Don’t just go on Facebook and click “boost.” Seriously. You’ll likely be limited or even disappointed in your campaign results.
If people don’t know you, they don’t trust you, and they won’t have a desire to work with you. Without a well-structured and executed plan that is continuously refined and improved, you can’t expect positive ROI from your advertising investment. Now, there are exceptions to this rule (like their peers trust you or you are well known in the community). But those exceptions aren’t common.
Successful Facebook campaigns that are looking to build and engage an audience, promote content and drive individuals to a website, usually have several things in common. Yes, campaign strategy and goals are important, but how you approach advertising (meaning the steps you take) is just as important. Here are four best practices you should keep in mind before you start a new Facebook campaign:
- Build a highly relevant audience and engage them. If you work in a single metro market, having Facebook fans who live in a city three thousand miles away will not help you find new talent and fill job orders. Build your audience based your current candidate base (utilize your ATS data), their contacts, or people who are located in your target market and possess the interests or experience of your ideal audience.
- Build trust and loyalty through value (this takes time!). Share helpful, valuable content. Don’t just share open job orders. Highlight a mix of your blog articles, feature company news, and highlight relevant career or recruiting resources.
- If you ask for people to give you contact details, offer something of value. For example, if you have free resources on your website that you are promoting on Facebook, (like webinar recordings or eBooks), “gate” these on your website so that you require people to share their email address with you before gaining access. Alternately, create and promote a Facebook offer where a candidate can opt in for a free review and feedback of their resume from your recruiting team; by fans opting in to the offer, Facebook will automatically collect and then save their email addresses for you—allowing you to market to them in the future.
- After all this, market and promote your content! Promote your content to the news feeds of your audience, start showing ads, and use Facebook display advertising.
After you have built your fan base and engaged them with relevant content, you are in a position for them to actually care (meaning, want to see) about your content in their newsfeed and take action. But think beyond Facebook; don’t be afraid to leverage touch points outside of Facebook, email, and more. Many campaigns are structured on a multi-funnel approach. Don’t just push your jobs through Facebook. After you have driven candidates from Facebook to your website, continue pushing them through the recruiting funnel and building trust by leveraging job alert emails, sharing relevant job searching content on Facebook and in your email newsletters, and showing remarketing ads on Facebook—encouraging your candidates to return and view your newly posted jobs.
If you are looking for assistance with Facebook, or other online advertising for your staffing firm, contact our team at Haley Marketing Group. We have helped many staffing firms identify the right online advertising solution for them, as well as executed many successful paid adverting campaigns to recruit talent, stay top-of-mind and reach new prospects. Contact us today to learn more information about our online advertising solutions for the staffing industry including Facebook Advertising, Search Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, and Display Remarketing.