Week 8 Part A: How to Expand Your Reach on Instagram by Using Hashtags

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 For this weeks assignment, I will be reviewing several different Finance and Accounting Recruitment companies and observe how affectively they use Instagram and hashtags. 

First of all, what is a Hashtag? A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. Hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter, Instagram and WeChat as a form of user-generated tagging that enables cross-referencing of content; that is, sharing a topic or theme.

So lets go ahead and observe some accounts and how they utilize Instagram. 

The first account I will look at is Robert Half - Instagram. 

Robert half are classed as 'The world’s 1st specialized talent solutions firm'. They have around 15,000 followers and are worldwide. Typically, they post every day on Instagram and do use a variety of hashtags on their posts such as #Roberthalf #recruiting #corporatelife, however, each post has different hashtags depending on the topic of the post which i think is a great idea to reach people who are interested in that particular hashtag. One thing to note about this Instagram page, is that considering they have so many followers, they do not receive many likes. For example on their latest 4 posts, they receive 38, 39, 22, and 23, each with only 1 or 2 comments. Maybe, due to them already being an established company, Instagram for these guys is merely to show they are on the platform rather than to boost their outreach or interaction. 

The second account I will look at is Boutique Recruiting - Instagram. 

They are a local recruiter to San Diego and only have 154 followers. The Instagram site looks professional and it is clear what services they are offering, but it doesn't seem to be doing much for their following. Although it only looks like they started posting to Instagram in June 2021, there is not much engagement from customers. Each post receives 1 or 2 likes with maybe 1 comment. Boutique Recruiting post once or twice a week, but it seems to be that when they post videos, rather than just pictures, they seem to reach a wider audience which is something to think about. 

The third account I will look at is KForce - Instagram

They are a 'Best of Staffing Award Winner' for the last 5 years and have over 4000 employees. They have several locations all across the USA and have 2386 followers on Instagram. For me, i feel like their number of followers for the size of them is quite low, it even shows that not even every employee follows them on Instagram. In my personal opinion, I feel their Instagram account looks extremely professional, they use great colours and easy to read posts, however, their target reach and interaction is extremely low. For every post they are approximately receiving 2-10 likes and comments. They seem to post on a regular basis and the posts include some great facts and knowledge, so it is strange to me they have so little customer activity on their page. 

The fourth account I will observe is Randstad USA - Instagram.

Now the first thing to note about Randstad is, that on LinkedIn, they have over 1.5 million followers, yet when I came to research their Instagram pages, i found that they split them down into geographical locations. For example, Randstad USA, Randstad Argentina, Randstad Italia etc. Which meant that their following on each account was much much smaller. Randstad USA have 3900 followers which is an extremely small chunk compared to 1.5million on LinkedIn. I understand why they have done this due to appealing to their target audience in each country, however, I cant help but think they would be able to reach a wider audience with more followers on one account with a bigger 'whole' presence. Although, interestingly enough, this account it the one that received the most likes and comments, so maybe they do know what they are doing. 

Overall, especially for the smaller companies, I don't believe that Instagram is a priority for a start-up Boutique recruitment company. For the time and effort it takes to create, share and utilize the social media platform, to me it seems as though it brings very little reward and the time may be better spent elsewhere. This is not to say that I would not have an Instagram account, but I don't believe it will be my bets source of clients. 

When considering the hashtags I would use, the most obvious seem to be #recruitment #recruiting #financerecruitment #accountingrecruitment #boutiquerecruitment 

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