16 MAY 2017
Facebook Vs LinkedIn: Who will take the title for worldwide careers platform?
When we think of scouting for talent, or searching for the next career challenge the natural tendency is to steer towards LinkedIn. Facebook for fun - LinkedIn for business - right? Wrong!
When we think of scouting for talent, or searching for the next career challenge the natural tendency is to steer towards LinkedIn. Facebook for fun - LinkedIn for business - right? Wrong! Following LinkedIn’s interface overhaul in January; not wanting to miss out on the continual evolution of it’s social media platform, Facebook followed suit a few weeks later with the unveiling of its very own careers section.
The fundamental difference is how each respective networking site packages up its advertising opportunities - and this is potentially where Facebook may well have the upper hand. Let’s take a look at how each heavyweight sets their pricing points.
Facebook Vs LinkedIn | Cost for Advertising
With LinkedIn, finding the cost for advertising is a bit tricky and can only be achieved by first submitting your enquiry. Key variables will come into consideration, such as job title and geographical location. Once you’ve entered these variables you’ll be presented with the cost for a one-off 30 day posting. Alternatively, there are some added value job pack options.
With Facebook, posting jobs is free and should you wish for your listing to reach a wider audience, you have the opportunity to boost your post - and control your budget, target specific audiences, geographical location and number of days you wish the promotion to run for. The minimum spend with Facebook is £1 per day. Business accounts can create a Job tab on their page and the easy to use ‘Apply Now’ CTA (call to action) button, makes sending an application through to Facebook careers a quick and seamless operation.
Who holds the greatest market share?
Considering LinkedIn was launched in 2003 and Facebook a year later in 2004, Facebook dominates the arena with 1.94 billion active users worldwide.1 Whilst LinkedIn comes in at nearly a quarter of that at 0.5 billion users worldwide.2
Looking at the respective platforms’ revenue streams from advertising, figures from 2016 Q3 for LinkedIn were reported at $960 million3 and were vastly overshadowed by Facebook’s $7.01 billion!4
Drilling down to usage by age demographic, Facebook again by far outshines LinkedIn 5
- 82% of internet users between the ages of 18-29 use Facebook vs. only 22% of internet users in the 18-29 age group that use LinkedIn
- 79% of internet users between the ages of 30-49 use Facebook vs. only 32% of internet users in the 30-49 age group that use LinkedIn
- 64% of internet users between the ages of 40-64 use Facebook vs. only 26% of internet users in the 50-64 age group that use LinkedIn
Despite the plethora of facts, let’s examine what this translates to in terms of engagement in in the job marketplace.
Blurred Lines..?
Facebook’s loyal users come back every day (usually more than once) for a variety of reasons, giving the heavyweight advertiser the opportunity to display sponsored promotions (jobs) to their audiences. Whilst it can be argued that Facebook will prove more fortuitous in lieu of the lower skilled posts, they do have a by far larger audience of up and coming talent, in the form of college and university graduates.
LinkedIn to date maintains its position as a recruiters talent pool dream, with the more senior and prestige positions being both sought and discovered via this channel.
But what’s wrong with mixing business and pleasure?
When it boils down to it, at onlyFE we think it genuinely depends on the age demographics and experience levels recruiters are looking to target. Specifically in the FE careers sector, with 82% of Internet users aged between 18-29 using Facebook… we think we know where we might see a better ROI in terms of recruiting!
Further Reading
References
- 1 Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
- 2 Source: https://blog.linkedin.com/2017/april/24/the-power-of-linkedins-500-million-community
- 3 Source: https://www.omnicoreagency.com/linkedin-statistics/
- 4 Source: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/02/facebook-earnings-q3-2016/
- 5 Source: https://beaconmm.com/facebook-vs-linkedin-which-one-is-the-b2b-marketing-winner/
Useful Links
Who do you think will take the title for worldwide careers platform? We’d love to know what your opinions are! Feel free to leave your comments in the replies section below.