Easy Ways to Leverage Social Media in Graduate Program Marketing

Posted by Isabel Wilkinson

Social media is the glass window potential candidates look through to see the nuts and bolts of your organisation and work out if they’re a fit. Do it well – and you’ll build a solid pipeline of talented, culturally-aligned grads eager to work with you.

Your social platforms allow you to educate your audience on your employer brand; You can communicate your business mission and values, workplace culture, scope and quality of work, and community involvement.

Here’s how it works:

Which Social Platform for What?

There’s no need to be present on every single social platform if you don’t know why you’re there and who you’re talking to. First understand your target audience and then map a strategic action plan to ensure frequent and consistent messaging tailored to each audience, for each platform.

Let’s explore the four big platforms and their ideal use in graduate recruitment:

Facebook

Facebook can be used for visual storytelling and as a source of information to share organisation news, events, and announcements. Use a combination of images, video, graphics, link shares, and plain text.

Instagram

The platform of choice for the younger generation (in particular, females), Instagram is the ultimate visual storytelling channel. With the introduction and popularity of Instagram Stories, you can use Instagram to tell a more engaging, personable, relatable story about your organisation and its people. Ask questions, encourage comments, and explore the use of ‘Challenges’.

Snapchat

New kid on the block and top app choice for Gen Zs – Snapchat is gaining in popularity as a sales and recruitment channel. Emphasising creativity and a sense of urgency (as Snaps disappear forever), Snap Ads are short, sharp, engaging 10 second videos with a very clear call to action. In a world first earlier this year, McDonald’s introduced ‘Snaplications’ as part of its youth recruitment.

LinkedIn

The world’s professional networking platform of choice, LinkedIn is yet to take off with the under 25s. It’s an effective platform to ‘maintain’ a presence and relationship with students and graduates after they’ve met you and to promote your job opportunities.

3 Quick and Easy Ways to Leverage Your Social Platforms

Once you know which platforms you’ll focus your engagement on and how, ensure you make the most of them to build your brand.

1. Add a Widget to Your Website

Your social platforms are now your primary opportunity to emotionally connect with top graduate talent, so it’s important you promote them. Sometimes, graduates will find your website first (like via your GradConnection profile), so by adding a Facebook or Instagram widget to your homepage you’ll entice graduates to click through to your social page/s and follow your story.

2. Embrace Facebook Live Video

Facebook Live enables you to share the human face and personality of your recruitment team, current/former graduates, and graduate leaders and mentors. You can use Live to run Q&A sessions for graduates to ask about recruitment processes, graduate life, workplace culture, and mentoring and development opportunities on the ‘inside’.

3. Create Your Own Hashtag

Build exclusivity by sharing your grad brand-specific hashtag for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Graduates will come to recognise your brand from your consistent use of the hashtags and will take them on and use them to share their own interactions and endorsements of your brand.

Consistency is Key

It’s important you present frequent and consistent messaging across all your online communication channels; your website, blog, social platforms, video, and email. Identify the right channels and social platforms you need for your target audience and how you will use them to build and market an effective graduate employer brand.

Got questions? Hit us up!

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