Recruiting on Facebook is about so much more than just posting jobs or Glassdoor scores.

This is great content, but how it fits into your Facebook recruiting narrative is equally as important.

An effective social recruiting strategy tells a good story.

Your Page banner, your content, how you word your job posts, and even the order in which you share all create a digital narrative.

In marketing, there are two ways of thinking about these digital narratives that are proven to work well on Facebook: Funnel-based storytelling and prime-and-remind storytelling.

Funnel-based storytelling

is about using a series of messages to walk potential consumers (candidates) towards the end goal that you have for them (converting them into applicants.)

Prime-and-remind storytelling

is when you use multiple Facebook posts that “prime” people with your employer branding and then you share content that “reminds” them of those posts but are more goal focused. Facebook recently ran a series of tests to explore the effectiveness of this type of storytelling on their platform.  

For their study Facebook teamed up with 6 companies, each from a different industry, and had them run funnel-based approaches that were set up to guide a person down the purchase funnel in three phases.

“For example, the first phase, called ‘Meet the Brand,’ would be a brand’s introduction to the market. This phase occurs no matter if the brand is new to the market or an established brand. The next phase, ‘The Teaser,’ would feature a product-focused ad. The third and final phase, ‘The Hook,’ would feature a call-to-action ad.”

This is a very commonly used structure for funnel-based campaigns.

Facebook also had those companies run prime-and-remind campaigns where they used multiple ad formats, like display or video ads, to show people the brand’s relevance to their lifestyle in two distinct phases.

“For example, the advertiser would use creative that showcased the brand’s value proposition to ‘Set the Stage’ in the first phase. In the second phase, ‘The Synopsis,’ the advertiser would use their creative to ‘remind’ people of the main brand storyline found in phase one.”

They found that both forms of storytelling positively affected all of the brands’ marketing efforts.

According to Facebook, “Storytelling sells!” Their research shows that interspersing strategic brand messaging with typical calls to action significantly improves conversion rates.

For Facebook recruiting this means using content that is specifically focused on employer branding along with job posts or calls to action encouraging job seeker to Like your Page or join your talent pool in order to tell an engaging story that job seekers will respond to.

Whether you use a funnel or a prime-and-remind based strategy for storytelling is up to you and your recruitment goals. But, no matter which path you choose, your Facebook recruiting needs to tell a story!