Social media, and the first of these, Facebook, play a major role in all inbound strategies.

Their job is to capture the attention of people who match your personas (candidate or buyer) to attract them to a blog where they will be converted into leads.

How to use the biggest of social networks to generate business leads or interest passive candidates ?

How does Facebook fit into Inbound Marketing and Inbound Recruiting strategies?

How to use Facebook?

Whether posting content specifically created to attract customers or for any other type of action, there are some rules to know when using Facebook. 

To that end, Simon R. Stones has put together several great infographics that perfectly summarize what you need to know when hosting social networks.

Here's the one about Facebook:

 1 - Generate Leads with Facebook

Platforms such as Facebook collect a tremendous amount of information about users that marketers can use to their advantage. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to catch a few fish, fish smart by using the right bait.

The goal is to get the attention of those who are interested in what you have to offer.

If you consider your current lead generation strategy, vyou probably have several pieces of content, a blog and informational materials through which you hope to generate leads.

Thanks to Facebook, you can reach a large audience, without necessarily using their paid advertising system (very efficient by the way): Facebook Ads.

Let's instead look at some targeting methods to share your content with the people most likely to be interested in your products or services..

2 - targeting prospects on Facebook (Inbound Marketing)

Facebook continues to be, in 2017, the most powerful social network in the world. It's a safe bet that your prospects are on it, and naturally enough, Facebook fits right into an Inbound Marketing strategy.

Benefits

• Very wide distribution of your content
• Ability to reach B2C leads
• Use of Facebook Live to broadcast live content

Disadvantages

• Limited relevance to B2B targets
• No natural SEO of content
• Risk of having your content "drowned" in the profusion

Generally speaking, Facebook is a good social network to promoteyour content and increase the visibility of your brand, but, aside from its excellent paid advertising system, does not allow for true differentiation with your target audience, especially in B2B. In many cases, professional prospects don't like to mix their personal and professional activity.

3 - targeting candidates on Facebook (Inbound Recruiting)

Facebook is undoubtedly the social network that brings together the most eclectic panel of members in terms of age, interests or socio-professional categories.

There's a good chance that the candidate you're looking for is on Facebook. But will you manage to get his or her attention with Inbound Recruiting ?

Benefits

• Promotes video content highly valued by candidates
• Professional content acceptable in the private sphere
• Comments can be starting points for recruitment

Disadvantages

• Some Candidate Personas don't show up on Facebook
• Social network increasingly abandoned by Generation Y
• Requires "liking" the Facebook page to view content

Recruitment being in essence a "social" act, the Big Social Network remains an indispensable tool of an Inbound Recruiting strategy.

When used properly, it allows you to distribute ad-related content to a very large audience, which is useful when looking for fairly generalist profiles. Nevertheless, to reach some passive candidates, it is better to focus on more specialized social networks.

If you want to reach candidates with a paid strategy, we recommend the Work4, platform, which we discuss in our ranking of the best recruiting techs 2017. 

What about you? How are you using Facebook in your Inbound Marketing and Inbound Recruiting strategies? Tell us in the comments!