More than One-Third of Employers Use Social Media to Promote Their Organizations

As companies emerge from one of the steepest economic downturns in history, many are using social media to promote and rebuild their organizations. A new CareerBuilder survey of 2,500 hiring managers and 4,500 employees reports that 35% of employers use social media to promote their company. One-quarter of those employers said that they’re using social media to connect with clients and find new business, while others are using it to recruit and research potential employees (21%) or strengthen their employment brands (13%).

Industry Breakdown

Businesses of all sizes and industries report using social media to promote their companies. Twenty-nine percent of organizations with 500 or fewer employees said they do so, followed by 38% of companies with 501 to 1,000 employees and 44% of companies with more than 1,000 workers. Companies in the leisure and hospitality industry were most likely to use social media to promote their business (57%), followed by IT, (48%), retail (43%), and sales (41%).

Who Manages Social Media?

When it comes to managing social media strategy, 43% of employers report that their marketing department handles social media outreach, followed by public relations (26%), and human resources (19%). One-quarter of employers have one to three people communicating on behalf of their organization, while 7% report that four to five people handle the work. Eleven percent said that more than six people communicate for their company via social media. Fifty-seven percent said they didn’t know.

Employees: Social Media as a Job-Search Tool

Workers report that they are turning to social media sites for more than connecting with friends; they’re using social media to research companies and jobs and are most interested in the following:

Job listings: 35%

Q&A or fast facts about the organization: 26%

Information about career paths within the organization: 23%

Evidence that working at the company is fun: 16%

Employee testimonials: 16%

Pictures of company events: 12%

Videos of new products/services: 10%

Company awards: 9%

Research or studies that the company has conducted: 9%

Videos of a day on the job: 8%

On the flip side, workers shared their biggest turnoffs when encountering a company via social media. These included company communications that read like an ad (38%), failure to reply to questions (30%), failure to regularly post information (22%), and removing or filtering public comments (22%).