The following transcript was taken from InSights, a staffing and recruiting podcast from Haley Marketing Group dedicated to providing quick-hitting takeaways on Social Recruiting, Content Marketing and Employer Branding. To listen to the episode, click play on the player above or visit the episode page [InSights] Every Post Has a Purpose
Brad Bialy: Matt, you’ve heard me say this 100 times this month, and it’s become a core belief of mine, but every post on social media must have a purpose. Social media is becoming so noisy that we need to make sure every post has a purpose, that every post is tied to a business goal. Talk to me about why.
Matt Lozar: There’s a lot of reasons why Brad. We could get into a bunch of them, but today we want to focus on a couple of them. The first one would be a decrease in reach. Let’s just look at Facebook, we could look at any social platform, the content overload can be overwhelming, and when you don’t have someone’s attention 24 hours a day we have to really think about what’s the goal of that post before hitting the click button. Brad’s probably going to go into that a little bit more, but with so much content on Facebook, and Facebook only pushing out content that receives engagement whether it’s a like, or a comment, or a share we have to really focus on that, and then that engagement is with the meaningful interactions.
Matt Lozar: What can we do to get someone to comment on that post? Think about a job seeker that you may have placed. Maybe they put out a testimonial that you share on a company photo. Their comment could be, “XYZ staffing agency really helped me land a job. It helped put money in our checking account to pay Christmas bills, it helped us have a great vacation.” That’s a really meaningful interaction, but what can you do to really drive engagement so that reach increases since your content is speaking to your audience?
Brad Bialy: Matt, I saw a great tweet this past week from Brian [Case-in 00:09:45], who’s the Director of Content and Marketing over at Moment. He had said that there’s a reminder to those who work in social, brands don’t have to post about every holiday. Every post has to have a purpose, and I immediately co-tweeted this out and said that every post has to have a purpose. If you think about why you’re on social media before you click publish, before you click post think about why. What are you saying? Is it in line with your business goals? If not close out the browser, get up from your desk, make another cup of coffee and try again.
Matt Lozar: Let’s go back to episode one of InSights ([InSights] Preparing for 2019) where we talked about the content calendar. It was actually the first segment of that show in the Content blueprint. If you want to take that content calendar to the next level when you’re creating your blog schedule, your infographics schedule, your video schedule, whatever is on that content calendar for the month think about the different social platforms you could post to. Plan out social posts right there. Start writing headlines, start writing a strategy. That really, it takes time and it’s going to require creating a system that works for you, but what can you do in a Word document, in an Excel spreadsheet to have that headline of the content, and then maybe a headline for Facebook, a headline for LinkedIn, a headline for Twitter, hashtags to use on Twitter. All that planning will help when maybe later in the month you’re really busy, and you don’t have a lot of time for social media. Or, you want to stick to that plan and not get emotional so you’re making really good decisions so the data down the line helps you make even better decisions.
Brad Bialy: I love that idea. I love the thought of at the beginning of the month of planning out your entire content strategy for the month, or that quarter. The reason we want to do that is because social media doesn’t need another post that’s just general clutter, that’s just general noise. There’s enough noise on social media between other staffing and recruiting firms, other bands, teams, friends, family members. There’s so much going on on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter that if you don’t have a purpose for every single post you’re just joining the noise and you’re just joining that clutter. If we constantly think about every post having a purpose and figuring out your why before you click ‘publish’ you’ll be significantly better in your social recruiting strategy thinking that everything you do on social is tied to a business goal.
Matt Lozar: I think that’s the challenge because we see Coca-Cola, we see the teams in the Super Bowl, we see celebrities, we see politics they’re posting seemingly every hour, every 20 minutes, and it works because those fans are engaged.
Brad Bialy: They also have their own strategies though Matt. Their team is sitting down and figuring out what works best for them. Staffing and recruiting firms aren’t the Buffalo Bills, they’re not the Buffalo Sabers. Each team on social has their own plan, and their own goals, so if we’re thinking about recruitment marketing, we’re thinking about social recruiting is your social post in line with that strategy? Or are you putting together a social strategy that’s matched for a sports team?
Matt Lozar: Posting and praying isn’t going to work. You need to have that plan, know the why before you hit ‘publish,’ and stick to that plan, and think about why that content is going to make an impact with your audience.
