I was kindly asked to take part in UK Recruiter’s live webchat on content marketing for recruiters. A few technical blips from my end meant it didn’t really go according to plan – so for those of you who are interested in how to create effective content marketing here are my top tips:
It’s essential to determine who you want your content to reach and what the objectives are. Do you want more candidates, clients or even staff for your own business? Do you want to build up talent pools that you can demonstrate your expertise to and tap into for future opportunities? Establishing this will enable you to tailor your content to each specific audience ensuring it is relevant. A strategy will also help dictate what type of content – whether it be blogs, videos, or infographics – are appropriate for each.
There is so much content available online so if you want to stand out from the crowd yours must address the pain points of each audience you are trying to reach. No one wants to know how good you are at recruiting, but what they do want to know is how your knowledge can help them. A construction professional will be keen on hearing about salary levels in their specialist area or the opportunities available to them in a particular region. And a head of HR might want to read best practice advice on assessment models or automated recruitment and how it can help their day-to-day activities.
It’s also imperative that the subject of your content stands out – can you use a celebrity or a high profile person in the subject to draw people in? A good example is this blog we wrote for One Way on the construction sector. By using the title ‘What can builders learn from Sir Alex Ferguson’ the post generated huge interest. ‘Invest in youth in the construction sector’ probably wouldn’t have had the same results. Finally, your content must be sticky! Make sure you include links to other great pieces of content on your website – the end result is sharing your expertise in as many ways as possible, and, crucially, keeping people on your site.
It’s all very well having fantastic content but it’s redundant if you don’t leverage it! If you’ve got a white paper, think about what else you can you create from it. A blog post, infographic or video are just a few examples. And once you have this, share it on your social media channels – and encourage your entire team to do the same. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that you shouldn’t adopt the same approach for each social media channel. Assess where your target audience is and share relevant content accordingly. A HRD may be very active on LinkedIn but they might not be looking at Pinterest for sourcing advice.
Finally, if you’re investing time and resources to a content marketing campaign you must measure it. Not only will this demonstrate its effectiveness but it will also enable you to identify potential opportunities – whether it’s a new client, candidate or employee for yourself. So look at your website analytics and see what types of content drives the most traffic and look at your new followers on social media. If they’re potential candidates, for example, you can create a fantastic pool of talent to target future campaigns at.
If you want to find out more about developing a content marketing strategy visit our blog for more tips or get in touch with us today.
Author: Stephanie King