Twitter is the second most popular social network in the world after Facebook, with 310 million monthly visitors. While LinkedIn is geared towards business and the recruitment industry, Twitter has emerged as a popular and powerful place to post jobs. But how do you ensure that your tweets are being viewed by the right candidates? And how do you communicate your employer brand in just 140 characters? This post outlines some useful methods to boost candidate engagement when tweeting out your jobs.

1. Use Hashtags

Using hashtags effectively is the best way to ensure your tweet gets the most exposure. To use them effectively you must do your research. RiteTagis a great tool that provides analytics on hashtags, and suggests the best ones to use. You must select a hashtag that has enough hourly views so that your tweet gets seen, but not too many that your tweet gets lost in all the others using the same tag. While #job or #jobs seem like the obvious choices, combined they are tweeted over 10,000 times an hour, so using these tags will cause your tweet to get lost in the crowd. #Hiring however is a better choice, with just 1,300 hourly tweets, but 2.5 million hourly hashtag views. Of course these are views around the world. In Ireland, #jobfairy and #irishjobfairy both get good levels of user engagement, so adding one of these to your tweet is a good idea.     [read more....]