Social Share: The Power of Distribution in Job Advertising & Employer Branding

Do you advertise jobs or products/services? Are you blogging? If you think that just simply putting your content online is enough to get readers (if I build it, they will come?) think again.

The power of distribution:

We spoke to a recruitment company who were doing the works: they had designed a lovely website, they were advertising their jobs on job-boards, they were on Twitter, they were writing blogs but they just weren’t seeing the turnaround in traffic to their site, nor were they seeing it as contributing to their business objectives. We asked what they were doing to distribute their content, and there was a silence in the conversation. Simply put: they weren’t. Think about it – you can’t just rely on people happening upon your site over the hundreds of millions of websites out there. You’ve got to put your content out there where people can see it. This includes all kinds of content from jobs, products, services and more.

As all marketers among us will know, one of the most fundamental parts of the marketing mix is distribution. If customers can’t see or hear about your product or your service, they can’t be expected to know about it.

Social-sharing (sharing your content out amongst social networks) has the power to reach a massive passive and active audience, whether it’s for advertising your jobs or getting your blogs out there. Using social media to drive people to your site is highly valuable to your SEO, since social networks make up the top 15 websites in the world.

By distributing content, like blogs and articles, about industry-specific news or op-ed, in just the right places to a targeted audience, you can drive passive customers and candidates back to your branded site where they will learn about you and your organization, your services, your vacancies etc.

You can create a sense of mass-marketing by simply being everywhere when you share your stuff on social networks. Suddenly your content is everywhere and is getting read.

Typically, the most popular social networks which to share your content to are Google (top site in the world), Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Google, being the top site in the world, has a social network (Google Plus) that directly influences the SEO of your content. +1’s (which act as a personal vote for your content) of blogs and articles online will show up in the top of your search results when you search for a particular topic. As Google’s search engine results are becoming more and more social-influenced, this is more important than ever. Top tip to encourage others to +1 your blog: make it easy and include a +1 button on to your site itself. Click here to install one in to your website.

Facebook, the second most popular website in the world behind Google, has over 800 million users. Not since the advent of television have marketers and businesses had the opportunity to reach as many people about your services in one fell swoop. Having a business page on Facebook is now a given, and sharing your content to your Facebook page is one of the best ways to distribute your content. Top tips for sharing to Facebook:

Twitter is a growing medium for sharing content, so if you’re posting a Tweet about a job, use hashtags like #job and #jobs to share your content to more than just your followers. Jump in on trending topics (that are relevant) and link your blog to that topic.

Linkedin is a no-brainer for employer branding and sharing jobs and other business topics. Share your blogs as conversations within groups that are relevant to your blogs and other content. Engage with users in LinkedIn and keep the discussion going. You should also link your blog and careers pages to your LinkedIn profile in the weblinks section. Top tip for linking your sites to LinkedIn: don’t select the default options of Company Website or Personal Website or Blog to describe your site. Select the option “Other”, because this gives you the option to type in free text to describe your site or webpage, like “Marketing Jobs” or “Career & Interview Tips”.

One more thing: If This Then That (ifttt) is a FABULOUS new tool we’ve discovered (thanks to James Mayes for telling us about it!). It enacts a string of actions based on one action. Like for example, if someone retweets your content, it can automatically thank them on your behalf (using your account). If you change your profile picture in Facebook, it can automatically change it across all of your social profiles if you wish. There are loads of “recipes” available and you can create your own, for sharing your WordPress or Blog content directly to Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Facebook and more automatically without you having to do anything. It’s a lovely automation tool for both professional sharing and personal stuff too. I especially like the recipe for when if it’s scheduled to snow or rain, you’ll get a warning email first thing in the morning before you get dressed.

To get more tips on social sharing to promote your content, listen to the webinar in full (only 30 minutes) from Wednesday Feb 1, where Johnny will show you tools and dashboards from which to share your content to many social networks at once, including individual LinkedIn groups. Also, to integrate a sharing capability to your website and blog (so that your readers can share it amongst their network), click here to install one.