In our last blog post, we showed you five ways to effectively use social networks to recruit talent. Today, we want to explain how you should measure social recruiting results! But first, you must pick the right channels.

All social sites are different, and all warrant different approaches. You must decide who you are trying to attract and tailor your strategy to that particular group. 

You may want to start with one social media site, familiarize yourself with it, and grow your presence gradually.

  1. Twitter: Twitter is meant for updates about what is happening at the current moment. It offers a way to broadcast information widely about positions that need to be filled. You could use Twitter for the high priority job openings you have. 
  2. LinkedIn: LinkedIn, as you may know, is the most popular social networking site for professional recruiters. The site is focused on fostering professional networking, and its user profiles can amount to ready-made resumes.
  3. Facebook: Facebook is the largest of the social networking sites with more than a billion users worldwide. Facebook offers access to the largest pool of candidates and is especially useful for recruiting Generation Y.

While LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are the giants in the social networking market, there are also niche communities that you should consider including in your strategy. For example, MyVetwork is a professional social networking site for military veterans. MiGente and Black Planet serve the Latino and African American communities. Each of these sites has job boards and active professional discussions going on and offer a way to reach a more diverse set of candidates.

Now that you have selected your channels, it’s time to appropriate track results. 

The overall goal of social media is to build a large, high-quality talent pool. A sampling of measurable goals using social media include:

  • Increase traffic to the career site
  • Increase the engagement of Facebook Fans
  • Increase follower count on Twitter
  • Increase traffic to job postings

You can also measure how social recruiting directly impacts the bottom line by reporting on:

  • Top sources of hire
  • Sources for high performers
  • Time to fill
  • Cost per hire

Before you implement your social media strategy, track key metrics on your current sourcing, and recruiting efforts. Then, set goals that you would like to accomplish with social recruiting.