We recently spoke to over 350 candidates to understand exactly how they use social media in their job search and help us understand how you can use social media to monitor the reputation of your employer brand.
Employer reputation was identified as a key driver for candidates when looking for their next role, so by using social listening you can understand what candidates are saying about your organisation and avoid missing out on any top talent to your business.
Social listening can mean the difference between top talent finding you, or top talent running for the door. 500 million tweets are sent every day (1), there are over 35 million reviews on Glassdoor and 700,000 companies listed (2), with the numbers growing. You need to keep your ear to the ground and find out what your candidates are really saying about you. Why? To avoid top talent falling through the cracks after seeing a negative review of you on social media.
Social Listening
Social listening is the term used to monitor and discover what people are saying about your brand. By implementing simple social media listening techniques within your hiring strategy, you can find out what your candidates and employees are really saying about you.
Tools such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite and Buffer allow you to set up alerts, so you’ll receive a notification when someone mentions your brand, competitor, produce or service. You can view these alerts on a simple dashboard, giving you the opportunity to respond, engage and interact with any comments.
We recommend setting up alerts for the following terms, ensuring that you don’t miss anyone talking about your organisation.
Terms we recommend you set up alerts for include:
- Mentions of your brand
This can be @ mentions on Twitter, or someone simply saying your brand name in a social media post
- Mentions of words that are similar to your brand name
If your company name is easily misspelt, set up an alert for these terms as well - that way you won’t miss any
- Competitors
It’s always useful to keep an eye on your competitors, especially when it comes to your recruitment process. Doing this will allow you to find out what helps your competitors recruitment process stand out from yours
- Mentions of your brand with the word ‘job’
This is the quickest way to find out what people think about working for you. Below are some examples of a quick social media search for top companies in the UK:
By implementing these techniques, you can find out what people are saying about working for your brand, and more importantly, join the conversation.
Social Media Listening – get involved in the conversation
Social media is a two-way street. It’s important you’re responding and commenting on what people are saying about your brand.
62% of job seekers agree their perception of a company improves after seeing an employer respond to a review (3). Help improve your brand perception and respond to reviews and comments you receive online.
By responding, you show you care what your candidates are saying about you and have an interest in your candidates and customers.
Once you’ve done the legwork and set up your social media monitoring tools, you then need to go back and regularly check and monitor those tools and respond to any comments, both positive and negative. We recommend a minimum of four hours a week monitoring and responding to candidates on social media. Download our engagement crib sheet with some recommended responses to comments on Glassdoor and other social media sites.
Don’t be afraid of negative feedback
Although feedback is a gift, it can have a detrimental effect to your employer brand if not monitored correctly. Sites such as Glassdoor allow an employee, former employee, or candidate to leave a review of your company and your recruitment process. Glassdoor actively encourages the user to leave as much information as possible, with sections for salaries, CEO feedback, interview process and pros and cons for working at your organisation. Ultimately, you’re left with a star review for your organisation.
Glassdoor allows you, as a company, to respond to these reviews. It’s important when responding, that you address the comments they raise and show that you have an active interest and are grateful for them spending the time to write a review. Not only will this show that you take an active interest in your candidates and employer brand (which is beneficial when attracting top talent) but it also gives you the opportunity to sell yourself even further.
When someone leaves a bad review, it’s more than likely because they had one poor experience over the entire time they worked there. So responding to this means you can touch on this negative experience whilst also highlighting what you are doing to amend it.
Here are our top tips when responding to negative comments on Glassdoor, or any other social media site:
- If on a social media site like Twitter and Facebook, address them by name. It shows you’re responding personally, and it’s not an automated system. Glassdoor reviews are anonymous, so there’s no way to do this on Glassdoor.
- Always say ‘thank you’ for the review.
- You can’t edit your response on Glassdoor once posted, so make sure all the information on there is correct.
- Write your response in a word document beforehand so you can triple check your spelling. There’s nothing worse than responding to a review and you’ve spelt something wrong.
- Respond promptly, the longer you wait, the worse it’s going to be. But don’t rush it. If you rush it, you’re more likely to say something rash. Leave it one night, and respond the next day.
- Have a professional tone, and don’t take the review too personally. It may feel natural to ‘attack’ back at what the person has to say, but it can do worse things to your reputation.
- Be authentic. By being honest and genuine with your response, it’s going to work out better in the long run as potential candidates will have a better view of your organisation.
- Address what you’re doing to rectify the reasons for the negative response and make sure you share the positive changes that the company are making.
How social listening can enhance your recruitment
Once you’ve got a routine in place for your monitoring and responding, this will naturally enhance your recruitment process. When doing their research, candidates will see you as an employer of choice that has an active interest in their candidates, and a fun, engaging and interactive social media presence.
Sources:
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-monitoring-strategies/
- https://www.glassdoor.com/press/facts/
- https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/employers/popular-topics/hr-stats.htm
