Aerial view of the Madison isthmus with Lake Mendota on the left
Human Resources
Erin Hillson, Human Resources Director

General Best Practices for Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool that will help us build presence and grow our company. Regardless of the industry, it remains one of the most effective ways to reach a target audience and promote awareness of the great things the company is doing. Outlined below are the best strategies to consistently stand out on platforms flooded with content:

Planning and Consistency

  • Post regularly rather than randomly:
    • Keeping accounts active is crucial to maintain visibility on Instagram and Twitter
    • Prolonged inactivity lowers ranking, reducing the likelihood of appearing on non-followers' feeds
  • Plan and schedule content for the week:
    • Ensures consistency and alignment with our goals
    • Creates a uniform profile across platforms
  • Continuous posting encourages return visits:
    • Consistent posting on specific days (e.g., Monday, Wednesday, Friday) prompts visitors to check back regularly
    • Establishing a schedule is key for hitting optimal posting times and maximizing reach
  • Use tools for scheduling and insights:
    • The optimal posting times are 6am, noon, and 6pm
    • External platforms facilitate scheduling across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, recommending optimal posting times

Content Creation

  • Focus on content quality:
    • High-quality photos, videos, and graphics are crucial for post performance
    • Ensure content meets standards before publishing
  • Diversify content types:
    • Feature a variety of content on Instagram, including photos, graphics, and short-form videos
    • Rotate between different types of posts to keep the feed dynamic
  • Utilize Instagram Stories:
    • Post on Stories on days without in-feed posts
    • Repost older in-feed content to reach new followers
  • Maintain brand consistency:
    • Use City of Madison brand colors (blue, black, white, etc.) for graphics
    • Include the City of Madison logo whenever possible for easy recognition
  • Embrace short-form video:
    • Leverage Instagram Reels and short-form videos for higher engagement
    • Capture attention and convey messages effectively within 7-15 seconds
  • For photos, please follow this pathway: F:\Hrcommon\Employment\Information and Minutes\E-mail Templates\Job posting pics\Preferred Marketing Photos

Mentions and Collaborations

  • Collaborate with other pages for visibility:
    • Engage with and mention other accounts on social media platforms
    • Showcase our content on their profiles to expand reach
  • Utilize tagging effectively:
    • Tag other accounts on the Instagram photo to appear in their 'tagged' section
    • Enhance visibility beyond our own followers to other pages
  • Mentioning on Twitter and Facebook:
    • Use '@username' to mention others in tweets on Twitter
    • Facebook uses a similar method
  • Foster collaboration across divisions:
    • Interact with other divisional social media accounts for mutual benefit and visibility

Interactions and Responsiveness

  • Create interactive content with a call to action:
    • Use polls in Instagram stories
    • Encourage comments on posts for questions or feedback
  • Be responsive and engaging:
    • Respond promptly to comments to build follower relationships
    • Foster revisits to our page through active engagement
  • Utilize links:
    • Include direct links to our webpage in Twitter and Facebook captions
    • For Instagram, include the phrase “link in bio” in captions and put our webpage in the Instagram bio
    • Make it as simple as possible for users to do what you are asking

Personalization

  • Showcase employees for credibility and connection:
    • Feature employees and their stories to generate credibility
    • When people resonate with the stories of others, they are more likely to want to get involved
  • Highlight company culture
    • We want to convey our brand image and show why people should want to work here
    • Post fun meeting locations or any employee group activities
  • Face-forward:
    • People love to see themselves on social media and will want to repost our content when they do
    • When they repost, it expands our reach and generates engagement from the individuals’ own followers

Instagram Toolkit

Interaction is one of the most important parts of Instagram. Collaborating with other accounts can expand our reach further. If we are hiring someone in a department with an Instagram account, we should make sure that we tag them on the photo and can even mention them in the caption as well.

For instance, if we're hiring someone in the engineering department, we could post a graphic on Instagram and tag @madisonengr. The post will appear under their tagged section, reaching anyone looking at the engineering account. Additionally, if they're seeking to fill a position, they're likely to repost it on their story, maximizing our reach. This will create more pathways to our content and ultimately make it more accessible for people to apply to our open positions. We also want to make sure that we are responding to comments and direct messages, so we appear active.

Personalizing our presence on Instagram is key. Posting images of faces and sharing insights into our company culture can make our profile feel more welcoming and human. Examples include showcasing employee bonding activities, highlights, and interview testimonials. For instance, an Instagram story "takeover" featuring a day in the life of a city employee on our story.

Proposed Instagram Strategy

  • Post once a day at any optimal time (6am, noon, or 6pm)
  • Rotate between graphics, photos, and videos (7-15 seconds)
    • Post employees and “behind the scenes” content
  • Repost every job post to the story with the link to apply
  • Follow groups and organizations
  • Tag other departments in their job posts
  • Include www.cityofmadison/jobs in bio and include “apply now at the link in bio” for every job posting caption

Instagram Content Ideas

  • Job postings with photos that match the job
  • Highlight employees with quotes from testimonial interviews
  • Videos of hiring events and communicating with the public
  • Graphics listing all open positions at the time
  • Photos of employees “out in the field” 
Instagram example

Twitter (X) Toolkit

Twitter is for getting out information as quickly as possible. There is a character limit so we should include as little information as we can without leaving any important information out. While Twitter is a less visual platform, adding a photo or video can always help improve engagement, so we should aim to include visuals whenever possible.

Links are easily included, and it can make it very simple to go straight to the application. Twitter also makes it easy to mention other pages, so we should mention the department we are hiring from. For instance, if we are hiring in the engineering department, we could tweet, 'We're hiring for ____ in the @madisonengr department.'  This will increase the chances of their page reposting it which will expand our reach and create more pathways to our content and job application.

Proposed Twitter Strategy

  • Post every day at optimal times (6am, noon, or 6pm)
  • Post for every new job and include link to apply
  • Mention other pages when possible
  • Use 2-3 relevant hashtags (ex. #madisonwi #cityofmadison #jobs)
  • Post for hiring events and link to sign up 

Facebook Toolkit

While Facebook may not always seem like a visual platform, photos are the most effective content. Therefore, all our posts should include a visual. Like Instagram, short-form video content is on the rise and should be rotated through our posts. Because Facebook and Twitter generally target different audiences, many organizations repurpose their content from one platform to the other to broaden their reach and keep content creation simple. When choosing to do this, it’s important to ensure that Facebook posts are concise enough to fit within Twitter's character limit.

Facebook also features an events page where we can promote our hiring events or other important occasions. Attendees can easily sign up through Facebook, simplifying the process. To maintain simplicity, it's important to include all important links within our posts.

Proposed Facebook Strategy

  • Post every day at optimal times (6am, noon, or 6pm)
  • Repurpose all job postings from Twitter and post on Facebook
  • Use the events page to highlight our hiring events
  • Repurpose employee content from Instagram
  • Mention other pages when possible

Group Toolkits (Affinity Groups, Marginalized Groups, & Underrepresented Departments)

Social media can be used to reach certain groups that we otherwise may not have access to. The toolkits below outline which parts of the job posting to emphasize, what type of content to post, and how to design graphics to best catch the attention of underrepresented groups in our city.

Women in Traditionally Male-Dominated Fields

To market jobs to women in traditionally male-dominated fields, we first need to make these jobs a comfortable and appealing environment for women. We should emphasize the benefits that we offer that appeal to women on our social media platforms. These following benefits are what specifically women want, according to the Center for Creative Leadership:

  • Paid time off
  • Flexible scheduling and remote options
  • Healthcare benefits
  • Parental Leave
  • Leadership opportunities and opportunities for growth within the company

Women want to feel supported in the workplace and feel that they have a community. Highlighting our affinity groups, specifically the Women’s Initiative Committee, can make women feel more comfortable applying to jobs in our city, knowing that they have a group there to back them. Posting about the work Women’s Initiative is doing on our social media platforms will help us relate to women and push them to apply for our positions.

Job posts are where we can really highlight that these positions are open to everyone, including women. Using non-gendered language (ex. police officer instead of policeman) is essential to creating a welcoming environment for women applicants. Even when listing the traits or desired qualifications, be very intentional which adjectives are used. Many adjectives may have gendered connotations and we want to avoid that as much as possible.

Non-English Speakers

The primary challenge of marketing to non-English speakers or those for whom English is not their first language is ensuring our message is easily translatable across social media platforms. Instagram features automatic translation of captions into the user's language, but it isn't always perfectly accurate. To eliminate confusion, we should either ensure our captions are easily translatable or provide a translated version within the caption itself (see below). While we can't cover every language, including a Spanish translation in captions might be beneficial since it's widely spoken among our applicants. Additionally, when creating graphics, we can include images that complement the text to bridge any translation gaps.

Entering a workforce where English isn't the primary language can be daunting and may deter potential applicants. To address this, we should emphasize how speaking a different language can benefit applicants in the workplace (e.g., aiding in translation). We can also highlight that the City of Madison offers sponsorship for employees to learn English at a local college if language becomes a barrier to work.

People With Disabilities

When marketing our jobs to people with disabilities, we want to highlight the accommodations we can provide. The fear of not being able to complete the employment process may push applicants away from applying. We can advertise the accommodations available during both the application process and after hiring. 

           Non-Visible Disabilities

The most important part is making sure out content can be understood by those with non-visible disabilities. We want to make sure everything can be screen read, or videos include captions, and everything is straightforward and to the point.

Alt text is an important aspect for people who are visually impaired. Alt text will read a description of the image that we post, so we want to make sure we are including an accurate description of our photo or graphic that is included with a post.

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Organizational Development