The Social Media Side Door to Your Dream Job

In today’s ultra-competitive job market, job seekers are using every edge they can get to land that dream job. Pulling on network contacts, scouring LinkedIn for opportunities and filling out online applications are the roads most traveled by even the savviest job seekers.

This ad cost Ian less than $200 and led to multiple job opportunities.

But what if there was a side door to your dream job that nobody else knows about? According to Ian Greenleigh, author of The Social Media Side Door , these side doors have opened everywhere. Greenleigh claims that these side doors “have the unique ability to earn the attention of people and organizations that are bombarded every day by countless requests for attention.” Most, if not all, of these common requests for attention come via resumes, calls, emails, invitations – and these messages rarely make it past gate keepers. In his book, Greenleigh outlines a process of using social media in clever ways to gain access to decision-makers and completely bypass gatekeepers along the way.

Greenleigh’s process is a unique mix of research and targeted advertising on social networks. The research phase consists of first gathering information about the decision maker behind your dream job opportunity. Understand whom this person is and what exactly are they looking for in a candidate. Then apply this knowledge to a personalized and differentiated message that presents you in a valuable way.

An Audience of One

The second phase to walking through the side door is getting your message in front of one person using social media advertising. All of the biggest social networks have advertising options, but none of them allow you to specifically target a message at one person. Single person targeting is possible, but it takes some creativity and a deep understanding of these advertising systems. This is where Greenleigh’s book contributes the most value to jobseekers – by providing a step-by-step process to targeting specific individuals on social networks.

The Secrets of Social Advertisingchapter will walk a job seeker through how to access target individuals directly using a social media advertising method that utilizes Facebook’s Custom Audiences feature. If direct outreach isn’t possible, Greenleigh also shows the reader how to reach influencers within the target individual’s network to get a recommendation. The process also shows how to develop effective ads that use elements such as interesting imagery or segmentation to differentiate you from the pack.

Facebook Custom Audiences

This Facebook Custom Audiences method is actually a very cheap way to get a differentiated message in front of your target individual. Just consider the costs of your time and effort to do the work necessary to contact this individual through channels such as email or online applications that are trodden by the masses. Even if a job seeker is able to get a message through, there is very little way to differentiate you using these crowded channels.

Stand Out From the Pack

Differentiation is critical in today’s ultra-competitive job market. With a little bit of social media marketing savvy, job seekers can make themselves stand out by using a social media side door.

via Business 2 Community http://www.business2community.com/human-resources/social-media-side-door-dream-job-0695431?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=social-media-side-door-dream-job