Social media has become a normal part of modern culture, with the average person spending over 2 hours per day on various social platforms.

While social media was once viewed as a workplace distraction, more companies are changing their views on social media. Instead, teams are embracing social media as a powerful communication tool—and it’s about time. According to recent Glassdoor research, 79% of job seekers use social media during the job search process.

More than just a marketing tool, the secret is officially out! See how savvy HR teams are using social media to recruit and land top talent.

Secret #1: Showcase Company Culture

Your social media pages should serve several goals. Of course, your marketing team will use social media to connect and engage with current customers, to reach new prospects and to establish and maintain brand standards. However, human resources can also contribute to the page conversation with content related to showcasing the company culture.

To get started, think about what is truly unique or exceptional about your company and how you can showcase that in an engaging way. This goes beyond simply posting a group photo at your annual Christmas party.

For example, if your company has a great paid time off policy, have your employees submit pictures of their vacation and travel adventures for a feature via social media. This is exactly what BambooHR does with their #PaidPaidVacation policy—and it works!

Similarly, you could share pictures or videos of the company doing volunteer work within the community, fun shots from company social events, or even highlight rockstar employees and new hires. Be sure to ask employees to tag your company in relevant pictures they share to pull those images into your page feeds.

Testimonials an also be a powerful recruiting tool. Do you have dedicated employees that would speak on your behalf? Collect quotes, either written and paired with a headshot or via video, to showcase on social media.

Secret #2: Use Video

Video is a powerful and engaging tool for capturing and maintaining attention, particularly on social media. In fact, videos receive 1,200% more shares on social media than text and images combined.

Sure, that’s impressive—but what does that have to do with HR?

Well, according to CareerBuilder, job posts with a video icon received 12% more views than postings without video. And, videos boosted the actual application rate by 34%. Video is proven to help companies reach more candidates, solicit more job applicants, and provide a better overall candidate experience.

The key to seeing success with video on social media is to upload your videos directly onto each platform. This will increase your video’s reach and engagement well beyond what you would see with an off-site link.

As for video ideas, interviews with employees and professionally produced ‘highlight’ videos can provide insight about the ‘ins and outs’ of your company and make candidates feel more comfortable with their decision to apply. You could also experiment with live videos for a more organic and authentic experience.

Your videos don’t have to be long; in fact, shorter videos are ideal for social media. Also keep in mind that people often view video without sound, so it’s definitely worth the time to add captions to videos with important voiceovers or interviews.

Secret #3: Use Advertising to Target Top Talent

Social Media platforms feature powerful targeting tools to help companies reach highly targeted segments, and these tools can easily be used to target top talent.

LinkedIn is a natural choice for recruiting, as professionals actively use the space for job searching and networking. Company pages can easily create and promote job posts, with targeting available based on location, professional experience, industry, title and more. LinkedIn also allows candidates to easily apply for jobs directly on the platform, which is a great way to ramp up the amount of resumes your company attracts.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can also be used for recruitment. To get the best bang for your advertising buck, use high-quality images or videos for your promotions, as these channels are highly visual.

Be sure to coordinate advertising efforts with your marketing team—they likely already have advertising accounts on the large channels and can provide support for making sure your recruiting campaigns perform well.

Who is doing a great job at using social media for recruiting? Check out these fabulous feeds from HootSuite, BambooHR, SEER Interactive and Marriott for inspiration!

Do you want to learn how to incorporate utilize social media for HR? Sign up for our free webinar for more tips and tools!