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Hi there, everyone. This is Denise. I hope you and yours are well. Since our mini-series on content, a few questions about channels, posting frequency, LinkedIn Creator Mode, and other related topics have cropped up. I wanted to make sure I answered everyone’s questions properly.
If you’re new here, welcome! The Superfast Recruitment blog and website host another 470 or so podcasts. We’re also on iTunes and Spotify so that you can check out our recordings there. Everything is also on our website, and we have a YouTube channel that I referenced in the last podcast.
How Good Is Your Marketing?
First, how good are you at attracting the clients and candidates you want? This all comes down to your demand generation and marketing.
We have a new tool you can use—a personalised scorecard tool that will rate you as low, medium, or high in different sections. We based the questions on what’s working now for our clients and the themes we’ve noticed over the last nearly 18 years working in the industry.
You can take this scorecard for free. Completing the 15 straightforward questions will probably take about 3-4 minutes. You don’t need reams of financial data. Go to superfastrecruitment.co.uk/scorecard.
We’ll send you a personalised PDF report, and for everyone who takes the scorecard, we offer a 45-minute debrief should you want more information. Just email us to arrange it.
Which Marketing Channels Should You Use?
Let’s discuss different channels and which ones you should be on. The key question is: Where is your market?
It’s easy to say, “Oh, my market isn’t on Instagram,” “My market isn’t on TikTok,” or “My market is only on LinkedIn.” But beware—they might be on other channels, too.
Who hasn’t seen a business opportunity or noticed something from a business leader while scrolling through Facebook? If you do that, I’m sure many in your market do too. I look at Instagram and LinkedIn all the time. I’m not a big TikTok user, but have visited that platform. I go on Instagram a lot.
It’s important to consider where to place your content. And it’s easy to put it in many places, particularly if you’re using an automation tool like Hootsuite, Buffer, or SmarterQueue to help.
For most people, LinkedIn is a key place to post. Ensure you’re posting on your company page and your personal profile. All the recruiters we know have more people following their profiles than their company pages, so make sure you post there.
Facebook And Other Social Platforms
Half the planet is on Facebook. It’s important to have a business page where you can post. What’s great about Facebook is that you can also deliver paid ads to people in your target market and demographic, and it’s not that expensive.
In one of my previous posts, I discussed remarketing/retargeting. We all experience this—we go on a website, and then that website follows us around. Imagine if somebody has been on your website and then sees an ad (which isn’t expensive) on Facebook. That could help you get in front of your market.
If you’ve regularly posted on your company page, people will see that you’re a real company adding value. That will make a difference for you. So yes, post on Facebook, have a business page, and use it as part of your strategy.
Instagram (part of Meta) has 2 billion members. The age range is quite wide – 66% of people aged 30-49 in the US are on Instagram. It’s very popular in India and incredibly popular in the US.
If you’re posting on Facebook, it’s very easy on your business page or your automation tool to click the button that also posts to Instagram. You don’t know where people are and where they might find you.
TikTok also has 2 billion users. It’s very video-centric, with a slightly younger age group (around 18-24). Depending on the average age of your candidates or clients, it may be worth posting on TikTok. It’s a bit more involved because you want to share video content there.
Google And Your Online Presence
I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that the more Google sees you posting, the more likely it is to deliver you to the first page of Google results.
Have you noticed that when you Google a company, you’ll see multiple links to that company? Some companies you’ll Google and struggle to find – generally because they haven’t got any content on their website. Big clue: that’s why you need content, because Google prioritises websites with content.
Have you also noticed that when you Google somebody, multiple links come up to all their different social channels? I did this before recording this podcast – I Googled “Super Fast Recruitment.” When we come up, there are multiple links to different pages, our LinkedIn company page, several videos, our Facebook page, our Instagram page.
We’ve got many links that shout out: “These are people who are around. These are people who are present. These are people who have a profile. These are people who possibly could help.” And that’s exactly the same for you, too.
Do You Need Different Content For Different Channels?
A great question is: Do I need to alter all my content for all the channels? The reality is: not really.
You could say, “Well, it depends on the size of your organisation.” You’re not a marketing company. You’re a smaller recruitment firm. And really, it’s not necessary. You’re not Adecco. You’re not Hays. You’re not Randstad.
I follow a couple of different business coaches online, and I see the same content shared on their LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook feeds. I also see a version of it dropping into my inbox. I know they’re probably making 30-40 million a year. So if it’s all right for them, I think it’s all right for us. And it does save you time.
So if a social media company says, “We need to do all these different things for your different content,” don’t listen to them. For a small to medium enterprise, it doesn’t make a difference. Really, it doesn’t.
How Often Should You Post?
Many people ask how often they should post. I would say: as often as you can.
Sharon and I use our profiles and post three times a day, occasionally four, with different content going down Sharon’s feed and different content going down mine. We could post the same, but we don’t.
The goal is to post every day. Forget all this about LinkedIn racking back how present you are. The more you post, the more people will see you.
In the last podcast, I shared about a client who increased the number of times he posts, going from a few hundred impressions to a few thousand impressions. Just think about that. It’s about regularity.
Build up to it. Start where you are with what you have now. If all you’ve ever done is post job ads, start posting some value-add content a couple of times a week and build up. We’ve given you all the ideas, including on our YouTube channel.
Start posting now and build your way up. One thing about posting at different times during the day is that many recruiters have clients in the US or other parts of the world, so their content needs to be spread across different time zones.
Don’t worry if you see your content more – you’re looking for it. You’re filtering for it. People in your organisation are going to see it. Don’t worry about your consultants saying, “We’re posting too much.” You can never post too much because not everyone will always see it. It’s a scrolling feed.
LinkedIn Creator Mode
One of the other questions we had was about Creator Mode and whether you should use it to get all the data about impressions, shares, and comments.
Linkedin created Creator Mode as something you could toggle off and on. Last year, they switched that facility off, so now everybody automatically gets Creator Mode. You can actually switch it off in your privacy settings, but I wouldn’t do that. It’s well worth having Creator Mode.
The fundamental thing about having this creator feature is that you get a lot more data. You lose that there’s no connect button when people land on your LinkedIn profile—it’s a little bit more hidden. They need to go to the “more” section, and a dropdown menu says “connect.”
Of course, you can always tell people to do that. You can even get a little screen grab image and share that in an email if you want.
The great thing is that people can follow you, and there are no connection limits, so you can grow well beyond your connection limit on LinkedIn. Your connection limit is up to 30,000, which might seem huge, but several clients are nudging 30,000 connections. They’ve been on LinkedIn since its inception 20+ years ago and have been growing their market.
However, if you have Creator Mode, you can grow your audience beyond that with people following you. LinkedIn also gives you better analytics, allows you to have LinkedIn Lives, and do LinkedIn newsletters.
If you go back to the Super Fast Recruitment blog and look in the search bar, I did a whole series on LinkedIn a while back that explains more. But you’ll notice on your LinkedIn profile, if you have Creator Mode switched on (which all of you will), you can add featured sections to your profile. LinkedIn showcases them in a way that’s more impactful for you.
Remember, less than 4% of people post actively on LinkedIn. If you’re one of those who do, you’ll grow your audience exponentially, and people will see you more.
So, with Creator Mode, you get enhanced analytics, featured activity at the top of your profile (which is really good for people to see you), and more people can follow you. It’s well worth having in today’s market.
LinkedIn Profiles And Content
It’s a little off-topic, but I want to address LinkedIn profiles. When you share content, people will check you out more. The more you post online, the more visible you become, the more people want to check you out.
Make sure your LinkedIn profile stands out. Make sure you’ve got a good, clear “About” section. With our Super Fast Circle clients, we give them templates to write their “About” sections based on what’s working now. If you’re unsure, look at mine and think about how to rework it yourself.
Podcasting As Content
We’ve had a couple of questions about podcasting. I didn’t mention it among the different content formats – video is prioritised on LinkedIn, so I focused on that.
Podcasts are great, though they are more work. However, they are incredibly leverageable. A shout out to Mike Richards here, who used to work with us. He has a podcast in the Treasury sector and has done phenomenally well with it. He always says he got the idea after listening to our podcast.
Podcasting is great. Many business leaders listen to podcasts, so if you have one, you can leverage that. They’re much easier to do than they used to be. You could go to a freelancer website like Fiverr, where somebody will help you create a podcast and set it up. Then all you need to do is record them.
I record ours using free software called Audacity. Then, I get it edited using somebody on Fiverr. If you need a name, let me know.
One great thing about podcasting is that it gets you out to an audience. You’ll be on Apple iTunes and Spotify, and more people can find you. But one of the great things is that our podcasts are leveraged in multiple ways.
You’ll notice that you get an audio recording. Over the next few months, you’ll see multiple posts about the podcast series. Those posts are created from the audio recording—very easy to do. I get the audio transcribed using an AI tool called Sonix. I then use another AI tool to summarise it and ask it to create several posts, a detailed blog post, an email, and some social media posts.
A caveat here: I edit everything because sometimes even the best AI tool can produce rubbish. But it does save time. You’ll notice that some of Sharon’s and my videos on social media also follow themes from recent podcasts. We get an AI tool to give us the key elements, and then we create a recording from that.
Podcast Frequency Is Key
Podcasts are worthwhile, but remember that frequency is important. Recording a podcast takes time and commitment. I’m batch recording several podcasts because we’re going to spend some time in another country and work from there. However, I want to ensure that our recordings are free of glitches, so I’m recording several podcasts over the next 2-3 days.
A mentor of mine once talked about having a podcast every week, similar to ours. She notices that if her podcasts drop off, so does her listenership. She mentioned someone in the coaching space who used to record a podcast every week and has now gone to once a month – her podcast numbers have dived.
People like regular episodes. Think about TV programmes – in the UK we have Coronation Street, EastEnders, and various other shows. People love that regularity. Remember Cialdini’s principles of influence.
People listen to our podcast. Occasionally, we miss a week, maybe because I’ve lost my voice, or it’s Christmas, or something happens that prevents us from doing a podcast. But if you’re going to do a podcast, you need to be all in with it. It’s not something you do every so often because you won’t build traction.
Content is all about traction. It’s much better to write a blog post for your website. If you miss a week, that’s not terrible. People aren’t going to notice it in quite the same way.
Nurture Campaigns
One final question concerns nurture campaigns. A couple of people said I didn’t say much about them, although we have lots of information about email marketing on our website.
Nurture campaigns are important. I always discuss having an email campaign, not just an email blast. Remember the buyer cycle – only 3-7% of people are ready to act now. Many other people are in your world, in the ether all around you. They will be prepared to convert eventually, but you must be before them.
That’s why nurture campaigns are something to build into your content process. If you’ve got emails written, our Superfast Circle clients get nurture campaigns because they’ve been working with us. Nurture campaigns have multiple emails in them, and I strongly suggest people do that.
If you want to stand out as a different recruiter—one who cares and is committed—make sure you build a candidate nurture campaign and a client nurture campaign as well.
A while ago, we ran an email marketing webinar. Those who attended can still access the recording by clicking through one of the links. In there, I talked about the must-do email campaigns from a content perspective. Again, just look on the Super Fast Recruitment website, as there are several posts about that too.
Thanks,
Denise and Sharon
How We Can Help
Hopefully, I’ve answered all your questions. If you have more, just email me at [email protected]. I answer all my own emails (well, the majority of them), so if you email me with a question, that would be great, and I’ll record a podcast about it.
At Super Fast Recruitment, we understand the challenges of marketing for recruitment firms. Our Super Fast Circle membership provides done-for-you content resources, strategic guidance, and a supportive community to help you create consistent marketing that generates results. From social media posts to nurture campaigns, we’ve got you covered with content that positions you as an expert in your field. Take our marketing scorecard today, and let’s see how we can help elevate your marketing to the next level.
