You’ve seen the commercials on television (and heard them on the radio): area businesses and national chains imploring you to “visit them on Facebook.”
There used to be a time that businesses would ask you to visit their website. However, that practice has declined recently.
Does this mean that making sure your recruiting or staffing firm has a presence in social media is as important as having a recruitment website? Is it more important? Should you just junk your website and concentrate solely on social media efforts to market your firm and promote yourself to candidates and clients?
In a word, no, no, and no. (Technically, that’s three words, but who’s counting?)
Yes, using social media for recruiting is important, and your firm should definitely have a presence within that realm, but social media should NOT take the place of your staffing or recruitment website. Here are four reasons why:
#1—A recruitment website lends credibility.
What will prospects think when they “Google” the name of your firm and they can’t find a website for it? That’s probably going to knock you down a few notches in their mind. When they “Google” you, they want to know more about you. A website lets them know that you really “exist.”
#2—A website serves as your online “base of operations.”
The goal is to attract candidates and prospective clients and engage them. A recruitment website allows you to engage them on your terms. When you use social media sites only, you’re constrained by what they allow you to do. In other words, you have to “play by their rules.”
#3—You can put your jobs on your website.
Sure, you can advertise your jobs through social media (tweet them, create Facebook job postings, etc.), but the best way to convey these opportunities is to have a place on your firm’s website to post them. This encourages candidates to visit your website on a consistent basis . . . even without any prompting from social media.
#4—You can measure your activity more easily with a website.
Incorporating Google Analytics into your site will allow you to track all sorts of interesting data, including how many people are visiting your site and what they’re doing when they arrive there.
Social media should only be part of your overall marketing plan, not the ONLY part of it. Your firm’s website should serve as the anchor for everything you do online to gain more leads, more business, and a greater market share.