Any marketeer, and yes the attraction element of recruiting is essentially a form of marketing, needs to be conscious of these algorithms because there is a chance your content, your amazing content… that you spent a long time creating, is not being seen as a result of these algorithms
Everyone knows what Social Media is, most people know what recruitment is and I would say that some people appreciate what an algorithm is, but just in case let’s just get those definitions out the way. Just in case ?
Social Media
Everyone knows what Social Media is, most people know what recruitment is and I would say that some people appreciate what an algorithm is, but just in case let’s just get those definitions out the way. Just in case is content or media, shared on a Social network. Examples of popular social networks are Facebook , Twitter , LinkedIn , Instagram , YouTube and Weibo . It is probably clear that this media can come in a variety of formats. Text, Pictures & Video type content.
Recruitment
Straight from Wikipedia – ‘refers to the overall process of attracting, shortlisting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization.’
Algorithms
Again straight from Wikipedia – ‘In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an unambiguous specification of how to solve a class of problems. Algorithms can perform calculation, data processing and automated reasoning tasks.’
Social Media & Algorihms
So the definition of an Algorithm above, is quite broad, but can still be applied to social media’s various algorithms. All social networks now have what we call an ‘algorithmic timeline’. The last one to adopt this was twitter in February 2016, prior to this the more you posted the more your content was seen. The reasons the networks introduce these algorithmic timelines is twofold.
- They want to only present content to you, that you will likely find interesting. Reason – if its interesting to you then you are more likely to return to this site and use it more.
- They want to make more money. This one is relatively obvious, but essentially it is a pay to playmodel. If you want to get your content seen a lot, then you can pay to have it positioned in the timeline amongst other ‘interesting’ content.
If you want to see the difference between the two, on LinkedIn you can, currently view both the algorithmic timeline ‘Top’ and non-algorithmic timeline ‘Latest’, however, your default view is always the algorithmic timeline and it isn’t possible to navigate to the non-algorithmic timeline on the LinkedIn mobile application
There are also more competitive ways algorithms work to filter out competition… for example if you have ever posted a youtube video to facebook you will notice virtually zero engagement compared to a video posted directly to the facebook platform. I can only assume Facebook, or perhaps more accurately, the facebook algorithm, doesn’t want to push users to the google owned video platform.
The interesting thing about Algorithms is that they can be very objective and it could simply be that the algorithm ‘figured out’ that YouTube videos caused users to leave that site and thus caused Facebook to lose revenue through lower impressions on revenue generating adverts
So why do we... or even... ‘should’ we careas recruiters?
Any marketeer, and yes the attraction element of recruiting is essentially a form of marketing, needs to be conscious of these algorithms because there is a chance your content, your amazing content… that you spent a long time creating, is not being seen as a result of these algorithms
So what should be the plan of attack when working with these algorithms?
Our content needs to be interesting, It needs to generate engagement and it also needs to have been preceded by other interesting engaging content. Why is this? Well as we previously described the algorithms need to feed the social media sites users to keep them on the website, even dropping links to external sites could have negative effects on the visibility of your post. But in the world of marketing anything external links will need to be used sometimes, because ultimately, we will need to drive users to another website to engage with what we were originally marketing. The reason your previous content also needs to have been interesting is that such algorithms don’t just rank your posts for their engagement but also the users that post them
How do we win in the social media game?
- Be authentic! Do not fake it to you make it, be authentic in everything you post, in the day of photoshopped everything and fake news, a little bit of authenticity will take you a long way.
- Quality of quantity, at one time it was the opposite, but today the algorithms are too smart to provide much visibility to someone posting unengaging drivel. My personal social media plan is to not post more than 5 times a week and not less than 1 times per week. I will also try to only post original content not a link to some third party website.. emphasis on the word “try”
- Get your team and network to like and comment on your content. Also get some to like it quickly after posting it. From an engagement perspective it is not just the number of likes/comments you get that counts but also the speed at which they were first acquired!
- If you are posting links (a necessary evil when marketing anything) make the links easily clickable and visible without needing to expand your post! Picture based links are best!