By Luke Doubler
In another blog, we told you why Instagram is the perfect platform to search for job candidates and how to utilize its features and what types of posts to create on your account. Now, we’re going to discuss how to attract potential job seekers and build your community on this highly engaging social network. This post would be perfect for individual recruiters who have a social media presence, but especially those who have an Instagram account or an admin managing a company’s Instagram account
Great Content is numero UNO!
At the end of the day, no matter what social media platform you are using, it all goes back to publishing great content that makes people stop scrolling through their feed. This includes photos, videos, and captions you create. Get creative to stand out and capture your audience’s interest and keep them engaged.
The quality of your content is important as well. Instagram is a visual tool, so you should post pictures and videos of high-quality. This doesn’t mean that you have to purchase expensive equipment to use when you take pictures and record videos, but it needs to have a higher quality to it. Most of the time, you can get away with using your Smartphone as they all have really good cameras these days.
Themes can also come in handy as you build your personal brand. Do some research to see what other recruiters have focused their accounts around. Review your own posts to see what has resonated more with people. And, don’t forget to include your own tastes and personality. For example, you could create a theme around coffee, phone apps, socializing/networking, recruiting, and branding.
7 Ways to Capture Attention
Here are a few ideas on how to capture job candidates’ attention, with a focus on Instagram:
1. Get a Business Account
It’s free to switch your personal Instagram account into a business one. Just go to your settings and under Account, scroll down to Switch to Business Profile. By changing this setting, you get:
- Insights about your followers and can learn more about their behaviors or patterns, which can help you curate your content. You can also see how well your posts are performing.
- If you want to reach more people and widen your audience base, you can create promotions.
- Here’s the best part of a business account: You can add contact buttons so both hiring employers and job seekers can email or call you right from your profile. Score!
2. Utilize Comments
If you want to see more engagement, start a conversation. It’s easy to go through your feed and like a bunch of posts, but taking that extra step by making thoughtful comments on people’s posts may just be your way to get your foot in the door with them. Most people like to feel special, and they often appreciate the attention when others comment on their posts.
If someone makes a comment on your post, don’t ignore them. Reply back and start the conversation. This could be a great way to transition to direct messaging, allowing you to take the conversation off social media and onto the phone.
3. Use Direct Messages
This is an easy way to reach out to job candidates that you have interacted with and want to get to know better. Commenting is very public, whereas direct messaging (DM) gives you a more private way to connect with people.
However, it can be very tempting and easy to abuse this feature on Instagram. Not everyone will welcome unsolicited messages, so it’s advised to only reach out to those that you have communicated with already in some capacity. Try to be very transparent about your reason for contacting them. For example, you can give them a short intro as to who you are, why you want to speak with them, and why they stood out to you. Also, you don’t want to look spammy, so keep your DM’ing to only a few messages per day.
4. Start Tagging People & Reposting
Another helpful way to grow your reach is by tagging other people in your posts because not only does your audience see this post, but that person’s audience does too. When you tag someone or a company, your post is put into a tab that others can see on their profiles. They also get a notification that you tagged them.
Along with tagging others, reposting – or regramming – another’s content on your account can be beneficial. Posting other people’s photos or videos help to break up your content so it’s not always focused on just you. It’s also a great way to share your favorite pictures and videos from others on your profile. This repost app is very helpful to use and allows you to give credit to the original poster.
5. Use Hashtags Wisely
We already covered hashtags in another post, but keep in mind that due to Instagram’s algorithm, hashtags only work when someone is actively searching those specific hashtags. To get the most out of hashtags, pick a few related to your industry or interest of the post and search them on #GetHashtags. Here, you will find “ranked search results for any terms commonly used in conjunction with your tags of choice. Use these additionally to multiply your chances of exposure.” You can also just start typing a hashtag in your post and view popular hashtags in the pop-up.
“It’s best to aim for hashtags with less than a million posts associated with them. Any more than this and your post will only be visible for maybe an hour before it’s lost in a sea of content. Instagram allows 30 hashtags per post and these are best buried in the first comment rather than taking up room in the caption.”
6. Consistency
It sounds obvious but it’s a simple overlook for many people – always be posting. Consistently posting to your account will pay off with more people finding you and engaging with your content. The more you post, the more people will see you, which helps to widen your reach.
7. Find the Right People to Follow
If you want to proactively build your community instead of waiting for people to find you, you can start following the followers of your competitors, industry-related social influencers, or companies. Make a list of these people and companies who are also on Instagram. Most likely, these competitors and similar companies already have general or career-related accounts with a growing community. Then go to their profiles, view their followers, and follow them. Anytime you follow someone, they will get notified, so this can also increase your chance that they will follow you back.
However, you don’t want to come across as spammy or raise any red flags with Instagram, so it’s best to create a schedule on how often you will do this task and how many people you will follow at a time. The lower your numbers, the better.
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