You know about social media. You probably have a LinkedIn account and a personal Facebook page for staying in touch with friends and family. Now you’re hearing that you need to create a Facebook fan page for your business. As for Twitter? Forget it.
If you’re like many global recruiters I know, you’re thinking, “Yeah, yeah, social media. Sounds great. I know I *should* be doing it, but I’m BUSY with clients and candidates! How can I possibly find time to fit anything else into my day?” Especially something that seems as hard to measure as social media activity.
Global recruiters DO have time for social media. Here’s what to do:
Get a social media dashboard.
What’s a social media dashboard? Simply put, it’s a tool that lets you monitor all of your social media activity in ONE place, at ONE time. At NPA, we’ve spent the better part of a year (so far) building a social media presence. It takes a lot of time. It was overwhelming for a while. I couldn’t figure out how to do my “regular job” supporting our independent recruiter members AND still have time for Tweeting, Facebook and LinkedIn.
But then… Mike Owcarz (@MikeOwcarz, @PCRecruiter) from Main Sequence Technologies told me about a little gem called HootSuite, a web-based social media dashboard. And it changed my entire outlook on social media, especially Twitter. In fact, I’m in love. (And no, I don’t get paid for confessing my love of HootSuite.)
I use HootSuite to follow all social media activity on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter that is relevant to NPA. Since it’s web-based, it’s simply a matter of having one extra browser tab open. When I have content I want to share via social media, I do it through HootSuite. This allows me to choose which channel (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or a combination of all 3) to use. HootSuite also allows users to create posts and schedule them to auto-publish at a future date/time. I can see all content that is directly about NPA and respond quickly. I can also see information that would be interesting or important to NPA members or other independent recruiting firms, and share that with our followers.
It’s made the most difference with Twitter. Before HootSuite, I rarely Tweeted. I don’t have a smart phone, so I don’t have a way to integrate Twitter with my mobile device. It was too overwhelming to manage either on Twitter’s website or via email. HootSuite gives me a way to sort and categorize the Tweets that are most important without having to wade through so much of the other chatter.
In another post, I gave some suggestions for how independent recruiters can use Twitter. You can use the search feature in HootSuite to look for topics or keywords that are important to your global recruiting business. While you’re at it, please follow NPA, @npaworldwide.
HootSuite offers a free 30-day trial, so you can check it out yourself. The “pay version” is available for as little as $6 per month. Global recruiters who are seeking out a larger network of recruiting partners can’t go wrong with social media. HootSuite makes it easier and more efficient, leaving you more time to spend on moneymaking recruitment activities.
