Social Recruiting Wisdom & a Drink with @BillBoorman

As part of my meetup group (Social Media & Leftover Booze: a think tank happy hour about how social media is changing our world), Bill Boorman shared some words of social recruiting wisdom at the SmartRecruiters headquarters. I’ve known Bill for a long minute, and have always been very impressed with how he aptly leverages new technology to reach great talent.

From connecting with people he had yet to meet on LinkedIn in 2003 (before people were even using the term “LION”) to staffing Florida’s Hard Rock Cafes by targeting people of the area who liked The Rolling Stones on Facebook (before recruiting apps were selling Facebook ads) to using foursquare in finding where a competitor’s engineers liked to drink coffee then putting up a sign outside the coffee shop that read “Sick of Working for (Competitor’s Name)” to becoming the first company in the UK with the @ symbol in its officially registered name, it is clear that Bill Boorman breathes social recruiting knowledge.

Discussion centered around social media ads, specifically on Facebook and Twitter. When it comes to social media updates vs. paying to promote updates, Boorman explained, “News, intrusion, spam are all about relevance.”

The business models of today’s social networks depend on ads. The challenge lies in not hindering the end users’ experience while creating the most sustainable ROI for the advertiser. With ads entering all our newsfeeds, advertisers must respect, indulge, and cultivate the interests of their audience.

“It is my job to be in touch with the audience,” said attendee Lexie Forman-Ortiz, SmartRecruiters Community Manager. “Their interests are my interests. I want to share information that’s relevant to them. The best way to learn is to listen.”

Social media is about news consumption of the topics you care about from the people and brands you trust. To grow a brand on any social media channel you need to provide remarkable content to the relevant audience. If your content is not relevant, people unfollow and unlike. So in essence when promoting updates, if your content is not relevant and remarkable, you are paying people to unfollow and unlike you.

“Targeting is not random,” explained Boorman. “Promoted posts, stories, suggested pages are all based off of your interests or the assumption you have related interests to whatever the product may be.”

The people you want to reach – what do they do all day? What content can you share that will make their life easier? i.e. If they are hiring, you should share content that makes hiring easy.

Once you have created the remarkable content and identified the relevant audience, you must tailor to the medium.

“There are distinct personalities for each channel,” says Boorman.

“On Facebook, users spend more time looking at single pages, so your ad can be longer, more detailed, more visual,” summarized attendee Joe Hanson, inbound marketing professional. “Whereas on Twitter, users are quickly scrolling through 140 character tweets, so your promoted text needs to catch their eye quickly.”

“The good advertisers provide good content,” says the audience. “The great advertisers provide great content,” says the target consumer. “That’s just what I needed – Thank You,” says the new customer.

David Smooke writes because he is hungry. If you have a great interest in social media, join Social Media & Leftover Booze. If you have great interest in recruiting, join SmartUp: Elevating Innovation in Hiring. If you have great interest in the next generation of recruiting software, (including targeted Facebook Advertising) use SmartRecruiters.