William L. Coney Blog: How to Use Social Media to Find the Perfect Employee for Your Business

Whether you run a well-established company or are a budding entrepreneur, you’ll likely experience growing pains while building your team.

At Bond Street, we’re experts in term loans, but we cover just about everything related to small business, including how to hire the perfect employees for your new company. For small business owners, committing to a new employee’s salary is daunting. It can swallow precious resources like time and manpower, and can put a serious strain on your cash flow. Yet no matter who you are, it’s critical to invest in your business’s most important asset—the people.

So, how do you say “we’re hiring” in a cost-effective way that gets the right people through the door? For small businesses, it’s leveraging a tool that you use to market your products, promote Small Business Saturday sales, or to show off your new location—social media.

The following steps will outline how you can best use social media—in particular, Facebook and Instagram—to hire for your small business.

Step 1: Know yourself

The age-old maxim “know thyself” is not only the marketing guru’s best friend but also the savvy recruiter’s mantra. Before you open your computer, you need to be able to answer the following:

What do you offer as a place to work?
What differentiates you from competitors?
What profile and skills will be successful here?

Your hiring messages will be based on your answers to these questions, so take the time to gather feedback from your team and assess your working culture. Write out three cohesive statements in response to each.

What you offer as an employer doesn’t need to be limited to salary or employee benefits. People are increasingly looking for purpose in the world of work.

For example: Mentorship and apprenticeship with the founders of our family-owned bagel shop.

The next step is digging deeper to uncover what sets you apart from the sea of businesses competing for talent.

For example: We’re a New York-based jewelry company that turns women in developing countries into entrepreneurs.

Finally, understanding the personality profile and skills needed to succeed in your business will help you target the right audience on social media.

For example: College grad with a strong understanding of the ecommerce landscape, with excellent communication skills and attention to detail.

Step 2: Choose the right social media channels

When it comes to recruiting on social media, not all channels are created equal. Just as customers visit your Facebook or Instagram page for different reasons, the same goes for potential hires. As a general rule of thumb:

Facebook tells the story of the people and culture of your business
Instagram paints a picture of your working environment, products, and visual identity
Twitter aligns your business with industry influencers and updates your network

When it comes to hiring on social, Facebook offers several benefits that make the platform stand out. Its budget-friendly advertising and exceptional targeting functions make it a recruiter’s best friend. In addition, Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram means you can advertise on both platforms seamlessly.

Step 3: Set up your ads on Facebook Ad Manager

To start advertising open roles on Facebook and Instagram, you’ll need to set up a Facebook Ad Manager account. This is your command center to create, manage, and track how well your campaigns are performing. Follow these instructions to set up ads, and look to the following best practices to help get you started:

Clarify your goals: Are you engaging potential hires through comments, or driving applications to open roles through a clear call-to-action?
Keep it short: Know that the majority of all content is consumed on mobile, so keep it short and sweet.
Determine your target audience: Dig into details such as location, age range, gender, interests, and so on of the audience you want to reach.
Pay to play: Set a daily budget of $20 for two to three weeks to start.
Optimize, optimize, optimize: Monitor your ads daily and tweak text or images to improve performance.

Step 4: Craft your message and select visuals

Did you know that every time you log into Facebook, there are about 1,500 available posts, videos, or photos waiting in your News Feed? With the overwhelming amount of material out there, the pressure to create compelling content on a regular basis is on. Depending on your goals, there are two main types of content you can create: sponsored posts and sponsored ads.

See below for a quick side-by-side comparison:

Sponsored posts get additional reach in Newsfeeds among fans, followers, and your target audience. This style aims to increase awareness of what it’s like to work at your business through authentic imagery and text.

Sponsored ads entice your target audience to learn more or apply to open positions. Keep it short with an authentic headline on what you offer, what differentiates you, and what skills you’re looking for.

Remember that people are more likely to apply to a job if they hear about it from a personal connection. When creating your content and selecting imagery, be authentic—this is your chance to begin to build a relationship with a potential hire!

For detailed specs and additional guidelines on creating ads, you can read more here.

Step 5: Go live!

Once you have set up your ads on Facebook, it’s time to hit publish. In Ads Manager, you will have full transparency into how your ads are performing (reach, clicks, comments, and more) throughout the campaign.

Set a reminder at the same time every day to check in on your ads, and confirm all is running smoothly. If you’re not getting any traction after three to five days, start tweaking the text or images. If results are still low, change your target audience or increase the daily ad spend to $25.

The small business owners’ best new recruiter

With over 75 percent of internet users on social media today, there are very few other platforms where you can find and engage with future team members in the same way.

As a small business owner, social media not only allows you to hire in an agile and budget-friendly way, but it also empowers you to showcase why your business is a great place to work.