Many of our users tell us that getting started with social recruiting is tough, especially on Twitter. “I don’t have a big Twitter following,” they say. “I see other recruiters with hundreds and even thousands of followers. Do my tweets stand a chance of getting job applications?” The short answer: yes. A closer look at our users’ social recruiting success revealed that there is no correlation between the size of a Twitter following and how many job applications are garnered via Twitter. Even users with single-digit Twitter followers managed to get applications via Twitter. Interestingly, the larger a user’s Twitter following, the fewer applications s/he received per follower. And, the same holds true for LinkedIn and Facebook users. Why This Makes Sense: Your few, your happy few, your band of followers. (Pardon the St. Crispen’s Day allusion.) The first set of followers/connections/friends that you accrue tend to be people whom you know. As a result, they are much more likely to engage with your updates. The bigger the pot, the weaker the sauce. As you expand your networks, your goals for social media usage also typically expand. Beyond marketing your open jobs and nurturing a talent pool, you may also be building your personal brand, demonstrating thought leadership, and connecting with interesting people. In other words, your networks are diluted as they expand, at least in terms of achieving singular objectives for your social media engagement. Words of Advice: Getting started isn’t as bad as you think. There is no mountain to climb in order to see results via social recruiting. And thankfully, there are some great tools out there to help make it even easier (*wink). Quality over quantity wins the day. In the real world, we often say that “who you know” is critical to business success; the same is true of the virtual world. But, what you do, especially on social media, is also extremely important. Keep your updates short, interesting and relevant. That said, we don’t want you walking away with the impression that having a large group of followers/connections/friends is a bad thing. It’s certainly not — it can only help! But, size isn’t everything, at least in terms of your social media followings. The bottom line: don’t just aim to grow your following for the sake of growing it. Instead, set your goals for social media engagement, build a quality following, and be the interesting, authentic professional that you are.

1. SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING
SMALLER NETWORKS PRODUCE MORE APPLICANTS PER FOLLOWER
JOB APPLICATIONS
FOLLOWERS PER FOLLOWER*
1-50
51-100
101-500
501-1000
1001-5000
5001+
*RELATIVE LIKELIHOOD TO APPLY
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