At our recent Global Networking Meeting on the Sunshine Coast (Australia), one of the big takeways for our team was that we need to be using Twitter more (and more effectively). One of our featured speakers, Greg Savage, is passionate about Twitter and spent a good deal of time talking about how he built a following. Twitter isn’t going away anytime soon. In fact, there are about 100 million active Twitter users each day, with an average of 208 followers EACH. Still think there is no reason for recruiters to use Twitter? Personally, I think it’s an amazing platform for building and promoting brand awareness. It has helped NPAworldwide reach audiences in places we would NEVER have been able to access on our own with our small marketing budget. I’m talking dedicated followers throughout Europe, Australia, and Asia, who regularly share our content, who are part of the recruitment industry in so many different ways. On top of that, Twitter helps recruiters and other businesses build authority and when done right, can be part of a strategy to increase traffic to your website and help capture leads.
Yet Twitter, for many recruiters, remains a mystery. I’ve been using Twitter with some regularity for a couple of years, but most of our other staff are either not using it at all, or are only using it infrequently. This week, we put together a plan of baby steps to jump-start our Twitter usage, which I am sharing with you as well:
Our Baby-Step Goals:
- More followers for @npaworldwide
- More Tweets, Retweets, Mentions, and Interactions with @npaworldwide
- Team members get more familiar with Twitter and how to use it
Our Baby-Step Plan:
1. Every team member will create a Twitter profile and follow 50 accounts this week.
Recruiters can easily follow this same step. It will take about 15-20 minutes to set up a Twitter profile from scratch, including finding 50 accounts to follow. The rule of thumb is that about half of the people you follow on Twitter will follow you back, so you can easily build up some followers before you even start Tweeting (we saw this happen with our team yesterday).
2. Every team member has been assigned ‘subject matter’ for which they are responsible. For example, @DaveNerzNPA will be focusing on content for employers.
At first, we will be focusing on sharing good content that others have created. As with all kinds of social media, Twitter works best with a mix of shared content and promotional messages. I find the Rule of Thirds is especially helpful: 1/3 sharing others’ content, 1/3 commenting on content you see, and 1/3 self-promotion. An easy thing for recruiters to do is retweet content that has been posted by the accounts you are following. Another easy thing to do is say thanks when someone retweets your message.
3. We will create guidelines about what and how to Tweet, and make this part of our staff meeting.
There are hundreds of online sources that offer best practices for using Twitter. A few helpful pointers for recruiters include always using a link shortener, making sure you post more than just a list of job openings, and how to effectively use #hashtags to categorize your Tweets.
4. We will evaluate our results in a month and tweak our plan accordingly.
Recruiters can use Twitter Analytics to see what types of content is being shared. Part of your review should include following new accounts and unfollowing accounts that don’t offer valuable content. You can experiment with building lists, or linking to landing pages on your website to capture new leads.
Twitter is a valuable platform for recruiting firms of all sizes. If you’re struggling with how to use it, give these baby steps a try and add a comment to let us know how it’s working!
