Overall, Monster's mission is simple: Engage with job seekers and connect them to employers who need great talent. To bring that to life on social media, we focus on creating one-to-one engagement opportunities with job seekers and employers.
On Instagram, this is our primary objective. We strive to celebrate those who have job-finding success stories, those who are just about to step into that job interview, and those who aren't sure what path to pursue.
To accomplish this, we rely heavily on social listening — a markedly different way of approaching a platform known primarily for broadcasting out great imagery.
To accomplish our goals, we have set up a number of dashboards that look for people on Instagram who are hitting milestones (and hashtagging them) in the job search process, like:
#jobinterview
#jobsearching
#firstdayofwork
#newjob
And dozens and dozens more.
Our team of three goes out and engages with hundreds and thousands of these individuals each month, offering up words of encouragement; tips and tricks; or the occasionally celebratory emoji. Ultimately, we want people to remember that Monster was there for them when they were on the hunt to #FindBetter.
We also utilize the platform in the way it was meant to be used — publishing great photography. This, paired with our engagement, is a storytelling strategy where we find people who love what they do for a living, and help tell their stories. Through three-photo series', we chronicle what a day in their life looks like, pulling back the curtain on career opportunities, particularly ones that are often left out in traditional media.
Our success wasn't purely measured in follower growth or other traditional metrics. Rather, it's about what we hear back. In nearly half of the interactions we make, the users respond back to us, thanking us or sharing more of their story back with us and their own audience. While we measure for these kinds of interactions, it's the anecdotal #NailedIt or #GotTheJob responses that we crave the most! These positive affirmations reveal that our users both appreciate the warm wishes and want to showcase their success stories with us.
Additionally, we've seen a ripple effect when the newly employed, engaged user passes their love across their personal social media networks, which activates their peers and connections to think positively of Monster's offerings and frequently recommending @Monster services to their friends when it's their turn to switch jobs.
Of course, follower counts do matter, and ours have dramatically increased over the past year — nearly 700% year over year — and engagement through Instagram has led to across-the-board improvements of social media messaging that takes a visual approach and applies keyword targeting to deliver effective communication.
