How the British Army uses Social Media in Recruitment

Posted on 07. Apr, 2011 by admin in 2011 Conference, Blog

Colin Cook, the British Army’s marketing director, provided great insights on how the Army uses Facebook to build engagement.

The Army has the challenge of overcoming 1) engaging with younger people and 2) getting past the gatekeepers (parents)

The Army also has to teach people what it does and the careers it offers – apparently there is a lot of ignorance around this. So, social media is very focussed on training, preparedness and advertising what it does. It has an advertising-led approach.

The approach looks like this:

• Extend content using Twitter, FB and blogs
• Decentralise platform
• Connect people
• Provide a personalised experience

Colin showed a range of Facebook pages that have been segmented to target candidates. Interestingly, this process helps opt out candidates.

Through FB pages serving soldiers are able to talk to candidates – they also do this on Twitter. These soldiers are part of the Digital Pioneer Programme which enables candidates to ‘Touch the green’ – talk to real soldiers. Soldiers are trained in how to use FB and Twitter so as to not to compromise security.

The Army is also starting to use games on FB to drive engagement. Badges are coming soon – the aim is to plug into candidates’ enjoyment of gaming.

The next steps for the Army are to develop the Pioneer Programme and to set up more job specific blogs such as the Chaplain blog.

Final point: asked about ROI, Colin said you need to know why you are using FB in the first place. If you do not know this you won’t be able to evaluate.

Listen to my interview with Colin Cook.

Tags: army, SMIR