A study prepared by Jobvite recently explored how companies approach social marketing sites for their recruiting efforts. Most notably, 92% of respondents indicated that they either use or plan to use social networks to aid their efforts to recruit new talent. This represents a 10% increase compared to 2010, demonstrating the ever-growing power of social media’s role in recruiting.

LinkedIn ahead of the pack

According to the survey results, 93% of respondents indicated that they had either used or planned to use LinkedIn for recruiting candidates. Given the professional nature of the B2B social networking site, it’s no surprise that LinkedIn was at the top of the list for employers. Facebook and Twitter were second and third, with 66% using the former and 54% using the latter. For job seekers, this exhibits how important it is to keep your online profiles professional and consistently updated.

Content recruiters do not like

Not surprisingly, 78% of respondents indicated that they react negatively to posts referencing the use of illicit drugs. Lewd and profanity laden posts, spelling and grammar errors, and photos of alcohol were also reported to be damaging to a candidate’s overall profile. Job seekers need to control the amount of negative or harmful content published on social media sites based on their individual brand. Personal branding with social media requires a consistent and strategic effort to monitor the online environment for potential threats to your reputation.

Social media conversion rates

As with any other online marketing campaign, recruiting through social media networks must provide concrete results to justify the time spent filtering candidates through these sites. 89% of respondents indicated that they had successfully hired an employee through LinkedIn, with Facebook and Twitter only providing success rates of 26% and 15% respectively. Regardless of the numbers, this only indicates how integral social media can be for managing your reputation online.

Although this study was geared towards recruiters, the results can be extrapolated and applied to any other campaign. The conclusion drawn from this study is that social media is an effective tool to shape you individual brand and market yourself in a digital world. Companies can learn from this study and leverage social media sites to shape their brands according to their objectives, whether it’s for increasing company awareness, generating a hype for a product, or for performance marketing.

To learn more about how you can leverage social media, contact us for a free consultation with one of our experts at http://rankmediaagency.com/contact-us.php.

*Image and stats source: Jobvite @ http://web.jobvite.com/rs/jobvite/images/Jobvite_2012_Social_Recruiting_Survey.pdf