If you want to catch a fish, you have to go where the fish are. Makes sense when you’re carrying a rod and reel, but when it comes to landing the big fish in terms of talent acquisition, many business professionals aren’t in the right pond.

Statistics show that the gap between consumer and professional usage of social media is widening. Businesses aren’t keeping up with social innovations and new networking opportunities, and that’s detrimental for the job force. The good news is that job candidates want to connect; they’re broadening their networks and polishing their online resumes. All you have to do is get them to bite.

Goals for Social Media Recruiting

Social media recruiting isn’t like posting a job on Career Builder. Job candidates expect a more personal, interactive approach when they’re on Facebook. Your social recruiting strategy should accomplish two goals:

• Sourcing—Obviously, your number one goal is finding the right applicants. Social media is a great place to do that because it’s where the largest pools of talent congregate.
• Transparency—Social media also helps job candidates get to know your company and establishes your identity as a desirable employer.

How to Attract the Right Candidates with Social Media

For most businesses, the question isn’t primarily whether they should engage in social media recruitment strategies. It’s how to create an effective strategy in the first place.

• Diversify—Establish a presence on multiple social media networks. Start with the Big Three (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) and then expand from there. The goal isn’t to have accounts at as many places as possible; rather, it’s to establish and maintain a presence on those networks that will bring the most benefit to your company.
• Use Social Referrals—Your job postings aren’t just appearing to your contact base. They’re also being shared with friends of friends, a process known as social referrals. Make the most of this opportunity by remaining in close contact with the movers and shakers at key companies.
• Engage—By interacting with your target audience, you not only present yourself as a transparent company but also gain insight into the identity and personality of potential job candidates.
• Marketing—Sell your company using the same marketing techniques you use to sell a product: brand promotion, target audience, strategy development, content creation, ad development, metrics, etc.
• Follow Up—Social media is becoming an essential tool for identifying desirable job candidates but don’t throw out the tried and true methods. Once you’ve narrowed down your pool of candidates, follow your normal protocol for interviews and follow-ups.

With more than 60% of adults maintaining a social media presence to some extent, social media recruiting places you in contact with the largest available pool of potential talent. It’s a trend you can’t afford to ignore.

Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, ProIQ serves clients across the country in their efforts to market smarter, Hire Smarter, and grow stronger.

Every company faces unique challenges and ProIQ believes that they should be met with innovative solutions. Their approach combines a passion for data with a love of digital marketing to develop solutions that drive results for talent acquisition, sales, and marketing teams. As a new division of Hire Velocity - an industry leader in Recruitment Process Outsourcing based in Atlanta, Georgia - ProIQ serves as a full-service digital marketing agency with a focus on attracting candidates using digital recruiting strategies.

Managing Director, Sara West, will be leading ProIQ in focusing on Digital Advisory and Talent Advisory solutions. Previous to her new role, West was the Director of Strategic Development at Hire Velocity where she helped shape brand strategy to build market awareness, develop inbound and outbound lead strategies to acquire new customers. Before joining Hire Velocity, Sara served as an Investment Banking Financial Analyst for Signal Hill Capital Group (now DCS Advisory) in New York, where she specialized in the IT services and IT security software sectors. There, she played a pivotal role in researching, evaluating, and executing major deals, completing extensive due diligence for both buy-side and sell-side transactions.

“I’m excited to help companies implement innovative digital strategies, like social media and programmatic job advertising, to better position themselves in a fast-paced hiring world. In today’s candidate-driven job market, it’s important for companies to implement strategies that will not only attract candidates but also position them as an employer of choice,” explains West, “What makes ProIQ different from your typical agency is that we’re laser-focused on quantitative results. Yes, we’re creative but at the end of the day everything is about the numbers.”

ProIQ leverages digital marketing expertise to help clients build their employer brand, effectively market to and attract candidates, and identify new talent markets with recruitment marketing, employer branding, and location analysis. Its digital advisory solutions will support clients’ digital marketing strategy with social media marketing, website development, content marketing, search engine marketing, and email marketing. By employing a team that has decades of experience in talent acquisition, marketing, sales, operations, data analytics, corporate strategy, and finance, they’ll be able to develop unique digital, data-based solutions that address even the toughest human capital and digital marketing challenges.

About ProIQ

ProIQ is a strategic partner for companies that want to build both great teams and great businesses. By engaging to understand their clients’ unique needs, they create digital and talent strategies that deliver the solutions required to drive success. ProIQ leverages digital marketing expertise to help clients build their employer brand, effectively market to and attract candidates, and identify new talent markets with recruitment marketing, employer branding, and location analysis. Its digital advisory solutions will support clients’ digital marketing strategy with social media marketing, website development, content marketing, search engine marketing, and email marketing.

About Hire Velocity

Hire Velocity designs talent strategies that build great teams and great businesses. They are a proven leader in Human Capital Solutions and trusted by companies for customized Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), Search, and Talent & Digital Advisory solutions. Hire Velocity partners with clients across nearly every industry to solve recruiting challenges and achieve sustained outcomes. Consistently recognized as a partner that goes the ‘extra mile’, they are devoted to delivering outstanding customer service.

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Client: Goldleaf Farms

Scope: Branding, Content Marketing, Website Design & Development, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Visit www.goldleaffarms.com

Project Description:

Goldleaf Farms is an ornamental tree farm based outside of Atlanta with nearly 300 acres between 2 farms in Georgia and Mississippi. As ‘Growers of Distinct Trees’, Goldleaf Farms was looking to modernize its brand with a new mobile-enabled website and online store, social media presence, and overall digital identity. ProIQ worked with Goldleaf Farms to bring the owner, Phil Cates’, vision to life with a unique website design and presence.

New Website Design with Online Store

The ProIQ team partnered with Phil to highlight drone footage of the Georgia farm throughout the website as well as the 150+ varieties of trees on the new mobile-enabled online store. By using the category and tag functionality to group the unique characteristics of each tree species, customers can identify the optimal tree based on height, spread, shape, foliage, fall color, farm location, genus, species and cultivar.

DIgital Identity Redesign + Video Marketing

Working with Phil, ProIQ developed a strategy to refresh the company’s identity across the social media platforms and on Google to drive greater brand awareness and organic traffic to the website.