Fanatical Military Recruiting

25Social Recruiting

Social media is an amazing tool, but it’s really the face-to-face interaction that makes a long-term impact.

—Felicia Day, actress

The influence of social media on recruiting is inescapable. Millions of people are linked together on social media sites—constantly checking and updating their status. As a recruiting tool, social media has moved from cutting edge to ubiquitous and inextricably woven into the fabric of military recruiting.

The social channel is a key component of a balanced prospecting methodology. There has never been a time in history when so much information about so many prospects was so easy to access. Not just contact information, but context. Through the window of social media, you can:

• Gain glimpses into your prospect’s behavior, motivations, desires, preferences, and triggers that drive career decisions and preferences.
• Easily uncover interests that lead to more impactful and robust face-to-face conversations.
• Build familiarity through low-impact, nonintrusive techniques that you may communicate seamlessly via the social in-box.

Social Recruiting Is Not a Panacea

Along with the increased awareness of the power of the social channel, there is a disturbing trend of recruiters using social media as a substitute and excuse for avoiding telephone and face-to-face prospecting. It’s easier to hide out on Facebook or Instagram all day than to interrupt strangers and engage in human-to-human conversations.

Social media is an important piece ...