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Using TikTok and snapchat in recruitment marketing campaigns
Now that 2024 is upon us, we’re looking to expand our social first offering and explore a campaign that effectively markets to younger audiences. But, first, it’s important to understand the demographic we’re looking for and where they exist digitally.
It’s no use talking about the platform without knowing whether it has the potential to solve your problems.
It’s becoming an increasingly known thing that early careers candidates (aka Gen Z) are moving away from traditional search engines like Google to use social media platforms such as TikTok as a source of information.
So, we spoke to Luis Santos, our Media Search Manager, to learn a bit more about what TikTok offers organisations from a recruitment advertising perspective that other platforms don’t.
What’s different about TikTok from traditional professional networks like LinkedIn is that the way you target a specific demographic. You can’t, for example, run a campaign that only appears in the algorithms of TikTok users who studied engineering.
The data collected is more around the content that’s being consumed and the hashtags the audience follow. Which might seem like an inhibitor but in fact it offers the opportunity to be super niche. It’s an opportunity to try targeted campaigns that look for users specifically interested in engineering and follow content creators that produce this type of content relevant to your target demographic.
How this is relevant to the UK public sector
What’s interesting about this is the shift in how we can target potential candidates. An organisation will obviously want candidates to have the right qualifications for the role but there are plenty of companies where specific experience just isn’t necessary.
Take the Civil Service or The NHS or The British Army, for example. These are the three largest employers in the UK and there are numerous roles available at each that don’t require a university degree. Or any professional experience.
All you need is the right mindset. The right mentality.
It’s about having the personal capability to get the job done over traditional intelligence and qualifications.
So if yours is an organisation with similar candidate requirements to the employers mentioned above, it’s well worth considering what characteristics you’re looking for in candidates before deciding on how and where a campaign runs. If you want candidates that are engaged, intrigued and excited by your industry, instead of simply qualified for a role, at TMP Worldwide, we can find that audience for you. You don’t get passion for a company or a role without a bit of interest in the relevant topic. And TikTok has these niche audiences in droves.
Our systems and campaign trackers are able to fully analyse the success and progress of every campaign we’ve run over the last three years. This data has allowed us to build a model for what is and isn’t successful for a social campaign. It essential boils down to three things. Luis explained them in a bit more detail:
There are a couple of things that are worth watching when it comes to the success of a campaign.
Impressions is a good one but can sometimes be misleading. It’s important to work on the Click Through Rate (CTR) which will come from Cost Per Click (CPC). If you can get your CTR up there, you’ve made an impression on people and you’ll give your campaign the best chance at success.
Anything above a 1% CTR we’d consider a success. If you can get 1m impressions on a piece of content that’s pretty good too, but it can be distracting. When you use a platform that thrives from users and eyes on screen, the algorithm will do a good job in getting it out and across the multitude of users.
Putting this into practice in recruitment campaigns
It’s not simply about getting eyes on your content. You want people to engage, so it’s important to consider the messaging and content that you pair with any recruitment drive. When the London Fire Brigade (LFB) approached us to help them generate interest with – and attract – a younger demographic we felt the collateral we had was native to TikTok and Snapchat.
The campaign was all about getting potential candidates to sign up to attend information sessions via their website. We measured the success of this campaign not only by clicks but also by click-throughs and registrations.
As well as significantly contributing to an increase in website traffic, the campaign generated hundreds of registrations at an average cost of £28.60 per registration across both TikTok and Snapchat – compared to only 11 registrations from YouTube and Google Display Network (GDN). And this is only the start. Opening the door for an ambitious client to take impressive early steps into the world of social will pay great dividends in the long run.
