LinkedIn is for career, Facebook is for arguing about politics, and Twitter is for….well, arguing about politics (what is the world coming to??).

For recruitment professionals, this often leads to the conclusion that LinkedIn is for recruiting, Facebook is left alone, and Twitter is for posting a single link to a job posting and calling it a day.

But the very fact that Facebook and Twitter are underutilized for talent sourcing means that there’s an untapped opportunity waiting for recruiters who are willing to get a little creative.

In this article, we’ll show you the most practical tactics for getting recruitment value out of Facebook and Twitter (without wading into the middle of a Hillary vs. Trump debate).

Facebook

We’ll start with Facebook, because it’s the most unconventional recruiting platform, but with the biggest upside.

Upgrade Your Company Presence

Many companies shy away from creating Facebook updates from their company page because they think “our audience isn’t on Facebook.” And that may be true. But with two billion active monthly users, your future employees are definitely on Facebook. Compose updates with this audience in mind to not only share job postings, but also updates from your company go-karting event, 4pm happy hour, or your Halloween dress up day. Show potential candidates that you have a great company culture, and prove it with photos and quick testimonial videos from employees.

The second critical piece for upgrading your company presence on Facebook is adding a “Careers” tab to your company page. By using a third-party extension such as Work4, you can easily create a page within your company page that allows candidates to easily apply right from Facebook. This will increase your conversions, and make your company page look more professional too.

Take Advantage of Facebook Ads

No, these aren’t job postings. They’re just regular ads. But because Facebook offers a high degree of audience segmentation options, it’s an effective and underutilized recruiting channel.

This example from Betterteam showcases how granular you can get, down to filtering by interests and even job title.

Once you’ve identified the relevant interests and job title of your candidate pool, you can create an ad with copy and imagery that will speak to them, with a targeted call-to-action to explore a job posting related to their interests.

With Facebook Ads, you get access to an audience that’s 4x bigger than LinkedIn, for less than half the cost. And with even more granularity than LinkedIn, you might find that it converts better too.

Twitter

Twitter is a more conventional recruitment tool, since 56 percent of job seekers claim to use it. These are the most effective ways to reach those candidates.

Build a Following

Whether you choose to tweet from your own personal account (and brand yourself as an in-house recruiter), or tweet from your company account, either way you need to build a following first.

The most effective way to do that is to systematically follow relevant industry hashtags, Like the resulting tweets, and follow the accounts of candidates you find interesting. You can even use tools like TweetFull to automate the process for you. Other than that, focus on tweeting relevant and interesting content with hashtags that your target audience is engaging with. The combination of engagement and interesting content will inevitably grow your following, even if it’s slowly.

Follow the Crowd

Even if you have a modest following, the vast majority of qualified candidates are out there, and you have to find them. The most effective way to do this is monitor conversations that happen around industry keywords and hashtags, and jump in where appropriate.

For example, if you’re trying to hire software engineers and there’s a conversation happening about diversity in tech, engage with potential ideas for bridging the gap, rather than spamming users with job postings. This type of 1:1 engagement builds trust, credibility, and can open the door to a Direct Message after-the-fact where you share a link to your job board.

Use Advanced Search

When you’re looking for a rare skill set, it’s okay to use advanced search, find the right person, and reach out.

Take advantage of Twitter’s advanced search feature to filter by language, keyword, and location.

In this example, we filtered by “systems engineer” who are writing in English, who live near Vancouver, BC.

Right away, three candidates pop up who fit the description. We could then reach out and begin a dialogue, and as a bonus, we would probably be the first person to reach out through Twitter for a job opportunity.

Conclusion

When platforms like LinkedIn get saturated by recruiters, that usually means opportunity awaits on underutilized platforms like Facebook and Twitter. If you use these tips to get you started, you’ll begin to build relationships with qualified candidates in quieter online spaces. You might just find a gem of a candidate who leaves their LinkedIn account dormant.

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