Is Social Media the New Cold-Calling?

Cold-Calling has become a second class citizen of the phone world. A few ideas on how to get started finding talent on Facebook.

Quick story, I was headed out the door recently when I saw a phone book on my front step. I was confused as I hadn't seen a phone book delivered in years, nor did I realize they even made phone books anymore. I threw it inside and went about my business. When I came back, my son asked me "Dad what is this?" Thoughts of "man, he'll never know the joys of crank-calling random people in the phone book" went through my head. As I thought about it, all I could muster up was "umm.....it's google in a book."

Don't get me wrong, cold-calling still works but has been suffering for years if not decades. While it's always been hit or miss, you used to be able to find a decision maker's number and they actually answered their phones. Administrative Assistants would pass along messages, other departments would transfer you, etc. Whether you were trying to recruit someone or selling vacuum cleaners there was always a way. When Caller ID came out, suddenly cold-calling is a second class citizen of the phone world. Sales organizations latched on to robo-calling, the advent of smartphones, texting, email made it even more difficult and here we are today with more than 50% of all calls made being robo-calls, your grandma being told she can pay her fake late taxes with a Target gift card, and now no one answers their phones.

So now what? Enter Social Media.

One might expect that candidates actively looking for a job would choose LinkedIn as their go-to-site for identifying job opportunities and spend most of their time there, nope. Active job seekers actually prefer Facebook - research "Job Seeker Nation Study" shows that there are more job seekers on Facebook than on LinkedIn! 

Let's Talk Facebook

At the end of 2018, Facebook reported a user base of 2.32 Billion (with a B) users. That's A LOT of people. What does that mean? All your ideal candidates are on Facebook, and probably their grandma as well. Facebook is a great way to promote what your business does, it's also a great way to find your next hire.

Why Use Facebook to Promote Your Business?

Easy, statistics. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 70% of Americans are on Facebook. Of those, 74% check their Facebook daily with over 50% checking multiple times a day. 96% of people check Facebook on their cellphones, that's huge.

How Do I Even Get Started? Glad you Asked

1. Find People on Facebook - Facebook's search function is incredibly powerful. You can even use your personal page to look them up.Simply type the name of the position you're looking for and location, click on the People tab, and you'll see who is out there. If you find what you're looking for, do some additional research on LinkedIn or Google them. This is a great tool to find and engage with passive candidates.

2. Send a Message or Invite Them to Like Your Page - If you find do find the right match, you can reach out to them directly on Facebook or on LinkedIn. You can invite them to like your company’s Facebook or LinkedIn page and send them a message with your company info and job details.

3. Create a Company FB page and Stay Engaged - I'll use Microsoft as an example.

Pictures, articles, a jobs tab, messaging, why it's great to work there. So many things you can. The biggest thing is to create consistent, continuous content and stay engaged. Companies such as MSFT certainly have an advantage because they employ people solely responsible for managing their online platforms. However it can easily be done on a smaller scale. Some of smallest companies create the best content. Use hashtags and tag people/places so your post comes up when people are searching. One of the biggest things you can use is Facebook live, people are much more inclined to watch live videos than pre-recorded ones.

#softielife

4. Isn't This a Bit Stockerish?

For the most part, LinkedIn has taken the stalkerish out of Social Media recruiting. It may feel a bit like that reaching out to someone about a job on Facebook. It's not. Odds are they're not being spammed to death with job offers on Facebook, this is an underutilized way to recruit and could allow you to stand out. It's not a one way street either, people look for jobs on Facebook as well.

Wrapping It Up

LinkedIn will continue to be the most utilized social media network for hiring. The tools, the mere fact it's for professionals, the list goes on. However, it is getting spammier each day and Facebook can be an extremely effective tool in finding the right people to grow your business effectively. I would highly encourage you to check out Facebook's business functions. In my opinion, they are highly underutilized for hiring in our industry and can add enormous value to a job search. Not only that, it's extremely inexpensive (most of it free).

With the number of robo-calls continuing to rise, people will eventually stop answering calls from numbers they don't recognize. Social Media is just getting warmed up.