The Trust Economy & Digital First

Trust is, and always has been, at the core of the economy; and with more than 5 billion people using the internet today, trust and a digital first mindset is key to your recruitment organisation’s success.

Trust is the world's most impactful economic power. For example, we trust that a £50 note has value and that a company’s stock price corresponds to its actual valuation. The more we trust in the purchasing power of a currency or an investment decision, the more value is created. Trust gives people and companies the ability to dominate the conversation, maximise their business and build the future they like; and is therefore a key enabler for economic value creation.

The events of the past few years have propelled a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour that is here to stay. People have raised their decision-making bar when choosing who to give their hard earned money or invest their time with. From a recruitment perspective, both client and candidates want to partner with brands who not only demonstrate social responsibility, but who also listen, request consent, and who take their privacy seriously. This is what’s called the trust economy, and it’s something all brands should have at the forefront of their strategy.

Hand-in-hand with trust comes a digital-first mindset; which is about putting the customer first and creating a customer-centric culture. It means constantly looking to improve the user experience and ensuring that customer needs’ guide everything. In recruitment, this might look like streamlining the candidate experience and ensuring each touchpoint provides value, therefore instilling trust in your recruitment brand. For clients, it might look like keeping promises and making regular and consistent communication that adds value to their hiring efforts. 

Recruitment businesses that implement the trust economy and a digital first mindset into their strategies can stay ahead of the curve (and the competition) and capitalise on the latest trends and technologies.

What social selling is

78% of salespeople engaged in social selling are outselling their peers who aren’t. If that’s not incentive enough for your ears to prick up…

Social selling is the intentional development of relationships with prospective clients and candidates as part of the sales process. This has always been somewhat of a focus for the recruitment industry, but is more important than ever to a business’s survival today. In 2022, social selling often takes place via social networks, such as LinkedIn, but can take place either online or offline. 

Social selling and social media are not the same thing. The goal of social media marketing is usually to try and convert your prospects on the spot, whereas social selling is a strategy implemented over time, focussing more on lead generation and nurturing. 

Here’s what social selling might look like to your recruitment business:

Employee advocacy

Engage your employees to be ambassadors to grow your company’s reach, generate more prospects, and convert them into paying clients, without spending more on marketing. This can look like adding value to your target market’s LinkedIn feed or visiting prospective clients in person. 

Personal brand

On the theme of adding value, personal branding is the conscious and intentional effort to create and influence the perception of an individual. This term is particularly prevalent in the LinkedIn community, where personal branding may look like regular and consistent posts that educate and inspire, sharing opinions on relevant industry topics, hosting webinars or audio rooms and so on.

A strong personal brand positions you, or your employee, as an authority in your industry; elevating your credibility, and differentiating yourselves from your competition.

Nurturing relationships

Relationships on or offline are better formed over time, without the expectation that you’ll make ‘the sale’ right away. It means staying in touch, sharing valuable information, engaging with them in person or on LinkedIn - occasionally commenting on their posts and always giving a thumbs up is a subtle way to stay front of mind. As long as you don’t go overboard with affection, they’ll be the ones to refer you to a friend or purchase your services when they need them.

LinkedIn

Since its launch in 2003, LinkedIn has been a primary tool for recruiters across the globe. It has proven an invaluable platform for recruiters to reach and engage with prospective clients and candidates; and is possibly the best tool available when it comes to building and nurturing relationships with prospects.

Nowadays, LinkedIn boasts 830 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Here’s some more stats to get you salivating:

• 49 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week

• 6 people are hired through LinkedIn every minute

• There are 77 job applications submitted every second on LinkedIn

• There’s 33.6 Million users in the United Kingdom, making up around 49% of the population.

• The UK is the 5th largest market in the world for LinkedIn, and the largest in Europe, by number of users. 

   

Company and personal brand

What’s the difference between a company brand and a personal brand? The simple answer: a business brand is built around an identity you create for your business; whereas a personal brand is built around the person - the expert. There is importance in having both. 

A strong, unique brand image is an essential part of building a good relationship with customers. If your prospects feel that they and your recruitment business share the same values, they'll be attracted to your brand and will likely feel comfortable choosing you over the competition.

That said, the old adage ‘people buy from people’ has never been more accurate going into 2023. In fact, 92% of people trust recommendations from people over brands, even if they don’t know those people. This is why a focus on building personal brands is crucial to your marketing and social selling strategy. 

Employee amplification 

Employee amplification aims to utilise an organisation's social media presence, across all relevant platforms, to promote branded content. In other words, your employees, while building their own personal brands, demonstrating thought leadership and becoming the known experts in their field, would leverage their social media accounts to distribute company content. Every employee counts - they each have their own unique audience and help a business infiltrate at different levels of seniority within a company. 

In doing this, prospects build trust in both the person and the brand simultaneously. 

Dark social 

The bit that not everyone sees - dark social is the sharing of content on private social platforms, such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Slack or Teams and even email. Whilst this can’t be tracked or reported on, the value is still there and is somewhat even more personal - and more valuable - to your prospects.

Having a combination of different channels and tactics to boost both company and personal brands bodes well for the success you’ll see from it. 

How to measure success

Success isn’t just down to the metrics you can see digitally, and not all efforts can be measured, so it’s important to recognise this. 

Check out part two of our social selling blog to find out what you can measure and how to do it.