Have you ever wondered what people are looking at when they check their cell phones dozens of times a day? There is a pretty good chance they are looking at Instagram. Instagram is a social network that was launched in 2010 and has already grown to more than 700 million users.
Fifty-nine percent of Instagram users are between 18 and 29 years old and thirty-three percent of them are between 30 and 49 years old.
With most of the Instagram users in the prime of their careers, it’s important that businesses determine if they should launch an Instagram recruitment strategy.
Attract the Best and Brightest Employees through a Focused and Planned Use of Instagram.
- Capture events in real time. You can post pictures that show important projects you are working on or employee accomplishments when they win awards or get promoted. You can also use your own custom hashtag under posts to encourage more views by more people which will in all likelihood increase future applicants.
- Take advantage of videos. Instagram isn’t just for posting still pictures and captions—some of the highest engagement now comes from video. Videos are usually about 15-30 seconds which is the perfect length to grab someone’s attention, and to tell a short story. You can show the unveiling of a project or the lead up to a charity event. Anything that is interesting and will appeal to future employees can be posted as a video on Instagram.
- Live storytelling at career fairs. Instagram allows you to tell stories, and to keep people up-to-date in real time. If you happen to be at a career fair, you can alert people that you’re there or let them know if something great is happening at your table. Get potential employees’ attention and draw them to you with live Instagram posts.
- Empower your internal ambassadors. To draw in top talent, having an employee brand ambassador with an understanding of how to use Instagram is important. One way to keep Instagram content fresh and interesting to many people is to repost employee content to your corporate Instagram account.
- Engage new employees through their on-boarding. Instagram is an important part of telling your brand story and a great opportunity to highlight your recruitment process. Share posts of recently hired people with a quote on what attracted them to your company. Allow those new hires to post about their experience on the company Instagram account. Let people see that your Instagram account is worth paying attention to.
The demographic who use Instagram multiple times a day is the same demographic you’re recruiting to come and work with your team.
With 700 million users and over 90% of those users in the prime of their careers, Instagram recruitment is gaining traction and can be an important tool to help attract great candidates.
Successful employer brands understand that marketing needs to be as much about ensuring that your company is top of mind with your talent audience as it is about posting jobs and recruiting. Building your employer brand through these strategies will help you attract not only active job seekers but will peak the interest of passive job seekers.
Check out this blog from zopto.com to learn more about strategies to understand your target audience.
As well, here are a few great content examples from Zappos on Instagram.