In this TalentTrack session, “From Posts to Placements: Tips for Recruiting Success on Social Media,” we dive into the real-world strategies behind successful social recruiting. Carly Miller moderates a powerhouse panel featuring Mikayla Bricker, Travis Simonin, Brianna Olson, and Nick Thomsen, each bringing firsthand insights from years of experience in healthcare staffing and social media marketing.
From building authentic engagement to knowing what metrics really matter, this conversation is packed with practical, tactical advice for agencies looking to elevate their social game. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your strategy, this session is full of actionable takeaways you don’t want to miss.
Watch the full session below and check out the full transcript for all the insights.
TalentTrack Session 3 Transcript
Carly Miller
Hi, everyone. Welcome back, or welcome if you’re just now tuning in. We just wrapped up session two of TalentTrack, which was a super fun panel about how agencies can survive and thrive in today’s market. And now I’m pumped to jump into our next session, which is titled “From Posts to Placements, Tips for Recruiting Success on Social Media.” We’ve got a fantastic lineup of speakers joining us: Mikayla, Travis, Brianna, and Nick, who are experts in leveraging social media for recruitment. I’m personally so excited to hear their insights and learn more about how we can all level up our social game. So to kick things off, I’ll turn it over to our panel for brief introductions so you can get to know them a little bit better.
Travis Simonin
Hello everyone. I’ll go first. I’m Travis Simonin. I’m the Director of Talent Acquisition with Prime Time Healthcare. So I’ve been in the staffing world for just over seven years now. And throughout those seven years, I’ve been in or had the pleasure of working in recruiting, social media recruiting or lead generation marketing, and talent acquisition now. So I’m really excited to chat more about social media with Brianna, Nick, and Mikayla. Thanks for having me.
Carly Miller
Thanks, Travis.
Nick Thomsen
I’ll go next. My name is Nick. I am a Team Lead of Recruitment over at OneStaff Medical. I’ve been in the industry for about five years now. I’m super excited to be here, talk about different strategies that I’ve used that have led to some great success in the recruiting industry. But yeah, thanks for having me, Carly.
Carly Miller
Thanks, Nick.
Mikayla Bricker
I’ll jump in next. I’m Mikayla Bricker. I’m the Marketing Manager at ARMStaffing. I’ve been in the industry now for seven years this month. And I started out as a social media recruiter. I actually used to work with Travis. We were on the same team. And then I transitioned into running my own desk as a recruiter and now marketing manager. So thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here today.
Carly Miller
Awesome! Thanks, Mikayla.
Brianna Olson
Hi guys, can you hear me? Awesome! Of course, I’m dealing with microphone troubles. But hi everyone, my name’s Bri. I’m a social media strategist and influencer marketer. I have been in the industry for five years, previously at Fusion Medical Staffing. I’m now open to work, which is very exciting, but I’m excited today to be able to share some organic social media strategies as well as affiliate and influencer marketing, and also learn from my fellow speakers.
Carly Miller
Perfect. Thank you, everyone, for those introductions. It’s clear we’ve got an amazing group here ready to share all the insights about social media. So we’ll jump right into it with our first question. To kick things off, I’d like to talk about some of the stumbling blocks that agencies might encounter early on in their social media recruiting efforts. Social media can be a game-changer, but it’s easy to get a little bit caught up in it all when you’re just starting out. So from your perspective, what are the biggest mistakes that agencies make when starting out with social media recruiting, and how can they avoid them?
Mikayla Bricker
I can jump in. So I think one of the biggest mistakes agencies make getting started is just going in without a plan and not dedicating time to it. You have to really practice, you know, understanding how long it takes you to actually make content. Once you get that down, you can really build on that, but going in without dedicating that time to it will really slow you down, and you need that consistency. Expecting those quick wins is probably unrealistic. So setting good expectations that it’s kind of a long game as well with social media. So you have to stick with it, but you have to start somewhere as well.
Brianna Olson
I agree. I think people think you can post and ghost, and that you can post one time and that will bring the leads in. But you really have to be consistent, and that’s where you’ll see things start to work.
Nick Thomsen
Absolutely. I agree with what both of you said. Another thing that I see all the time, just scrolling through different social media sites, is that some agencies are posting too much information. People are on their cell phones. They’re scrolling. So you want to keep things simple. You want to make sure, you know, if it’s a branded graphic that’s grabbing their attention or it’s a location or fun fact about the position or even pay, which is huge, you know, that something is simple, grabs their attention, and that’s what’s going to start creating some engagement there.
Travis Simonin
Yeah, and I’ll second just about everyone. So with Mikayla and the working backwards aspect, a lot of people post what they think the nurses want to see instead of getting that feedback from the nurses themselves, whether it’s listening in conversations, working with your recruitment team, or just doing research on Facebook groups to see what nurses are talking about and those pain points, then filling in your content with where those pain points are. So, of course, people want a job, but also, what is that job at a traveler-friendly facility, making sure to plug that into your social media strategy and working backwards off that. And then I would second with with Bri, just the post and pray is what I say. So post and ghost, post and pray, but also cherry-picking. And just expecting really quality candidates to come in. And the minute that you see a resume with someone with a year and a half experience and not quite that two years of experience, working the long game, like Mikayla said, and working to nurture that candidate, find them something maybe a little bit closer to once they gain that two years experience, instead of just ghosting and waiting for the people with travel experience and more than two years.
Travis Simonin
Travis, I love the point you made about, what better way to cater to your target audience than to ask them directly what they want to see. I think that’s great advice. But I want to touch on something that Nick brought up about posting too much information. And I think that leads into our next question, which is a little bit about balance. So as we’ve all seen, social media isn’t just about posting job ads. It’s also a platform to build connections, showcase your brand, both your agency and yourself as a recruiter, and engage with candidates over the long term or the long game, like Mikayla said. So this brings us to another challenge that a lot of agencies face, which is striking the right balance in their content strategy. So I’m curious, how do all of you balance posting those job listings with creating engaging content to build long-term relationships and trust with candidates?
Mikayla Bricker
I was going to say, I think it’s super important to, again, have an overall plan ahead, kind of spacing out, you know, your job postings versus your other like kind of engaging content. So just making sure you space it out well. And then like Travis said, taking note about what are travelers talking about right now, what’s relevant and you know, what are their pain points and then transitioning that into content.
Nick Thomsen
Absolutely, and I think another thing that’s super important is utilizing your brand guide so that when people are scrolling, they see your post and they all look the same. They all have a uniform brand that, you know, they know that that’s coming from that company. I think another thing that makes it super important is just engaging with candidates, commenting on your post if someone, you know, replies back to you or even scrolling through you know, social media at different times, nights and weekends, just like you would your personal social media, seeing what people are posting, seeing what they’re saying and engaging there will help you start to almost build a reputation for yourself of someone who is actively on those social media sites helping out, having informative information, you know, but just definitely being active in all areas.
Travis Simonin
I love that, Nick. Branding is so much more than just the post that you get. It’s the experience that you get. So a lot of recruiters I’ve talked to, they’re thinking of the end in mind, which is great. So they want to post as many jobs as possible to then be that recruiter that has a lot of jobs. But then take them down that funnel, talk them through, and make content of what it’s like working with you. What makes you stand out? What’s your value add as a recruiter? And then once they are able to follow up or once they do follow up with you, make sure that you are following up in time and showing that good experience. Because for sure, one of the pain points is ghosting, reaching out to a recruiter about a job, and then you don’t hear anything back on Facebook Messenger or just through other social media.
Brianna Olson
Something that we’ve even heard a lot today in the other sessions is the human element of this industry that we’re in. People wanna work with people. So, even if it’s the social media strategy for the agency or if it’s for recruiters, I always encourage showing who you are and showing your personality. For agencies, that can include influencers and pinging people who have similar ideals as your agency, and working with them, sharing traveler photos like hey, look at my traveler on assignment in Seattle. They’re having such a great time. Or even showing what you, as a recruiter, what your day-to-day looks like. There are so many ways to add that in. And I think that’s important in sales is not just, hey, I have this job, come work for me. It’s, hey, I’m a person, I’m a human. Here’s what I’m all about.
Carly Miller
Yeah, Brianna, you teed me up perfectly for our next question. So, thank you. But you’re right. At the end of the day, people want to work with people. And on top of that, they want to work with people that they can genuinely trust. And a huge part of building that trust is being authentic. Authenticity on social media stands out. You can tell when someone’s being real, and you definitely can tell when they’re not. So, in your experience, what role does authenticity play in building trust with candidates on social? And how can agencies or recruiters ensure that their content feels genuine to who they are?
Nick Thomsen
Absolutely. I think authenticity is number one. There’s a lot of different people and agencies and different recruiters posting different information. And I tell everyone, check your sources. If you’re finding something from social media, always look at the email address that’s attached or go to the company website and cross-post. I think authenticity and consistency, posting jobs in different positions with information that matches your website. So if they go and they want to do their due diligence and do some research, they’re seeing the same information posted. There’s nothing worse than you post a job with this pay package, this shift, and they’re interested. They go to do their diving in on the position and everything, and the information doesn’t match. It makes the recruiter lose credibility in my opinion. And so you always want to make sure that things are all cohesive across all of your different postings and different websites.
Carly Miller
Great, thanks Nick. Anyone else want to add on to that question?
Brianna Olson
I think authenticity goes hand in hand with transparency, which is what all nurses want in this industry. And so I think if you can have both of those, you are on a good path.
Travis Simonin
And trust takes, there’s not a specific timeline on it. It’s more than just applying for a job and then, even if you respond to their response, still, there’s trust issues. You’re gonna have to go through that first phone call. You’re gonna have to go through some adversity together. You’re gonna have to go through multiple phone calls with each other for that trust to be built. For me, clear is kind. So setting a standard for all of your travelers that you talk with or all of the people that you talk with, and making sure to follow through with that expectation, whether it is in terms of follow up, how you prepare for phone calls, what you know about the market and doing due diligence when you’re looking for jobs for them. So clear is kind, and it’s a good expectation to have.
Mikayla Bricker
Yeah. And I think it’s a really good point that your content definitely needs to feel genuine, like nurses and really anyone, you can, you can spot out a stock photo a mile away. So just sharing real like nurses, traveler photos on assignment. If your travelers come into the office, you know, taking pictures with your nurses. There are so many ways you can make really genuine content. And it is very clear to see what’s genuine versus like maybe what’s stock. So, especially in the world of AI and all these things coming out, it’s clear to spot right now. That might change in the future. But I think if you have that focus on genuine relationships, and highlighting that, I think you’ll really stand out.
Travis Simonin
I’m sure all four of us have used the same Canva background.
Carly Miller
I agree and going along with that, like the AI caption is so easy to spot on social, which kind of leads me into my next question, shifting gears a little bit here. I want to get personal with each of you. You all are great with social media. That’s why I asked you to be on this panel talking about social media, but even the best of the best have a list of their awesome successes and a list of their not-so-awesome failures. So, can each of you share an example of a social media campaign or strategy that significantly boosted your recruitment efforts or one that you’re particularly proud of for whatever reason? Or if you’re feeling extra brave today, maybe share one that flopped.
Nick Thomsen
I think one thing that’s super important, you know, I always focus on our direct contracts. It’s relationship building in all aspects, you know, posting jobs. No one wants to see a job that they’re interested in, and they do all the work to get their application built, their profile built, you go to submittal, and it’s two, three weeks down the road, and it’s filled, or you never get any feedback. So, just having a general knowledge of what jobs you are posting, you can throw in those little tidbits in your post as well. This manager is actively looking to interview. They want to bring someone on. Just having that information or having knowledge of the relationships that us as a company have built with some of those direct contracts. You have a little bit of insight that we have a relationship with that facility. So, it gives us a little bit of a head up on some of the other ones where you’re passing through a middleman, passing through those third-party companies before you actually get to the facility. So, having that knowledge of where they’re going and a little insight of what they’re getting into on that assignment, I think is definitely where my strategy has always been very successful, and just having a good understanding of the job that I am posting for.
Carly Miller
Love it. Thanks, Nick.
Mikayla Bricker
I don’t have a super specific example here, but I would say just like my overall strategy is just to be consistent and engaging online. And what I found was the more I was posting, the more I was engaging with people with communications online, once they started reaching out to me, I was like, okay, this is working. Like, at the end of the day, you want people to come to you versus you having to be the one to reach out. So I would say overall, keeping that engagement out there, getting your name out there, showing yourself as an industry expert, people will naturally come to you. So I think just that consistency overall will help you succeed.
Travis Simonin
Well, hopefully this tees you up a little, just more on the marketing side, I mean something that I’ve learned is again back to the end goal in mind. I always thought the giveaways. I’m like, alright, we’re gonna get hundreds to hundreds and hundreds of nurses applying for this, and we very well may have, but the quality of the lead, it never converted to be able to do that And then too, people were more annoyed that we were calling to try to talk about travel assignments when they just wanted a free Yeti bag or just a free speaker, little things like that. So making sure to have a method to your madness of working with your marketing department. Actually, I would love to grow our vanity metrics. I would love to grow our Facebook followers, and what Mikayla was alluding to, just our overall reach of our brand, and have that be the main goal, because then it can lead into quality lead flow and just quality placements for the recruiter. So making sure to split those up and working with your marketing teams was extremely beneficial.
Brianna Olson
That actually did tee me up, Travis. Thank you so much. A lot of the things that I’ve seen be successful on social media is those types of things that even if it doesn’t, right at that moment bring in that qualified lead, you’re still getting engagement. You’re still getting your brand out there. You’re still getting followers. I think it goes back to trust. And what do you look at sometimes when you’re looking at a new brand you maybe want to buy? You look at how many followers they have. You see how much of a following they have. And I think that goes hand in hand. Like, I don’t want to say there’s never been any campaign that hasn’t been successful. There’s definitely been that. But I always try and find the positive, like, oh okay, maybe we didn’t get as many qualified leads, but we brought in this many followers, we got this many engagements. And it all goes hand in hand to bring back those leads. They might remember you, remember your agency, remember your name. So it can still lead to something positive.
Carly Miller
Yeah, I love that, Brianna. I think that that brand awareness piece can be overlooked a lot, but it’s so important. And you guys teed me up perfectly for my next question. So we are just working very well off of each other, but I want to talk about metrics. We are lucky, but also a little bit tortured, to live in a time where we have data on literally everything. It’s a blessing and a curse sometimes. We did a recent webinar last year about branding in travel healthcare. And one of our speakers called it the analysis paralysis. You make one social post, and all of a sudden there’s impressions, there’s clicks, there’s likes, there’s all the things to look at. And it can be really overwhelming to figure out where to start and what truly matters. So, how do you measure the success of your social media recruiting efforts, and what metrics matter most to you? Any takers?
Nick Thomsen
I’ll go. I mean, on my side, I’m in the recruitment sales side of things. We have our marketing team, they’re working on building that brand. They post to our social media accounts. On my side of things, I’m looking for those built profiles with candidates, those candidates who are actively looking, building my pipeline of people who are wanting to travel, and at the end of the day, who I can get placed and who I can get working. That’s going to be ultimately the goal of all of my social media posts. Now with some of those things, even if it doesn’t lead to a placement or they’re actively working for our company, getting their information, working with them, starting to build that relationship with them, and getting them into our system. Our system has campaigns that it runs on the back end of things that help with engagement that sends different texts. So even if it’s not leading to that exact job post that I initially got that candidate from, they’re still engaging. We’re still engaging with them as a company. Something else might trigger them, and then they ultimately work with us at the end of the day.
Carly Miller
Thanks, Nick.
Travis Simonin
I’ll say conversions and just making conversions is what it comes down to. And speaking sales for Nick, just having the pleasure of working in recruitment and marketing, we can say all day long, oh, we got so many impressions. But then the sales mind is going to be like, alright, did we get any candidates for that? And you need to learn to talk both. And I know there’s some salespeople on here and some marketing people on here, but making sure your data is accurate, too, just so you can continue to bring that down the line. So if your goal is to recruit off certain Facebook groups, whether it’s using a UTM code, I’m sure Bri can expand more on that, but making sure that the traffic you bring from Facebook, whether it’s to a website or to the applications for a job, you’re going to be able to work backwards off that. That way, wherever you’re finding your most qualified candidates, let’s say it is two to three groups after you’re finding through the data that comes to applications and through quality candidates, that will allow you to spend more time in those groups. You’re never going to bat a thousand, but where can we spend more time? Where can we be that safety net and more consistent safety net to get quality candidates down the line? So accurate data, I would say is very important and definitely work with marketing teams on that aspect.
Brianna Olson
Yeah, and recruiters do so much already. I give them so much credit. And to ask them to do more things in the social media realm is huge, but when you are in those Facebook groups, try different types of job postings. Try it with an image. Try it with a GIF. Try it with emojis. Like, try those different things. And then that’s where that data comes in. Go back and see what worked. See what got the most likes. See what got the most comments. And then start to adjust your strategy when you’re posting jobs based on what you’ve seen that’s worked. So the answer is kind of look at everything, but really that’s going to help you give you an overall picture of what these nurses want to see, what healthcare travelers want, and what gets their attention.
Carly Miller
Awesome. Thanks, Brianna. Just like there are so many metrics available that it can be overwhelming, it can also be difficult to juggle all the different platforms that we have at our fingertips. It feels like there’s always a new platform or segment of a platform to focus on. I’d like to know from each of you, how do you adapt your strategies for different platforms, if you do? And which ones have been most effective for you in recruiting nurses or other travel healthcare professionals?
Nick Thomsen
Yeah, I think each platform has kind of a different strategy, and they’ve kind of built themselves in a way of certain candidates going to certain places. You know, for an example, a lot of Facebook, there’s a lot of people who are newer travelers who are seeking information, you know, they’re more scrolling and kind of browsing to see if something jumps out to them. Whereas LinkedIn, you have a lot more people who are directly looking for specific information, trying to connect with a recruiter or someone within a company. So I think they all kind of have formulated their own kind of source where you are looking for what information you’re trying to get out of it, and I think they’ve kind of established their own boundaries on that.
Mikayla Bricker
Yeah, to kind of build on that, like LinkedIn, for example, there’s so much like information out there. I feel like it’s more of an informational platform, whereas Facebook is more conversational. People going back and forth, discussing what’s happening in their day-to-day, working with their recruiters. There’s just so many more conversations. So it is a little bit of a different feel. I would say overall though, as a recruiter, I definitely had the most success and the most quick wins from Facebook. It’s just so much more engagement. Everyone’s on there 24/7, personally and professionally. So that was definitely the best resource for me as a recruiter.
Brianna Olson
I agree. I’m always surprised at how much Facebook still is just like the top one. Like you would think, oh no, Instagram or TikTok, and it’s like, no, Facebook is still the tried and true. Getting in those Facebook groups where all of those healthcare workers are and talking directly to them, it still blows my mind that it’s still the top dog, honestly.
Travis Simonin
I agree. Clinicians go to Facebook because, one, most of the content on Facebook is unfiltered. They say before they think. And I know clinicians go there to Facebook groups to see that unfiltered because they want to know the true transparent view of what they’re going to be expecting during travel. I feel like Facebook gives that truly. Then, keeping it as simple as possible, going internally, why do you go on Instagram? Why do you go on LinkedIn? Why do you go on Facebook? And working backwards off that. Instagram, TikTok, it’s gonna be more like lighthearted lifestyle type of content. LinkedIn, it’s gonna be a little bit more professional. Facebook, kind of that mix between Instagram and LinkedIn, but the unfiltered approach too. So guiding of why you go to those social media accounts and then making content in that realm always helps.
Carly Miller
Yeah, I love that, Travis, and we talked a little bit in the last panel about how it’s easy to forget that the candidates are people just like us. So the same reasons that they choose certain platforms over others, like you said, is the same reason we do. So I think that’s really helpful to remember. I have another question that wasn’t on your preset list of questions. Sorry, guys, but I am curious about this. There are always new trends and changes to keep up with in social media. So I’m wondering how do you stay up to date with those to keep your recruiting strategies relevant, but also knowing which trends to kind of pick and choose so that you’re not just being trendy and not really staying true to your brand.
Brianna Olson
I think it’s spending time scrolling, spending time seeing what other people are sharing, what piques your interest when you’re scrolling, what makes you stop. It’s like my brain doesn’t shut off now on how can I take that and make it work for the brand or make it work for myself. So again, recruiters, I give you guys so much credit. You’re doing so much already, but even taking 10 minutes of your time to scroll and then think, how can I make this content relevant for myself? That’s something I always highly encourage.
Nick Thomsen
Absolutely. And just kind of piggybacking off of that. It’s just constantly scrolling and being aware. You’ll see other posts and people talk about, I’m looking to go to this location. And for whatever reason, I’ve noticed this over the last couple of years, you see people gravitate towards different places for whatever reason. You know, like one month it could be that they’re super interested in Wisconsin. The next month, for whatever reason, they’re interested in South Dakota. There’s constantly trends, especially playing off location-wise, that it’s just paying attention and still engaging with all of them and chatting with them and trying to find those connections with also having your personality there where they want to gravitate towards you but also as collectively as a group, they’re all kind of trending in these different ways. So I think it’s just paying attention to what’s going on and, like Brianna said, just applying it to your brand as well.
Brianna Olson
And trends are so fast. You could hop on a trend, you could see it, you need to make it that day, and it could be gone the next.
Mikayla Bricker
Yeah, that’s a good point. It’s just so important to constantly see what’s out there. So you’re constantly changing, and it’s okay to try new things with social media. Like, not every post is going to be a hit. It’s okay to try out new things. It’s just important to review your analytics, you know, see what worked and see what didn’t, and make adjustments from there. You’re never going to learn or never going to know unless you try.
Travis Simonin
And I like mimicking other brands that nurses like. So not being afraid to do your own research or ask a nurse if you’re close to them, or a traveling healthcare clinician, of what do you like to do in your off time? So a lot of things I hear are Starbucks, Target, and looking at those brands to see what they’re doing to hopefully spark some creativity of what we can be doing. Hitting that same target market has turned out to be successful for us.
Carly Miller
Yeah, love that. Thank you. I have one last preset question before we turn to some audience questions, and I’m excited to hear your answer on this one. I’m sure it’s probably going to line up with a lot of what we’ve already discussed, but for all of the agencies that haven’t really nailed down social media recruiting yet, what are some practical steps or encouragement you’d share to get started? Or in other words, what is one piece of advice you would give to agencies that are still stuck in that trial-and-error phase of social media recruiting?
Brianna Olson
I think realizing that it’s not going anywhere. This is the future. This is kind of what you have to do. And as a recruiter, you have to wear many hats. And one of them is sometimes a social media strategist. And so I think that that’s really important is just to know that like, everyone’s on social media, you’re going to go to a new restaurant this weekend, you’re going to go look at their social media, you want to possibly work with a healthcare recruiter, you’re going to go look at their social media. So just understanding that this isn’t going away. And if you’re wanting to start, just do it, just start. You can always figure it out later, but just start posting those jobs and getting a feel for it. And it just takes practice and takes time.
Travis Simonin
I would say for recruiters, lean on your marketing team. Marketing team, lean on your recruiters. Back to that transparency. I would second with Bri, what she’s been saying this entire time is that recruiters already do so much, but also utilize that knowledge that they have. Because they’re the ones in the trenches talking to these healthcare professionals. So ask them for ideas, but also find out what are some pain points. And that way you can use content to plug in those pain points too. Something that is fitting your brand. So definitely lean on each other for ideas and for strategies.
Mikayla Bricker
Yeah, like Bri said, you just have to start somewhere and you really just have to put yourself out there, get a schedule set up, create a content calendar. You just have to dedicate the time to get things rolling, and then it will just come naturally after that. But you really just need to understand your audience, know who you want to target, and really just create a focus. To recruiters as well, I mean, it’s just a great way to build your pipeline. If you’re not already on social media recruiting, there’s no reason not to try it out. You know, there’s so many job boards, there’s so much noise out there, but you’re not gonna gain anything if you don’t try. You have to start somewhere, and today’s a good day to do that.
Nick Thomsen
Yeah, just like everyone else said, start somewhere. Try things that work, things that don’t work. Find what’s going to work for you. I think working directly with your marketing team is super important if you’re going to have multiple recruiters posting on all of these different platforms. Having that cohesive brand, I think, is so important where someone scrolls and they know exactly what company that is, what that company represents. But not only internally with your marketing team, but also with going out on social media, but ultimately just having it all cohesive when you’re posting.
Carly Miller
Great. Thank you guys. We have some time for audience questions. So we already have some in the chat. We’ll turn it over to those. Carrie asked, “I’m a senior recruiter at a small startup without the name recognition I had at my old agency. How do I get above the noise? It doesn’t seem to matter how fancy my Canva graphics are, not getting much in the way of comments or interest. And I’m coming up empty on trying to find a way to be unique or stand out.” Any advice for Carrie?
Brianna Olson
My advice would be trying video content. If you’re not seeing a lot of stuff with your graphics or stagnant content, even if it’s a 15-second video, you slap some copy on it, like that is also just where things are going. Even Instagram has seen what TikTok has done, and they are pushing more video content up on feeds. So that’s a great way. If you have budget, influencer marketing. That will really help you get your name out there. So those are two easy ways to kind of start if you’re just having some trouble with just graphics and stagnant images.
Carly Miller
Awesome, thanks, Bri. We’ll be talking about influencer marketing on a later panel, so thank you for that little plug. I like this next question too. Jenny asked, “Are hashtags still relevant? Asking for a GenX friend.”
Brianna Olson
I think it depends what platform you’re on. LinkedIn, I think it will help your posts. Instagram, it’s still something that’s kind of up in the air. TikTok, it also definitely helps. It’s something that you kind of just have to keep your eye on. It’s also ever-changing. Try posts with them, try posts without them. Try working it into your post’s copy and see if that helps. But yeah, kind of trial and error there.
Travis Simonin
And specifically for Facebook groups too, especially if it’s a private group, the hashtag’s not gonna get out of there since there’s private settings. I’ve done that myself. So maybe don’t do hashtags within private groups. But yeah, Bri was spot on with what she said with hashtags.
Carly Miller
Awesome, thanks, guys. Our next question is from Nicole. This is a little more market-focused. She said, “I find with allied healthcare groups that they are not as responsive compared to the RN groups. What ideas, strategies or experiences do you have around this?”
Mikayla Bricker
I would say, you know, it’s tough out there for sure. I’ve heard the same thing. I personally was always specialized on the nursing side, but I would say with allied, you know, just as nursing, you want to be consistent and put your name out there. Even if you’re not getting responses, people are still seeing your graphics, and maybe they’re just like waiting for the right location. Maybe consider posting like a poll or more of like a generic post, not even a job post. Like, hey, who’s looking for a job? Comment below or reach out to me. Just trying to come up with different ideas that aren’t just job-heavy that might spark more engagement. Or kind of a Q&A type of thing. There’s so many different ways you can post outside of jobs to spark more conversation. Yeah, that’d be my suggestion.
Travis Simonin
Traveling in allied is definitely not as known as travel nursing, too. Even during the boom of COVID, it was mainly RRTs on the allied sector that really boomed, but everyone else stayed pretty consistent. So you’re having a lot of those first conversations about what is travel and what to expect compared to travel nursing. You can most likely find it on Google or social media too. For allied specifically, whenever you do connect with like a clinician or whenever you’re able to place them or you have a great qualifying conversation, don’t be afraid to plug in your social media, your Facebook groups or your Facebook profile, your LinkedIn profile, whatever you use for recruiting. It helps put a face to a voice. But also, it allows a point of contact going forward, just in case you miss out on that candidate, too. And it is a longer game type of model, but you can grow your pipeline, you can grow your community through your friends on Facebook, through your connections on LinkedIn, little things like that. So I’ve worked on growing that.
Carly Miller
Awesome. I think we have time for one more question. And this goes back to what Travis was talking about, about how recruiting and marketing need to work together. So David asked, “how would you suggest that the marketing team tactfully convey that recruiters be more active in sourcing, particularly on social media?”
Brianna Olson
That is a good question. I think being able to show the success that some recruiters have had with this, because I think a lot of recruiters are maybe scared, or they’re like, I’m not even active on my personal social media. Why would I do this? And it’s like, it’s just another way. It’s just another way to help you build your desk, get your name out there. So I think you kind of have to show that, hey, here’s some examples of how this has worked. This post led directly to a placement. I was able to do that with some recruiting training that I did. And I think it helped to start off with like, hey, this isn’t just another thing on your desk that you have to do. This can be helpful and can lead directly to placements.
Travis Simonin
And the other end, the consistency of it all. You learn so much about the industry just being on social media. And that sector of travel healthcare, too. You find out the pain points, you find out what people are thinking, you find out what they like doing outside of work, and just what they’ve experienced over the past few years with COVID and post-COVID. So at least it shows success in terms of getting leads and getting a good lead funnel into the recruiters, but for your individual knowledge, for both the marketing team, on knowing who to support, and the recruiters learning more about the industry. I say that is definitely a big plus too.
Nick Thomsen
Absolutely. Another thing with it is it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. It takes time. It takes consistency. It takes build up. It’s building that reputation. But also, there are certain instances because I am still recruiting. I still run a desk. And so I’m utilizing all these different sources. I’m still cold-calling. All of it. Social media is a tool that can help in the background while you’re making those cold calls, things like that. You have a post that’s out there, you know, maybe two days later or later that night, it starts to get some engagement, and it blows up. And so then, you follow up with that, but it can also work in the background while you’re still focusing on all those other tasks that you have to do.
Carly Miller
Awesome. We are just about out of time, so we’re going to wrap it up here. I want to say thank you again to Mikayla, Travis, Brianna, and Nick for such an engaging and informative session. I know that I walked away with some practical tips to elevate our social media strategies, and I’m excited to hopefully see some new and exciting social posts on my feed after this from everyone in the audience. We also did want to take a little bit of time here to shout out Brianna. As Brianna mentioned, she is open to work, and clearly she knows her stuff. If anyone out there in the audience is looking for someone to fill a social media role at your agency, we really encourage you to get in touch with her. She would make a great addition to anyone’s team. So with that, we are going to take another brief five-minute break, and we’ll see you back here shortly for session four.
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