While advertising budgets are shifting from traditional job boards to social media, and in particular to Facebook, many recruiters are struggling with the last mile of the sourcing funnel: the collection of the actual leads. Indeed, while it literally cost pennies to get “likes” and “views, getting actual candidates to send in their application to certain jobs has been a real challenge for many employers.
We’ve been finding generating thousands of such leads on behalf of some of the largest employers in the world, so we thought we’d summarize here what are some of the most effective methods for the general HR community. Keep in mind that Facebook is an ever-changing beast, and what works today may not be so effective tomorrow. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions below so we can update this page with the latest best practices.
Facebook Lead Ads
Facebook Lead Ads are Facebook’s ultimate solution for advertisers who want to extract leads. With Lead Ads, your targeted audience doesn’t have to type in anything. They click on an ad and a form which is already populated with all their relevant Facebook data is completed. All they have to do is click “Submit” and the application is completed.
For candidates, this represents the easiest and fastest application available on the market. In two clicks and less than 10 seconds their application, along with their phone number, academic and employment history can be submitted.
For employers, the trick will then be to extract that data from Facebook in real-time, in order to feed their ATS or their CRM. This can be done relatively easily by asking help from your tech team, or by using one of the CRM systems that is already integrated with Facebook.
How Talkpush does it? We’ve integrated the leads ads to Talkpush via Zapier, extracting incoming leads to add them to the right Talkpush campaign. Click on the ad below to experience what may well be the fastest job application process in the world: two clicks and a few seconds later you will be receiving a screening phone call from the employer.
Instagram enabled ads
When Facebook acquired Instagram a few years ago, it was careful not to meddle with its unique user experience. Part of Instagram’s success is its amazing stickiness, which is partially preserved by stripping all URL links from each posts. Unfortunately for advertisers: no links = no forms = no leads…
There are ways to work around this specific challenge. One method is to ask ad viewers to go to your Instagram profile to find the URL link and to apply through that. It makes it hard to measure the individual performance of each ad, but can be effective overall.
How Talkpush does it? With all of Instagram’s traffic coming via mobile, we wanted to build a lead capturing method which was available on all mobile phone, and allowed us to track applications coming from each ad separately. That’s how we came up with our “SMS Apply” feature, which asks for candidates to send in their application via SMS, with their name, and a code uniquely linked to each ad. Check out this ad which successfully generated hundreds of leads using this method.
Creating an “Apply here” section
There are a few software vendors who specialize in offering career sites within Facebook (e.g. Career Arc or Jobcast), where for a reasonable monthly subscription fee, you can post jobs and collect applications. The challenge with most of those “career sections” is that they cannot be viewed via mobile phones. As almost 90% of all Facebook traffic is on mobile, you will find it hard to generate the volumes you want using these interfaces.
But 10% of Facebook is still a sizable audience, so what can you do to create a friendly application experience for candidates without paying for the software? One solution is simply to create an “Apply here” section using Google Form to capture names. You will need to use a Facebook app to publish the Form via an iframe. There are a number of tools you can use, and we’re happy to advise you in more details if you need.
How Talkpush does it? We have helped our clients integrate Google Forms, Jobcast and a number of other “Apply now” sections. Our main focus is always reactivity, and making sure the candidates receive a call or an SMS the minute they apply.
Conversion ads
While Facebook Lead Ads are deadly effective in generating numbers, they offer advertisers limited space to inform and educate the viewers/candidates. Additionally, they limit the number of fields you can capture to under 7. If you want to educate your audience before converting them into leads (because educated leads are worth much more to your organization), then Facebook offers Conversion ads.
How Talkpush does it? Conversion ads are a great way to capture leads effectively, while educating your audience. When clicking on the ad, the candidates are taking to an ad landing page, where they can read all about the job before deciding to apply. On behalf our clients, we have built dozens of such ad landing pages, always careful to stay within their branding guidelines to offer the most consistent candidate experience. Importantly, these pages are mobile optimized and fast to load, to ensure a maximum conversion rate. Check out one of those landing pages below.
Via Private Message (PM) + Chatbot added August 17, 2016
The most user-friendly way to collect names, phone numbers and details from candidates may simply be to ask them. When candidates contact your Facebook page via PM (Private Message), they want answers (what jobs to you have? What qualification are required?) and they want to be able to be addeed for consideration. The challenge with this collection method has historically been that it has been a very manual process. Having someone dedicated to answering their requests full-time is expensive and unproductive.
How Talkpush does it? Talkpush has built a the first Facebook Chatbot application which can handle incoming inquiries in real-time, 24/7, and immediately qualify candidates for the role they apply to. If you want to check it out, simply send a PM to our Facebook page, and our Chatbot will take care of you.
Find the lead generation engine that works for you
All the lead generation methods we have listed above work for companies which have already built a solid presence on Facebook. This means having already assigned a team to build content and build the community to a few thousand followers. This presence will validate your brand in the eyes of the new visitors, which in turn will help you improve your conversion rates and your cost per lead.
Making your recruitment campaigns more cost-effective is a never-end journey, where it is essential to combine many tools and talents: creative skills to design effective ads, technology platforms to maximize your conversion rates and empathetic sourcing professionals who can answer questions and and facilitate the candidate experience.
If you would need help on evaluating your own readiness to ramp up your Facebook hiring, we’d be happy to have chat any time. Just send us your name in this page so we can start that discussion.