
Recruiters are spending more time than ever on social media, according to the results of a recent Dice survey. That being said, social media enthusiasts often find it difficult to measure and justify hefty investments in brand building and sourcing activities across multiple platforms. A monitoring tool could be the answer. The most popular tools let you listen to your audience, engage them and analyze the results, and many vow to make life easier by aggregating activity and data from several platforms. But with over 100 tools on the market, how can you select the right one? “It’s important for recruiters to measure activity and actions and how they translate into candidate flow,” said Mary Foley, talent search specialist with Progressive Insurance. “We wanted a tool that could measure views, shares and the percentage of people who view our company profile and subsequently click the ‘apply’ button.” Here are some things to consider when selecting a social-media monitoring tool:
- Understand your goals Know what you want to measure and accomplish before you go shopping for a tool, Foley advised. For example, do you need multi-language capabilities? Would you like to monitor mentions and schedule content releases? Do you want to involve your tech team in your outreach? Is efficiency a priority? Consider a location-based tool if you want to track your penetration into specific geographic markets.
- Which networks need monitoring? Because each tool supports different platforms, you may need multiple tools and strategies to monitor activity across the entire Web, close functionality gaps or to track specialized platforms such as GitHub, Stack Overflow or SlideShare. For instance, Foley uses Bitly, but she also uses Twitter’s native analytics platform to monitor profile hits and source new candidates by viewing her followers.
- Reporting requirements Do you want to share data and reports across the enterprise? Is integration with other systems and platforms vital? Do you need to analyze historical data? Do you want to compare the strength of your brand to specific competitors? Will canned reports do, or do you want customized dashboards? Some tools are better suited to recruiting than others.