing are more familiar with. Phew!

Outsourcing social media recruiting? Not such a great idea.

Have you already tried several times to run a job ad on social media, only to give up in frustration at a certain point every time? And now you are thinking about handing your social media campaign over to an external agency? If you ask us, that is not such a great idea. In most cases, the result is pretty disappointing. Often the hoped-for surge of applicants through Facebook or Instagram never comes, or the applications that do arrive are not the right fit for your company.

Here is why. Nobody knows your target audience as well as you do. For an agency to deliver your job posting to social media as specifically as possible, it would need to be briefed precisely. That is a lot of effort and runs against the provider's business model. After all, your service partner set out with the promise of making life easier for recruiters like you and getting you a recruiting win without a big back-and-forth.

So the account manager in charge fills the social networks with information about your target audience to the best of their knowledge. In the end, your ads get delivered to talent who roughly fit your company, but not quite. And for that you pay a tidy sum of money.

How algorithms and artificial intelligence help in social media recruiting

There is a cheaper and more efficient way out of this dilemma. Algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) inside a recruiting software. With their help, you build your social media campaign yourself without much effort. No marketing knowledge or prior experience needed. Instead, the algorithms and AI feed the social networks with the information that matters for your recruiting success. Fully automatically, without you lifting a finger.

Everything the AI needs for that is already in the ad text and the metadata of the job posting you want to promote through the sponsored post on Facebook and other platforms. From these, mana HR automatically filters out the relevant parameters a social network needs to deliver your social media ad accurately. That way your job ad reaches the right candidates.

But it goes further. The software now generates a preview of your sponsored posting, including the job title, a short description and the link to your job posting. All that is missing is a strong image, which you can add with a single click. Then set the campaign run time and the budget. Your full recruiting campaign is ready. And in less than a minute. Brilliant, right?

Measuring results in real time

Well-fitting recruiting software has another key advantage over a recruiting agency. You can measure the success of your campaign in real time and look at the numbers whenever you want. Of course, this kind of monitoring is also part of an external provider's standard offering. But keep in mind that the account manager in charge handles many clients and only reviews a campaign's performance now and then.

And even then, only campaign by campaign. If you want an overall analysis, you either have to pull the data together yourself or pay for it. With recruiting software, you stay in control and can watch how your campaigns develop in real time, both short-term and long-term.

You can also set the campaign run time more freely. Many agencies offer a minimum run time of 30 days. If an ad then does not perform as hoped, you have no chance to fix anything. But if you choose a run time of, say, seven days through your recruiting software, you have the option to optimize your ad afterward.

Adjusting the job ad regularly

That helps a lot. Often small changes are enough to make the difference. Did you know that social media users scrolling through their feed decide in less than 2.6 seconds whether to click on an ad or not? So if your campaign's click rate is on the weak side, it could be that it does not stand out from the crowd.

A quick tip: try a more eye-catching and more emotional image. That draws the attention of potential talent to your ad. Also use exactly the language your target audience speaks in your copy. That way you win over the very people you want to reach. There is no second chance to make a first impression. Bottom line: with recruiting software that includes AI and algorithms, you create social media campaigns in no time that score with candidates. Your perfect match is just a few clicks away. Good software, good outcome!