Lisa Jones is a Director at Barclay Jones, a Consultancy working with agency recruiters, corporate recruiters and B2Bs advising them on the most effective use of technology, web and social media to improve their business processes, recruitment and bottom line.
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I run regular polls on LinkedIn (it helps with my marketing, profile awareness, contacts etc…). A recent poll of mine asked the question “What’s your main reason for using social media?” Here were the options:
- Raising your / your business’ profile
- Researching: sector/clients/competitors
- Sourcing: candidates/staff/clients
- Lead Generation
- Other (please comment)
I went into this poll having an opinion about what the results would be – generating leads, right?
WRONG! I was really shocked to find that only 13% of people had the primary aim of using social media to generate leads, while 42% of people commented that they used it primarily to raise their profile. This got me thinking… why are so few people actually hunting social media for leads and deals? Why does it seem to be OK to shout and scream on social media, but not to hunt?
“There is the perception that social media is not a direct sales tool, or even a lead sourcing tool”
When I meet some recruitment clients for the first time and ask them if they are sourcing leads through, for example, Twitter, I often get incredulous looks. There is the perception that social media is not a direct sales tool, or even a lead sourcing tool. Recruiters are comfortable with it being a job marketing tool, and when it comes to LinkedIn a candidate sourcing tool, but they seem to stop at that.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am an avid fan of great content, but none of us have time to simply blog and bleat all day long.
Show Me the Money
If I were a recruitment director, I would be looking at how to use social media to source leads. Yes, it’s important to increase profile, but that will happen naturally if you take part as if you were in a room of people (commenting, liking, etc…)
Sourcing vacancies is a great way to start. Reasons to be cheerful:
- Source vacancies for “inspiration” – you have an advert to write and last night’s work has killed too many brain cells
- Source vacancies to research your market and competitors – you have a duty to do this regularly if you claim to be on top of your sector, even if you are an internal/corporate recruiter
- Source vacancies to find genuine leads. It doesn’t really get any easier than finding a vacancy on say LinkedIn or Twitter, seeing a client name that is in your sector and putting in the call. Even if they are keen to source the talent themselves, they have exposed themselves as an employer and could be a great contact going forward.
Want some tips on how to source vacancies? Watch out for my next blog.
