Facebook’s Most “Fanned” Recruitment Page
What does it take to be Facebook’s largest recruitment centered fan page? Well, about 285,000 fans, that’s what. The United States Marine Corps Official Page is this page. It’s managed by the Marine Corps Recruiting Command which overseas all of the branch’s recruitment efforts.
This is a very interesting and unique recruiting page. The Marines have combined recruitment and news content to bridge the gap between an ordinary fan page and a recruit aggregating page. New content is added to the wall about two to three times per week. News posted includes photos, videos, and press releases regarding new aircraft, this day in USMC history, and various other topics.
And where does recruitment come into play on this page? Look at the left side margin to find links to both Enlisted and Officer Opportunities as well as a Leadership Traits Facebook app where users can generate a list of their friends that they think would make good leaders in the Marine Corps. So, not only does the page attract new recruits, it also entices them to recommend friends that they think would make great recruits.
So, what can be learned from this example of using Facebook to recruit? I think the biggest lesson learned is that a lot of big brands are completely missing the boat. USMC has done a great job of creating a page where fans want to come find out what’s happening within the Corps. While they are there, they can find out how to join this world-class organization at the same time. It’s not threatening, it’s not all up in your face, but it’s there.
There a probably 20-30 brands with as much or less brand recognition on the top 1500 Facebook fan pages that are not taking advantage of their 500K or more fan base to find new employees. In fact the only organization in the top 1500 that even has a link on their fan page to career opportunities is the number three most fanned page, Facebook itself.
Brands like Starbucks (6.1 million fans), Coca-Cola (5.1 million fans), and Victoria’s Secret (2.5 million fans) are not leveraging their huge fan bases to announce job opportunities. Should they mix their marketing messages with employment messages? Absolutely! For most big companies, the brand’s customers make the best employees.
These organizations are missing a huge opportunity to reach out to the people that could be the best employees. Starbucks is known as a social recruiting powerhouse. The company uses all sorts of social media tools like Twitter and LinkedIn to recruit. However, of all social media tools Facebook gives Starbucks their largest exposure to the coffee drinking market. All Starbucks really has to do is add a recruitment tab to their popular Facebook page.
Congrats to the U.S. Marines for building the largest Facebook recruiting fan page. Other large, high-volume staffing brands would do good to take a page from the Marine’s recruiting playbook and combine their consumer marketing efforts on Facebook with their recruitment efforts.
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