It's no coincidence that Ford and Coca-Cola have stepped up praise of Facebook ads in recent weeks. Despite initial skepticism resulting from both the novelty of the platform and the inaccurate comparisons to Google AdWords, big-ticket advertisers are beginning to realize Facebook ads' ability to drive sales.
But Facebook ads aren't just good for sales. They also represent a tremendous opportunity in the field of recruitment because they can essentially target and attract candidates who are unreachable through traditional channels. If you want to know why your recruitment efforts need Facebook ads, here's why.
1. Fish Where the Fish Are
To say that Facebook is the world's largest social network is to miss half the picture. It's not just that Facebook has more monthly active users than Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace combined. The site has also achieved an unprecedented level of integration into the lives of its users. Each day, 526 million people log into Facebook, with 398 million of those individuals logging in six out of seven days a week.
What does this mean for recruiters? Well, Facebook is where you'll likely find your candidates hanging out. But posting a job is not enough. You need to drive targeted traffic to your Facebook page with Facebook ads, which lets you turn the network's 900 million users into the world's largest talent pool.
2. Target Your Ideal Candidates
You can target your ads with a wide range of criteria including location, education, work history, and interests. Your campaign can be as specific as targeting only recent graduates of U.C. Berkeley with degrees in computer science living within 25 miles of San Fransisco (800 users on Facebook), or as broad as anyone in the United States who "likes" music and graduated from high school (25 million users).
Regardless of education level, skill set, or geographic location, Facebook's targeting mechanism makes it easy to find the right person. What's more, by targeting only those people who are likely to be interested in a given position, you effectively focus on just high-interest candidates. Contrast this with online job boards, where recruiters can get flooded with irrelevant or unqualified applicants. Targeting through Facebook ads means that a greater proportion of the applications you receive will be from qualified, interested candidates who are more likely to accept an offer than those recruited through traditional channels.
3. Recruit at Low Cost and High Value
Like most online advertising platforms, Facebook charges on a pay-per-click basis. This means that you're not going to be throwing money out the window on uninterested users. You'll only be charged if someone takes the initiative to click on your job ad in order to explore the opportunity further.
4. Attract Passive Candidates
It is one of the great challenges of recruitment — particularly social recruitment — to grab the attention of the ever-elusive passive candidate. This cohort is neither thrilled with their current employment, nor active in the job hunt. Yet, passive candidates are often the most qualified, especially for mid- and senior-level positions.
Fortunately, Facebook ads catch the attention of passive candidates by presenting them with career opportunities while they're perusing Facebook. As a result, passive candidates will be exposed to your targeted job openings.
5. Build a Facebook Talent Community
One of the most powerful functions of Facebook ads is to drive traffic to your Facebook page. This traffic — if met with engaging and relevant content — can be converted into likes. That, in turn, becomes your talent community.
People who like your page are often those who match your company culture and have the kinds of interests that make them high-quality candidates. As fans, they will receive updates from your careers page, including notifications of new job postings, making them the ideal talent community.
The gist is that Facebook ads give you the chance to put the world's largest social network to work for your recruitment efforts. The network's enormous membership and precise targeting mechanism allows you to pinpoint your ideal candidates and leverage them to build an online talent community. The result is a low-cost, high-effect recruitment campaign.
Whereas job boards charge a fixed fee that is entirely irrespective of performance, Facebook ads only cost you when high-interest candidates explore the positions you post. And while LinkedIn's membership is disproportionately white-collar, Facebook's demographics closely mirror the general population. As such, it is possible to recruit in any industry and at any level.
Social Media Job Listings
Every week we post a list of social media and web job opportunities. While we publish a huge range of job listings, we've selected some of the top social media job opportunities from the past two weeks to get you started. Happy hunting!
- Sr. Manager, Research – Digital Development at Viacom in New York
- eMarketing Manager at GFI Software in Clearwater, Fla.
- VP/Director of Marketing, U.S. at Digitas in Boston
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, -Oxford-
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