Most of the discussion around the use of social media in recruitment has centred round engagement and content which will attract individuals in a more passive way.

Community building and engagement is the new Resourcing Manager’s mantra, but let’s look at how you can use social media to target potential employees actively.

Facebook is by far the largest of the social networks, accounting for over 30m of the UK’s population and with over 80% falling within employment age, this is an extremely attractive audience.

The UK is one of the most socially engaged countries on Facebook, spending almost 30 minutes per visit, sharing photos, videos and content as well as ‘liking’ brands, interests and a wide variety of activities. Facebook is actively encouraging people to complete their profile, add current and previous employers, all of which allows the Resourcing Manager to target particular individuals who fit their required candidate profile.

Recently I wrote about the importance of understanding your target audience when looking at a effective recruitment marketing. Facebook advertising allows employers to put this knowledge into good use.

Do you want to generate traffic to your career website, a particular vacancy or do you looking to use Facebook more actively and increase visitors to your page?

Once you’ve decide now is the time to set up your adverts in Facebook.

As an administrator of your Facebook Page you will probably have noticed the Create and Advert button, but anyone with a Facebook Profile can create an advert, the link is at the bottom of the Facebook Page. If you click this you now be taken to the advertising page.

Rather than create a step by step guide, I will focus on the targeting of adverts. There are many great guides on line, which will guide you through the whole process.

Setting the target audience

Facebook allows you to target using a variety of criteria, but let’s look at a potential scenario for RWE npower, that use Facebook to engage with university undergraduates through their Future Leaders Facebook Page.

Using Facebook you can target graduates specifically who have an interested in the future of energy. By using some of the keywords that I would expect to find in a potential graduate’s profile,I can see that there are 17400 university students with a potential interest in sustainable energy or engineering and technology.

Employers can specifically target those still at university and also specific universities.

Whilst your setting your advert Facebook allows you to see a preview of your advert, your targeting criteria and the number of people that will potentially see it.
 

Managing the cost

Facebook will show the potential cost per click, but also allow advertisers to set their budget, by day or for the length of the campaign, so you don't have to worry about your spend getting out of control.

Finally place your order and monitor results. Facebook provides a comprehensive suite of reports showing the number of people that view your advert, the number of clicks and additional Page likes. Make sure that you also have the necessary analytics on your website if you're directing traffic to a landing page, so you can measure conversions accurately.

Experiment

Another benefit of Facebook advertising is that you can create multiple adverts within campaigns, so try different images and text and refine to get the best results. A company logo may not mean much to some, but an image of the team at work or the working environment may have more appeal. You can read about some of the successes on a previous blog by Social media advertising does work.

The simplicity and low cost means that Facebook advertising is easy to set up and my advice is to give it a go and experiment. Companies are already seeing results and with Facebook continuing to grow the ability to target specific people is extremely beneficial to the recruiter.

Remember that your target audience is not necessarily actively looking for a job, so click through rates may not be high, but by targeting specific groups of people you are increasing the relevancy of those that do click. 

Finally if you want to add your recruitment site into your companies Facebook Page, take a look at 4MAT's client Four Seasons which has a fully functional recruitment site integrated within the page. https://www.facebook.com/fourseasonsrecruitment

If you would like to find out more about using Facebook for Recruitment you might be interested in some of my other blogs or please feel free to drop me a line.

David Johnston
4MAT
Tel: 020 7247 9494
Email: david.johnston@4MAT.com