The importance of photos and social media

Images hold power on social media and by using them properly, a staffing firm can better attract superior professional candidates. If an image is worth a thousand words, make the message worth hearing. There are a number of image-showing applications and social services currently on the market. Some of consumers’ favorites are Instagram, PicPlz, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. On Facebook alone, there are up to 250 million photographs uploaded every day, reports Social Media Enquirer.

“People love to capture a moment in time with their friends and share it. We saw a lot of photo-sharing-type companies at Pepsico 10… [Instagram, and other photo-sharing apps] present a big opportunity for consumer marketers,” Pepsico’s Josh Karpf, told Mashable.

As a staffing professional knows, the right tools make the job easier! You’re already organizing and facilitating the matchup of job candidates to clients with your staffing and recruiting software. Now, amplify your use of social media image sharing to attract the candidates and clients you really want. A professional trusting you with their image and the direction of his or her career wants to know where you’re coming from. Your customers are trusting you to provide them with the team members that will bring success to their projects. So why not give all of them an in-depth look?

Platforms like Instagram can provide you a new window of communication with potential clients and job candidates. They aren’t just judging you from your written words – they are also looking to see something.

“We’ve now entered a phase in which visual communication is supplanting the written word,”said Bob Lisbonne, CEO of Luminate and former SVP of Netscape in the 1990s, according to Social Media Examiner. “What some are now calling the dawn of the Imagesphere.”

People are demanding that businesses show them “who” the company is.

“Society responds more to visual stimuli and storytelling than any story we read in a magazine or on a website. And the same goes for status updates and content curation. It’s not enough anymore to live tweet from a conference or corporate event. Customers are now saying: ‘Don’t just tell me. Show me.’ And brands better listen. Or 2012 will be the year they got left behind,” digital strategist Juston Goldsborough told the source.

From a marketing standpoint, a staffing firm could boost its name in the industry with clients and job candidates looking for a company they can trust. Businesses are already taking advantage of social image platforms and are finding success. For example, the American jean company Levi’s found that creating a social sharing competition asking people to submit images of themselves wearing Levi’s jeans made customers interact more with the brand. The contest was wildly successful and it seemed like everyone was going out to buy a pair of Levi’s to take part.

A staffing firm can take advantage of the power of photo sharing by creating a campaign that demonstrates the human aspect of the business. One idea, consider making a campaign picturing the workers you’ve placed in their “natural” habitats. Not only will this show how a staffing firm is successfully filling positions in a wide range of industries, it could also prompt the creation of more than a few funny images (so long as care is taken not to create or show images that could be misleading, dangerous, illegal, or offensive). Tailored, professional images are great for some things, but in the social sphere, sometimes letting the amateur photographer in all of us is the way to go.