As any good HR Manager knows, social media can be a very powerful tool when recruiting new employees. Companies have turned to Facebook, LinkedIn, and other networks to build their company’s image to attract potential candidates. When done correctly, you can incorporate social media into your hiring strategy by sharing images from events and daily life on the job, all with the goal of showing off what makes your company great. Today we’re going to share some tips on how to best leverage social media to grab new talent and incorporate social media fully into your recruiting strategy.

Identify Your Social Employer Brand

Attracting potential candidates to your company is one thing; attracting the right potential candidates is another. Understanding how you plan to show off your company is important to ensure new employees thrive underneath your company’s values and goals and get along with their co-workers. This can be accomplished by nailing down your corporate employment brand, defined as how your mission, vision and corporate culture are perceived on social media. In other words, how do you show that your company is a great place to work?

Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be difficult. Speak with employees to understand what they love about working at your company. Are there any regularly scheduled events, such as a weekly happy hour or potluck lunches, they look forward to? What about day-to-day activities that employees enjoy participating in? Even company policies like casual dress codes are enough to show potential employees the culture you’ve fostered at your company.

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Finding Your Target Talent Pool

Once you’ve identified your employer brand, you can start preparing photos, videos, and updates. But which social media networks should you post to? The first place to start is LinkedIn. Make sure current employees update their profiles to include experience at your company and have them follow your company page. Also be sure to join relevant LinkedIn groups so you can share blog posts and job openings.

While LinkedIn is the undisputed leader in social networking for professionals, large networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are ideal for showing off your corporate culture in a more casual way. when looking to expand to other networks, keep in mind that some are more likely to be used by certain demographics (Snapchat and Vine, for instance, are popular with younger users). Be sure to ask your employees which social media networks they use to make sure your recruiting efforts are targeting the right audience.

Reaching Out to Your Target Audience

Once you’ve identified the networks you want to recruit through, you need to ensure your updates have as much reach as possible.

Employees

Having your employees help with recruiting gives “a face to the name” of your company. Encourage employees to share posts and photos related to company events or outings, and certainly, every time you post about a job opening. Try coordinating your recruiting efforts with a referral bonus program to further incentivize employees to help find new recruits.

Mentions and Tags

Your company most likely has established relationships with local businesses and neighboring companies, and it’s important to mention them in updates so their followers and fans can find your company as well. Twitter and Instagram allow you to mention (using @username) others in the text of your updates. With Facebook, all you have to do is type the name of the other business for you to “tag” them in your posts. For example, if you co-hosted an event with another company, mention them in your tweets about the event. If your employees went to a local restaurant for happy hour or something to eat, tag the restaurant in a Facebook post.

Attracting the Right Candidates for You

When used properly, social media can show off enough of a company’s appeal to attract working professionals. In fact, a recent Soceity for Human Resource Management survey revealed that 82% of HR professionals listed recruiting passive job candidates (candidates that aren’t looking for a new job) as their number one reason for using social media. This is accomplished through a presence on the right networks, a dedicated employee base, and proper use of hashtags and tags in your updates. Now it’s your turn to leverage social media and attract the best candidates around to work for your company.