How to Grow an Employer Twitter Chat

By Jessica Miller-Merrell 

Twitter is a unique recruiting tool that just keeps getting stronger. I mentioned in part one of this Twitter chat series that there’s something wonderfully challenging about parsing your message down to 140 characters or less, but it’s what makes Twitter a great recruiting tool and so digestible as we read dozens, if not hundreds (or for some of us, even thousands) of Tweets each day.

It’s for that reason that I began holding Twitter chats years ago, and why I still think they’re incredibly valuable in recruiting. They’re simple to host, can be low cost or free (depending on how you advertise) and give candidates a rare opportunity to connect with recruiters. What more could you want?

As great as Twitter chats are, though, success doesn’t happen over night. Most start out small and expand slowly over time as word spreads and your following grows. They require a great deal of planned guerilla marketing and consideration of the value they bring to the talent community. If you want people to spend their free time engaging in this way, your Twitter chats need to serve a purpose for candidates.

If you’re ready to reap the benefits of an active, engaging Twitter chat, here are the ingredients you need to make it happen:

A short, simple hash tag

Your Twitter chat hashtag helps participants keep up with the conversation and files all the messages in the conversation for reference later. Choose a hashtag that has staying power (don’t base it on a weekly theme – keep it the same every week), is simple to type and isn’t being used elsewhere on Twitter.

Actively involved candidates

How do you get candidates involved? Ask them! Put out a call for them to suggest questions and topics for your chat. They’re much more likely to participate or tune in if their specific question is going to be answered.

Regular hosting

People have to get in the habit of attending, so keep a regular chat schedule. I recommend weekly chats for the best results.

Broadcast your chat

Yes, it is work related, but that doesn’t mean your friends and family aren’t interested. They may even pass the info along to a potential candidate. Don’t be shy about what you’re doing; let the world know.

Seek help from allies

Invite guest hosts from within your company, particularly if you have multiple openings in that area or a lot of interest from candidates about a specific department.

Guest host other Twitter chats

Gain exposure and experience by guest hosting job search chats like #internpro, #jobhuntchat and #omchat, which already have a following.

Creative marketing wins on Twitter

Get creative in your marketing, shout it from the rooftop and focus on growing your Twitter following beyond the chat because it’ll give you an even broader audience. And don’t forget to take advantage of email signatures and LinkedIn headlines to market your Twitter chat.

Find an ally in marketing

Connect with other people or organizations for a mutually beneficial relationship that will help you grow your following.

Use social advertising

Don’t be afraid to advertise outside of Twitter. Cover all your bases and use Facebook and LinkedIn advertising to promote your chat as well.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.

The Secret to Building Your Employment Brand

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

HR professionals, it’s time to start thinking like marketing gurus. No longer can your marketing plan be an afterthought, but instead must be the first thought you have when it comes to the strategic path of your recruiting and hiring. Managing the staffing needs of your company may be your primary responsibility, but marketing your company as an employer is the first step in mastering it. Marketing in HR is nothing new. However, what is new are the tactics being utilized, and even more so the way they’re being used. Effective recruitment marketing includes pieces that are part of a bigger strategic plan or framework. Without that framework, it’s all just a shot in the dark.

When you think of building your employment brand, you likely think of the tactics involved, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, professional organizations and other networking opportunities. These are all proven and effective ways of recruiting, but without seeing how they all fit together, you have a constant handicap. It’s like the difference between using the instructions to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture and just winging it. You might make it through, but there will be that handful of screws left over that leave you wondering whether or not the bed is going to fall apart in the middle of the night.

This is where your talent community comes into play. A framework is created using all of your recruiting and hiring resources. It connects your contacts in professional organizations to your social media, which connects them to online discussions and blogs, which connects them to hiring events...and it goes on and on. Your framework must be built on a strategic plan. How do you want to connect with candidates? What kind of candidates are you seeking? How large of a pipeline of potential candidates do you wish to have? The answers to these questions help to shape your framework.

Your talent community essentially creates a pipeline of potential candidates for your recruiting and hiring efforts. The way it does so is by connecting you with these candidates far before a position ever opens up and keeping the line of communication open through multiple channels. It’s said in marketing that typically an ad must be seen several times in order to be remembered. The same is true of your employment brand. In fact, it helps to think of your employment brand the same way other companies think of their businesses, as having savvy customers who have a choice of where to visit or in your case, apply. Your talent community creates multiple experiences across many channels for your potential candidates.

Those experiences actually create a path for candidates, though it’s not a path you might define or expect to be the same from person to person. One candidate’s path may begin at a career fair, while another’s may start by discovering you on LinkedIn. The actual path taken isn’t as important as the fact that there is a path. The last thing you want is to invest your time and money into connecting with potential candidates for it to lead to a dead end. A talent community creates a constant conversation. This constant conversation puts your employment brand at the forefront of your applicant pool’s minds and makes recruiting and hiring quicker, easier and more successful.

What channels do you use in recruiting and hiring that you could utilize in building a talent community? Let us know in the comments below.

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media. She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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