Slap after slap. Tap after tap. Facebook is used to a bit by now when it comes to criticism. Yet time and again, the platform repackages itself. And not without results. Because even for a good social recruitment strategy, Facebook remains an important pillar. But why? And can we actually do without that big blue logo with the iconic letter F?
Learning and getting stronger
Quite simple. We still see in our social recruitment campaigns that most target groups are active on Facebook. Not unimportantly, they are also easy to reach here. And besides: size does matter! Still. With more than 10 million users in the Netherlands, Facebook is, together with Whatsapp, a giant in social-land. In addition, Zuckerberg's continued development also plays a big role. No social media platform is currently as developed as Facebook. The innovations and possibilities the platform offers are again essential for the proper design of our social recruitment campaigns.
Where is our target audience?
Even among our clients, we noticed the doubt surrounding Facebook. Due to the fuss surrounding the privacy of Facebook users, the primary reaction was: delete your account! A very logical question from companies fully committed to social recruitment was therefore 'Will our target group still be on Facebook soon?'. Fortunately, the answer is 'yes'. Once the storm had subsided a little, it soon became clear that people are not so quick to delete their Facebook account. Because many users realise that by using Instagram and/or Whatsapp, they are still in Facebook's data stream.
What is your potential candidate doing?
But what role does Facebook now play in the perfect social recruitment strategy? Because Instagram is part of Facebook, every Facebook campaign immediately includes Instagram. Based on data, Facebook 'learns' and sees where your target audience is. Thus, campaigns are automatically adapted to the potential candidate's behaviour. So by excluding Facebook from a strategy, you not only miss out on a large part of your target audience, but you also lack the Facebook-optimised interpretation of your campaign.
One example
Now we talk several times here about it missing out on a large part of the target audience. But what does that look like in numbers? A concrete example: in one of our latest campaigns, we targeted potential candidates aged between 20 and 35 for a year. Thanks to Facebook's self-learning ability, we noticed that this particular campaign was 70% delivered on Facebook. So the platform sees that 7 out of 10 potential candidates are on Facebook and immediately focuses on that. Very useful. But then, for this particular campaign, that also means that if you didn't target on Facebook, you wouldn't manage to approach 70% of your target audience! It immediately shows once again the importance of this platform.
Looking to the future
Earlier this year, Zuckerberg announced that the company's focus is shifting more than ever towards user privacy. But what does Facebook's future vis-à-vis social recruitment look like? In addition to the focus on privacy, Zuckerberg also indicated that he sees that chats, stories and small groups are currently the fastest-growing parts. Therefore, I expect Facebook to focus more on chat features within Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. And this will also affect recruitment. Candidates will start chatting directly with recruiters within social channels. Think of Click to Messenger ads. Here, someone gets an ad on his/her Facebook and/or Instagram timeline and as soon as you click on it, you can chat with someone within Messenger. For example, do you have doubts about the feature and want to ask quickly? Then you can quickly and easily chat with the recruiter on your mobile. In our opinion, this direct line has great advantages for the ideal candidate journey. Facebook is here to stay.
