Introduction
Recommendations Over Social Media Usage
We are partnering with Index Corporation, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of CNC turning machines. A daily task is finding better, more efficient, and more profitable ways to produce parts by finding the best recently graduated STEM majors. As IUPUI students we are exploring opportunities on how to target college graduates and people entering the workforce using social media. Our goal was to collect information about what social platforms people use for jobs, why they use them, and incorporate marketing techniques to inform the targeted audience about Index Corporation.
This recommendation report contains over 500 hours of research along with a local survey that provides effective information regarding what attracts our audience to certain social platforms and why. The local survey was directed to IUPUI students majoring in the Science and Technology fields. It contained information regarding
What attracts one to a social platform
What social platforms one uses to find jobs, internships
Influences when applying for a job
How to become a top competitor through social media
What one would value most in a potential employer
The information provided in this report can serve as an effective strategy on how to target people entering the workforce and marketing techniques to inform them about Index Corporation.
Methodology
Explanation of Digital Research and Local Study
The purpose of the team’s research was to find out what attracts one to a certain social media platform and why. To find effective sources, the team researched a wide variety of information regarding organizational attractiveness of social media and social media marketing.
Digital Research: IUPUI Databases, Google Scholar, and Google
We sought to find how recently graduated STEM majors use social media to explore job options in the manufacturing industry. We found that social media differs upon the demographics of STEM majors and how you use social media.
The information needed was divided among team members and categories that were researched were organizational attractiveness, college graduates in the workforce, social media marketing, becoming a top competitor using social media, and budgeting costs with marketing.
All research was done through IUPUI’s library databases and Google. Through IUPUI’s databases, we had access to Proquest and EBSCO.
Proquest is the “largest multidisciplinary, full-text database available in the market today”. It contains a variety of scholarly sources and full-text articles over 175 subjects, making it the “broadest single research resource in the world”.
EBSCO host is also a leading provider of research databases, e-journals, ebooks, and magazine subscriptions. There are “more than 1.2 million electronic theses and dissertations from around the world”.
Through Google Scholar, we were able to broadly search for scholarly sources from many disciplines, sources, and websites across the world. It serves as a search engine for scholarly articles that are peer-reviewed and accessible to everyone.
The team used these databases in order to find specific research that would help back the recommendations. The following search terms were used in finding useful research results
Organizational attractiveness AND “college graduates”
Social media AND marketing
Marketing and budgeting costs
Attitudes and perceptions among “college students”
Strategic communications
From the digital research we found multiple recommendations but needed more information regarding the questions from the local study.
Local Study: Questions regarding social media opportunities and organizational attractiveness
Online Survey via Google Forms:
The team conducted a local survey with Google Forms. This local study was sent to engineering students at IUPUI with the use of peer to peer marketing strategy through email and text . There were 6 multiple choice questions that 20 respondents answered.
Questions asked on the survey:
When it comes to companies advertising for recruiting employees on social media, what do you notice more?
What influences you the most when searching/applying for a job?
Which social media do you use to find opportunities such as internships, jobs, etc.?
When companies come to talk to you about opportunities, what is your next step?
What is your gender? This is to better understand the gender and what they use in the STEM field to find jobs.
What do you value most when looking for a potential employer?
Purpose of the survey:
The purpose of this survey was to cover questions that couldn’t be found on any database such as Proquest, Google Scholar, or Ebsco Host. The data is portrayed in forms of graphs below. The rest of the data can be found here:
Analysis
Use of specific social media from gender and majors that build rapport with companies:
By using different databases, multiple research topics have been overviewed for Index Corporation to better target recent graduates in the STEM field. Research in social media use with STEM majors is important to see what interests STEM majors on social media, the difference in gender, the proactive relationship via social media, and the use of spam.
STEM majors and the use of social media depends on a multitude of different topics found below:
Social media interest that grab STEM major’s attention
Social media usage among men vs women in engineering
Social media that builds proactive relationships and commitment to stem majors
Social media being used as spam negatively impacting rapport
Social media that Stem majors use the most:
This data comes from the local study that was taken from IUPUI STEM majors. This data shows the different types of social media that STEM majors use to find jobs and other opportunities. To get the most out of social media, the apps such as LinkedIn and Indeed should be getting used.
This image at the bottom of the report is a survey that was collected showing the amount of students on the x axis. This data proves that Indeed is the most used social media to find jobs, internships, etc. To have the most applicants, posting a job position or internship on Indeed would have the most feedback because 12 out of 20 students use Indeed as their number one source of social media. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to connect socially with people on LinkedIn as that is the next most used social media.
Social media usage among men vs women in engineering:
Our team sought to find what different genders use in terms of finding jobs via social media. According to Dongni Wang (2013) from Clemson University stated “Since many of the women engineers considered social media is not a professional channel for communication, many still believe that face-to-face is the most effective way of communication” (pg. 111). In other words, women feel that social media needs to be used for communication or to stay in touch, but they would much rather meet or discuss the company in person.
The team found that men on the other hand use social media to network and find new jobs and opportunities. Carlos Ewing (2016) from Mississippi State University created a survey between three majors with the usage of LinkedIn. Mechanical engineering with the use of men, in particular, was found to be the most active on LinkedIn. This would mean that you need to target men on LinkedIn while women would much rather hear from you personally or be able to discuss with you at job fairs.
Social media used to build proactive relationships and commitment to stem majors:
The team found that relationships formed with employers and stem majors positively impacts the commitment of STEM majors and companies. Kurt Oborn, Debra Major, and Jonathan Holland (2012) stated “Proactive people search for opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until they bring about meaningful change in their environments.” The authors from Old Dominion University discuss how they search for opportunities so if Index Corporation has them available, these STEM majors will reach out for them. You will most likely find people with the most proactive personalities in STEM fields. This gives Index Corporation a chance to know that if people are reaching out, they want to build a relationship through the company to bring a change. Reaching out to these types of people can be posting on the school’s internship sites, showing up at a job fair, or using social media to reach out to them personally.
Social media being used as spam negatively impacting rapport with STEM students:
The team found a significant paper regarding social media and spam. According to Thomas Kyanko (2017) the platform Twitter has the highest spam interaction. Sending profiles via LinkedIn and Facebook doesn’t change the fact that people will interact with them. Sending profiles on Twitter will reduce the likelihood of people interacting with it. This would suggest that using a profile such as Index Corporation that it isn’t worth the time to spam or send profiles to certain people because they will most likely disregard it.
The Use of Paid Social Media Recruiting Advertising is more Successful than Organic Advertising:
Recruiting new employees in this day in age relies heavily on social media outreach and a strong social media presence. Multiple Social media recruiting experts explain that paying a small fee for recruiting ads is the most cost effective and successful strategy to recruit possible employees.
Why use the Paid Strategy?
When it comes to social media recruiting, organic vs paid recruitment strategies are what you should lean on to connect to potential employees. Amber Gort, the author of an academic journal and also an expert in employee relations, said that "Social recruiting has proven to be beneficial for both the recruiter and the candidate, as it is a resource for both parties to learn more about each other" (pg. 8). So when you connect with these possible employees online is not only cost effective but it is beneficial for recruiting for jobs.
Paid Advertising Yields Better Results
Steve Pearson, CEO of Friendemic, says in an article about organic vs paid social media marketing that "59% of social media marketers say a paid approach is most effective" (pg. 1). A research study from Kenshoo social agrees with Pearson saying that "organic posting is the most popular social media tactic, but paid advertising is the most successful" (pg. 1). Paid advertising for job opportunities is shown by these studies to get more attention and get better results in job applications. Both of these articles and authors agree that paid advertising is the best way to gain attention to their companies and the best way to recruit possible candidates.
The CEO of ViziRecruiter, Joe O’Connor, explains in an article about social media recruiting that “when recruiting on social media you may want to consider paid advertising campaigns”(2019). These are proven to be very cost effective and they are highly targeted for different demographics. Even though you pay a small fee, you are much more likely to reach the right kind of candidate for your company if you use a paid ad campaign.
Advertising Strategies to Use the Most:
Experts that research the type of social media that best reaches out and connects to possible employees for business recruiting have proven that the best recruiting techniques involve social media applications that have advertisements for businesses posted on the website. For example, margin ads on facebook and sponsored ads on twitter are more likely to be noticed by many demographics. Specifically on Youtube, which reaches a younger audience, particularly college students, job recruiting advertisements play before videos that are roughly 15 seconds long. These can be very beneficial even for a small fee to pay for the advertising. They could explain your company’s mission and allow younger students to easily connect with your company.
Types of Advertising Noticed on Social Media:
Our team conducted a public survey to gather data on which platforms are used the most and what kinds of advertisements are noticed more on the website. Types of advertisements include
Margin Ads
Sponsored Ads
Advertising Videos
The different platforms mentioned in the survey are platforms such as:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Instagram
Monster
Glassdoor
Indeed
The results of these questions are as follows in this graph found below at the bottom of the analysis section.
Interacting with customers to become a top competitor using social media
Social networking opens new business opportunities for customer acquisition and can positively influence the work climate. While researching how companies become a top competitor on social media, Asta Black, author of the article: How Researchers Use Social Media to Promote their Research and Network with Industry (2017) says, “An organization can be present in social media at different levels: as individuals, teams, projects/topics, and as the whole organization. However, given that social media is person-centric, it gives users the opportunity of "personal branding" - the distinctive presentation of a person's character and capacity.”
By being active and constantly updating and advertising the social page, steps are being taken to become a top competitor. The unknown author of the second source compliments this by stating, “it’s all about interaction and conversation. They will come to your page with questions, concerns, and reviews.” According to this guest author, by interacting with customers via social platforms, this can go a long way towards creating a loyal customer and securing repeat business.
Index corporation uses Glassdoor to post jobs and uses the following social media platforms
LinkedIn
Facebook
Instagram
Interacting with customers is beneficial to maintaining a good platform to ensure your business is being seen by potential employers and other companies. Then, by monitoring what business competitors are doing on their platforms, one has the ability to stay one leg up and offer better deals or promotions.
By monitoring competitor’s social media platforms, the more your company will succeed
Dakota Shane, author of Social Media Is Getting More Competitive By the Day - Here's How to Stay Ahead, states that (2017), "For companies and creators of all kinds, social media used to be a bonus — a leg up on the competition — today, being active on social media is nothing more than a prerequisite." This indicates that in order to even want to become a top competitor with other companies, being active on social media is an absolute must.
James Guard, author of Competitor Analysis For Social Media Strategies (2018), compliments this by stating, "It’s important to know what other organizations in your market are doing on social media, to give you context for the current role social plays in customer communication. The aim of competitor analysis is to learn from the state of play and identify strategic opportunities." This indicates that you need to stay up to date on what other competitors are doing and try to stay a leg up on them. Below are the potential advantages of monitoring a competitor:
Identified opportunities to differentiate products in the market
Devised a comprehensive and responsive business strategy
Ensured better consistency for products being offered
Increased sales and boosted profitability
Recommend Report Broken Down:
List of Recommendations:
Increasing recruiting with STEM Majors specifically
Build relationships via social media with opportunities
Avoid spam on social media with Facebook, LinkIn, and Twitter
Specifically target demographics to make the most of social media
Use Indeed more than LinkIn as it is the primary resource to find internships, Etc.
Participate in job fairs, personal speeches as STEM majors will be more involved if you are using direct
Increasing Recruiting Through Paid Social Media Advertising
Margin ads and sponsored ads are shown to be cost effective
Paid is more successful than organic person to person outreach
Reaches all demographics across multiple platforms
Gives great results if utilized properly i.e. ad placement and platforms chosen
Becoming a Top Competitor Through Social Media
Interact with customers via social platforms to create a loyal customer and secure repeat business
Monitor what business competitors are doing on their platforms
Be active on social platforms and keep job openings and deals up to date
Conclusion
After analyzing top competitors, STEM majors usage of social media, the organization of social media, and promoting social media by ads or personally there were different recommendations formed to assist Index Corporation with targeting college graduates with social media.
The data and sources the team gathered supports the provided recommendations on how they could help Index Corporation.