One thing it proves is the power of social media to amplify a message. It’s easy to see the power it has and the speed at which it’s being adopted, check out your current social media feeds. Social media is feeding the frenzy faster then this virus can spread.

There are so many posts that are going viral (some are just hype and totally out of context) and the trending hashtag will likely be around for some time.

Like any other tool, social media has good and bad outcomes and we all have the power to control what we see, what we say and how we use it (to help or to hinder) progress. 

Due to recent travel overseas, I’m in self isolation (not by choice). However, as I mainly work from home I’ll be continuing business as normal and trying to help as many people as possible with training and advice. 

As a recruiter, you’ll likely need to make changes to how you do business. Here are some tips and advice on how to use social media to your advantage during COVID-10

• Communication on social media is vital– if your organisation has any social media channels, you need to be present and active on those pages. For example, I’ve just flown with Singapore Air for the first time. I had some issues with a bid to upgrade and seat allocation prior to our return trip. In 48 hours I sent 3 emails, multiple Twitter messages and tried to direct message on Facebook (which is only a bot) and 4 days later (and after travelling back home) have still not heard from them. What do you think the chances of me flying with them again are? This was a missed opportunity for them to step up and turn a negative situation into a positive, but they failed.
• Respond to messages on social media fast – now more than ever you need to be responsive. People need information in a timely manner so respond in a timely manner (within hours)
• Don’t rely on Facebook chatbots. In times of anxiety, you need real people to help NOT chatbots. When you have an issue that needs sorting, getting a chatbot is infuriating and also poor customer experience. Real issues need real people at times like this. We are not robots and don’t want to talk to robots. Thinking a bot will take care of your customer issues makes you delusional. People want real people to help them in this current environment.
• Changes to the way you are delivering your product or service – look at the current situation as an opportunity to get creative and look for new ways to deliver your products or services. What can be delivered virtually? Can you offer home delivery? Think outside the square. 
• Create a Facebook group for your team for communication – if your team members are working remotely, they need not only the mental stimulation and interaction with other people but a fun way to interact with their peers. Sure, it’s not the same, but interaction helps keep your team connected. 
• Create a LinkedIn or Facebook group for customers of certain segments – this is very relevant for travel and hospitality. For example, relevant updates and information for various countries, locations. The information in a group can be specific and relevant which saves viewers from having to scroll through a bunch of posts that aren’t relevant to them.  
• Provide updates about changes to your business. If you’re changing the way you operate, let people know about it. For example, Dendy Cinema has been doing a great job updating members about changes happening in their cinemas
• Customise FAQs on Facebook – if you’re getting a lot of the same questions you can update your settings and manually set some FAQs, making it quick and easy for customers and candidates to get answers. 
• Share positive messages and be mindful of how you’re impacting peoples mindset (your current team members,  clients and your own). Most of us are fed up with all the negative doom and gloom. We now want to see positive news and funny things to entertain and show the light at the end of the tunnel. Imagine the impact it could have if everyone was positive and proactive. 
• Use Facebook live to answer commonly asked questions or issues – you might be getting a load of the same questions from your customers, so use that as content and do live videos via Facebook to respond to these proactively. It will also save your customer service teams time in responding to enquiries. 

Another thing you can do is to train your team on how to use social media more effectively and set up digital tools they can use to communicate. 

Here are some other things to consider:

Calm Down – panic and hype help no one. Use common sense and think business as usual 

Offer alternatives – how can you deliver your product in another way? 

Visual and video – are important to get attention in an overwhelmed world.

Imagineering – Get creative. Look at this as an opportunity to evolve your offering

Double down on communication – keep your customers and candidates informed of changes, new products and check in. Relevant communication that is calm and positive is what people need right now.

Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector.  She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.

The post 10 tips for using social media in the current climate appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

Here are 7 key trends for a successful digital marketing campaign courtesy of SerpWatch.

Brace yourself, this infographic is extensive! It covers:

• SEO
• Organic search
• Local SEO
• Social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest
• Video marketing
• Cold email marketing
• Mobile email
• Paid advertising
• PPC – pay per click
• Ad blocking
• Programmatic advertising
• Content marketing and content strategy
• AI and chatbots.

As SerpWatch explains, “These marketing statistics have been divided across seven key trends, both in the infographic below and in the list that follows it, helping you zero in on your primary marketing channel of interest. On the other hand, like most modern marketers, if your campaign strategy involves multiple channels, this division should help you update your notes more clearly.”

The post 7 key trends in digital marketing for recruitment appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.

We all know how many challenges there are when it comes to doing recruitment right. In addition to attracting the right talent, as a recruiter, you’re also responsible for producing engaging recruitment advertisements, designing compelling recruitment strategies, and performing follow up touch points to foster candidate care.

Performing all these tasks is easier said than done. Someone should give you an assistant to take up some of those repetitive tasks and release you to focus on important strategic and business decision-related work. This is where recruitment chatbots come into play.

As Naveen Joshi reporting for Forbes explains, “We are pretty sure that everyone is aware of what chatbots are and what they do. What are recruitment chatbots exactly about? Let’s put it out in simple words. Recruitment chatbots, considered as an HR manager’s dream assistant, are basically conversational interface platforms that perform the preliminary recruitment process. These chatbots are powered with AI and NLP capabilities which make them more disruptive and powerful. Let’s check some concrete recruitment chatbot use cases, capabilities and potential that brings in breakthrough results.

Recruitment chatbot: advantages

Screening candidate applications

Once candidates visit or apply on your careers websites, chatbots can initiate conversations and ask them questions, for example, about their work experience, details about their previous organisation and role, and areas of interest.

When the conversation concludes, chatbots can then evaluate the candidates’ relevancy for the  your current opportunity. Assessing position requirements, the conversation, and the candidates’ resume, the recruitment chatbot can decide whether a candidate fits the open position or not.

Scheduling interviews

Intelligent chatbots can access yours or your line manager calendars to check for availability and schedule interviews for relevant candidates.

Answering queries

“Before joining any company, it is obvious that candidates will have a few queries or doubts about the job position, work environment and salary structure. Recruiters have to make time for such calls. However, with chatbots, recruiters gain some much needed assistance. With prompt replies and instant availability, chatbots have become one of the disruptive newcomers in the tech market.”

Improving candidate experience

To stand out from your talent competitors, tweak your recruitment strategy to make it more candidate-centric.

“The time that candidates take to send resumes and recruiters get back to them should be negligible. Chatbots can make this happen. Chatbots can get back to candidates almost instantaneously, making both applicants and recruiters satisfied on that front.”

Recruitment chatbot: disadvantages

Chatbots offer a wide range of benefits and opportunities, and are certainly disrupting the recruitment space. But along with these comes a number of challenges. Chatbots aren’t immune to technical faults and glitches!

Lack of Empathy

Though chatbots are powered with highly advanced AI, ML and NLP capabilities, they fall short while gauging candidate emotions and sentiments – especially humour!

“No jokes, no human touch, no empathy, no humor while talking might make the conversation less than engaging for candidates. Sometimes, chatbots are designed with limited information about the company. If candidates ask questions that are unfathomable to chatbots, these chatbots can get confused, and they then provide irrelevant answers. Incidents like these can disappoint and frustrate candidates.”

Language barrier

Everyone inevitably has a unique talking style, slang and writing style. Sometimes, this makes it hard for chatbots to understand certain queries and statements.

Decision-making capabilities

While recruitment chatbots can learn from previous conversations, they can’t make decision on their own.

“For example, consider a situation where a chatbot asks a question like, “Do you have fair knowledge about big data?” and the candidate answers “Yes, but I haven’t worked on any projects yet.” Here, the candidate states that they have sound knowledge on the concept and yet no hands-on experience. It’s obvious that big data concepts make sense to data scientists, software developers, and other such highly experienced employees. A newcomer will not be suitable for the position. A not-so-well-designed chatbot will get confused at this point, and it might schedule an interview with the newcomer, thereby making a wrong decision.”

Unpredictable candidate replies

“Humans are highly unpredictable. Some candidates might love talking with chatbots, some candidates might interact with chatbots by using abusive words, just for fun (sometimes), while some might just terminate the conversation. Dealing with such unpredictable behaviour is not an easy undertaking for chatbots.”

Malicious attacks

While it’s unpleasant to think about, hacker and unscrupulous people may target your online framework through chatbots. Chatbots are susceptible to being attacked, scripted and turned into evil bots! These evil bots might schedule interviews with only irrelevant candidates or send abusive replies to candidates. It seems far-fetched and scary, but it’s in the realm of possibility.

Having a high potential to connect with great talent, taking mundane tasks off your hands such as scheduling and answering queries, chatbots truly do fulfil a recruitment need. But is all the hype around recruitment chatbots worth it? If chatbots can streamline the recruitment process, reduce a recruiter’s burden and help save time, perhaps they’re worth a shot.

But, before designing a chatbot for your organisation, be mindful of the potential challenges that might arise and set a strategy for overcoming each one if they do. Ensure your chatbot’s underlying infrastructure is robust and tighten your security policies to safeguard against hackers.

Source

Recruitment Chatbots: Is The Hype Worth It?

Naveen Joshi

Forbes

The post Recruitment trend alert: are recruitment chatbots worth it? appeared first on Recruitment Marketing.