LinkedIn. YouTube. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Blogs. Instagram. Slideshare. Career sites. Separate URLs, yes. But existing exclusive of one another? No.

When it comes to building a successful social strategy in human resources, bridges are important components. It’s critical to understand that communication channels do not exist in silos. And, to be most effective, messages should permeate—cross over—from one platform to the next, ultimately driving people to the intended destination.

Using Social to Drive Career Site Traffic

According to recent findings, 76% of  job seekers still strongly prefer to apply for jobs via company career sites—which is the epicenter of a strong HR social strategy.  Though just having a career site isn’t quite enough these days for most job seekers or employers.

• 45% of job seekers expect employers to be on Twitter

• 46% expect them to be on YouTube

• 72% expect employers on Facebook, as well as LinkedIn

Social media profiles essentially become off-site hubs, linking back to the career site and to each other. “Thanks to social media, the career site has never been stronger,” stated Björn Wigeman of Potentialpark during his presentation to a crowd of talent acquisition and recruitment marketing pros.

How to Build Social Bridges

There are all sorts of ways to create this cross-pollination of content from one social channel to next. It just depends upon your goals and intentions, and not all content is relevant to all audiences. Strategic HR social media pros know that you have to make decisions whether to niche or mass communicate.

Here are some ways to leverage multiple platforms:

• Twitter & YouTube: Identify job seekers who have interviews scheduled. From there, tweet them a link to job preview videos.

• Pinterest & YouTube: Create boards showcasing employee or corporate videos. Then edit the pin’s link to point back to your career site.

• Blogs & Facebook: Share employee profile blog posts via your Facebook page, then encourage the employee to share via their own social networks.

• YouTube & LinkedIn: Re-purpose your videos as company page status updates, and include a link back to your career site.

• Blogs , YouTube & Twitter: Embed videos into your blog posts, and then autofeed blog updates to your Twitter accounts.

• Slideshare: This is my new favorite site and am in the process of revamping a lot of PowerPoints. The goal is to upload to Slideshare and then share across most of our other social profiles.

Do You Have to be Everywhere?

This is a question that you and your team will have to answer. If you don’t have the human resources to manage across many platforms, you’ll want to be extra-selective and strategic where you decide to build your presence. Or, you could sprinkle a little bit here, a little bit there and then take a step back and see what sticks.

Whatever you decide, remember to take your content, tell a cohesive story and strive to deliver your content in different ways.

Don’t stop the noise. — Björn

 

* This article is based, in part, upon presentations made during the Potentialpark online talent communication award ceremony on February 20, 2014.