Your association’s career fairs give members the career development benefits they want. Here are some top tips for career fair promotion that will help your association’s next career event succeed.
Hosting a career fair is a great way to give members the career advancement benefits they’re seeking. The 2023 Association Trends Study by Community Brands indicates that job opportunities and help with career advancement are among the most important benefits to members.
But for your career fair to be successful, you must promote it.
One great way to market your association’s career fair is through social media. Social media has rapidly become an asset for marketers, with its multiple platforms and vast reach. Using social media platforms is a must for any event promotion, including career fair promotion, and your association’s success with it requires implementing the right tactics.
Six tips for career fair promotion
Here are six proven tips for using social media to promote your association’s next career fair:
1. Establish a hashtag for your career fair.
Create a hashtag that you can use in all your social media messaging leading up to your career fair. Check to make sure your hashtag is not already being used for something else or cannot be easily mistaken for another. Including key words such as career, hiring, and recruiting are always good ideas to broaden your reach.
Establishing a hashtag for your career fair gives attendees and others interested in your career events an easy reference point as well as a way to help your association promote the event. Encourage members and attendees to reshare your posts and use the event hashtag.
2. Create banner images.
Banner images are a great way to promote your career event with an eye-catching image and call to action. If you are already using an image for your career fair, stay consistent by using the same imagery for your banners. This will create brand consistency, helping viewers to recognize your career fair event. Keep banners clean and simple; you can always add a short blurb to the social media post if you want to be more descriptive.
Here is a list of banner sizes for social media channels (width by height):
- Facebook – 1200 x 630 px
- Instagram – 1080 x 1080 px
- X – 440 x 220 px
- LinkedIn – 1200 x 628 px
3. Make a Facebook event page.
Create a unique Facebook page for your career fair, no matter how large or small the event may be. Once you create this page, followers of your association page will be notified immediately. Likewise, when a user clicks “attending” or “interested,” then the page will also show up in their friends’ feeds as well, instantly growing your audience. Consider posting relevant and helpful content in the page – such as résumé tips or short videos on the career fair event experience – to keep users engaged.
4. Update cover photos.
Since events run on a shorter cycle than most other marketing strategies, update cover photos on your social media account with the banner images you created. This will grab the attention of anyone who has landed on your page. Also include a link to register for the event in your bio or profile information.
5. Run a social media campaign.
Dedicate a small part of your career fair promotion budget to running paid social media campaigns. This is a powerful way to help target your messages to the appropriate audiences. For example, you can focus content on those who work in the recruitment industry or who live within reasonable traveling distance of the event.
6. Retarget anyone who does not convert.
Another essential tool in the digital marketing toolkit is retargeting. A portion of your audience will not convert to registrants right away. Keeping your brand and event in front of your audience is a great way to ensure more conversions. Social media platforms typically have several options for this, such as contacts lists, website visitors, and app users.
