Four ways that social media may not be right for marketing your recruitment business

Time and effort – there’s no getting around it, effective social media usage does take time, and consistency is key. There’s nothing worse than a Twitter feed with three tweets from 2012. Or a LinkedIn profile with an out-of-date current job. Investing the time and effort into developing and implementing a social media strategy, creating content, posting regularly, commenting and engaging with your network and so on can pay dividends, but only if you’re sure it will give you a return on investment and if you are able to prioritise doing this (for the long term). Difficult to measure return on investment – firstly, because your investment is likely time, rather than any financial investment, which many of us find hard to quantify or put a value on. And secondly, because the results are not immediate or easy to measure. For example, with job boards, it’s easy to see how many placements you have made from each and therefore a return on investment. With social media, much harder to calculate. Not everyone uses social media – if your target market is aged 25 – 35 and interested in Candy Crush Saga, then you can be fairly sure they hang out on Facebook. But what if you’re targeting a group that simply don’t use social media platforms? The key here is to research your ideal audience, find out where they are and then go there! If it isn’t social media, then it should move down your priority list. It steals time – we’ve all been there…merrily watching videos of dancing cats and liking our friends' insightful comments when, bam, three hours have passed. Social media has a way of sapping your time, especially for those prone to procrastination or lured by click bait titles. I’m not saying that’s a reason not to use it at all, but it is a reason to use it wisely and monitor carefully.