Job boards have been transitioning into something a bit different in recent years. Huge job aggregators are losing ground, but local job boards appear to only be getting started.

Hyper-relevance is the driving force behind up-and-coming job boards in the post-behemoth era. You might not have had the budget or staff to compete with enormous generalist job boards a few years ago. Now, you don’t need it.

#1: You Can’t be All Things to All People

Giant, generalist job boards held an obvious advantage, which was a loud voice in a crowded arena. But the very characteristic that gave them an edge could be their downfall.

Job board marketing needs a personal touch, which is something that the big names don’t have. They speak to their audience instead of communicating with them. Authentic communication breeds trust, and from trust springs a relationship.

You can’t be all things to all people. Fortunately, it’s smarter not to try. A local job board has something better, which is the power of relationships.

#2: Local Focus Lets You Hyper-Specialize

There’s relevant, and then there’s relevant. Digital job board marketing depends on engaging the audience on many different levels, from active job listings for job seekers to content that’s relevant to the whole audience. Local job boards can tap into what matters not just for the industry, but for the people in the local demographic.

For example, job seekers in the IT industry are probably interested in news that affects their line of work. Now imagine that IT pros in Houston find a blog post at a job posting site about a new IT company moving to the area. That’s local relevance, and it doesn’t stop there.

Locally relevant content might include

• • Tweets about local commute times

• • New labor laws in the area

• • Local job postings

• • Employer spotlights

• • Great neighborhoods to live and work

That’s local relevance, and it makes your local job board more valuable and less of a basic clearinghouse for job ads.

#3: Concentrated, Local Relevance is Easier to Achieve

Job aggregators could research to learn about what matters in different markets. But local job boards have a natural advantage. It’s similar to the edge a jet-setting travel writer has over a writer who merely reads about destinations and tries to cultivate a vibe without having been there.

When you live and work there, you get the area in a way that no outsider can.

What a local job board has, no aggregator can match: real world experience. It comes through in the voice of the community, the blog content that you produce and the tweets you send out when there’s a road construction delay on the Interstate bypass across town.

#4: People Engage With Relatable Brands

Think about major brands that you often use. You might feel loyalty to the brand, but you don’t have a relationship with the company. In a smaller market, such as with a local job board, a relatable brand can trigger a level of engagement that the big names can’t foster.

According to a study by SocialBakers, audience engagement translates to more website visits. The more engaged the audience, the better the ROI for job board marketing, particularly through social media channels. In fact, their research showed a direct relationship between social interactions and website visits. When interactions spiked, website visits were an almost identical parallel.

ERE Media says the “key asset is relevance.” That’s what local as well as niche job boards have over the competition. They explain, “job seekers do not want to browse through irrelevant job postings.” Unfortunately, that’s what job seekers get with the big aggregators.

Local job boards eliminate the noise and make job searches more effective and relevant. That saves time for the job seeker and presents the job board as an authoritative, efficient voice that delivers on its promises.

Don’t worry about competing with any online looming presence. The job board market is changing. And local is the way to go. If you’re ready to learn more about why local job boards are coming into their own, Subscribe to Recruitment ADvisor today. We’ll deliver relevant content straight to your inbox.