Today more and more of Facebook’s 1 billion users are engaging with appealing visual content. Good images are a critical step of an optimized Facebook business page.

On Facebook you have multiple different places to show off your visual content:

1. Cover Photo
2. Profile Picture
3. Custom Tab Image
4. Shared Photo
5. Facebook Video
6. Post Highlight
7. Facebook Ad Image
8. Milestone
9. Custom Tab Page

First step towards optimizing your page for visual content is to know all the dimensions. To help you make the most out of these opportunities we have created this easy-to-follow infographic with dimensions of all Facebook timeline elements in one place -

Display this infographic on your site, Use the code below:

<a href="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/facebook-fan-page-timeline-image-dimension-and-cheat-sheet-infographic/"><img src="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Facebook-fan-page-timeline-image-dimension-and-cheat-sheet-Infographic.jpg" alt="Facebook Fan Page Timeline Image Dimension and Cheat-sheet" /></a><br /> Source:<a href="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/facebook-fan-page-timeline-image-dimension-and-cheat-sheet-infographic/">Facebook Fan Page Timeline Image Dimension and Cheat-sheet</a>

Are you posting visual content  to Facebook ? Have you noticed that your most visual content performs better than other types of social updates? Let us know in the comments below.

It only makes sense with millions of people communicating through social media daily to take advantage of such access to unlimited marketing and recruiting opportunities. In fact, according to this social media survey, it is estimated that 92 percent of employers adopted some form of social recruiting in 2012. This number is expected to continue to increase over time.

Common mistakes in social media recruiting and why you should avoid them

Today companies are utilizing LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to advertise job openings and communicate with interested candidates. While social media is a worthwhile tool for recruiting potential candidates for your organization, it’s easy to make simple mistakes which may cost you and your company time, money and ultimately, the opportunity to reach your top recruit.

To help you reach your social networking potential, we have compiled a list of 7 key mistakes and why you should avoid them:

#1: Not creating a clear social media recruitment strategy

Social media recruiting can create countless opportunities to connect with a vast number of prospective candidates, but your recruiting plan needs to be strong and well-organized before you jump into the game. With so many social media networking options, it is easy to lose sight of your recruiting goals unless you strategize.

A Twitter account or Facebook page won’t be if helpful, for example, If you don’t have time to update or communicate with people. If you don’t have the manpower to cover all bases at one time, you may instead deter top-notch applicants instead of attract.

 #2: Not defining your targeted audience before posting

It’s important you first define your targeted audience and determine the most appropriate avenue for your organization. Having a well-defined target market is essential to growing your social presence. Just as it is expensive and inefficient to try and target everyone with traditional advertising, you will have more success in social media recruiting if you target your specific niche. To zero in on your targeted channels consider demographics of your targeted candidates, analyze where they spend their time and research the competition.

 #3: Not taking the time to build a relationship

They say most of the online community is not actively looking for a job, so use social media to introduce future contenders to your company. While social networking offers the opportunity to create immediate bonds and social connections, it’s much more rewarding long-term to first build trust. Take the time needed to build your company brand and a rapport so you attract the best employees when the time is right.

#4: Failing to create an attractive social presence for your company

In this social media savvy world, people tend to move on quickly if something doesn’t interest them right away. As a recruiter, it’s important to catch a potential employee’s eye and create an image. Ensure your social media presence has interesting, yet informational pages so visitors don’t just breeze by them. Utilize branding opportunities available on your social pages and give candidates a reason to spend more time with your brand.

#5: Not posting relevant content

Nobody likes spam. Some recruiters make the mistake of sending out generic messages to their entire audience base when in fact this strategy is more likely to frustrate people who otherwise would have been interested in your company. Try to tailor your messages to a group within the same profession and/or job category so potential employees don’t start ignoring your posts or block you. The point is to build lasting networking relationships – not sever them.

#6: Not utilizing social media to reach the next generation

It’s easy as a recruiter to leave out a very important networking base — college students. Young people waiting to enter the job market are probably the most savvy when it comes to social media networking which makes them completely reachable without having to spend money on multiple campus visits.  Social media is a great tool for you to identify, attract, and hire the very best fresh graduates while cutting down on your recruiting cost.

#7: Not taking training and/or guidance

If you don’t feel you know how to recruit effectively using social media, be sure you reach out for help. If formal classes are not available, request sample company messages, profiles and a list of dos and don’ts so you can make the most of social media. In addition, request a list of the organization’s best practices and powerful stories to maintain a good supply of content.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on social media recruiting? Please leave your comments below.

In fact, easy access to social media has substantially changed the way people communicate, especially in the workplace. Now, when employees feel the need to gripe about their colleagues or voice a grievance against an employer, for example, they no longer reach just reach out to a couple of buddies in the break room.  Anyone with Internet access or a cell phone in hand can reach hundreds, if not thousands, of people with their complaints with the touch of a button.

Can my employees pose a threat to my business?

While social media provides endless opportunities for friends to keep in touch and perhaps share cute family photos, it also can create the opportunity for employees to jeopardize or embarrass your company. It’s very simple, for example, to spread large scale rumors about a business through negative postings. It’s also easy to publish embarrassing photos of co-workers on a personal or company site. And most damaging to your company, perhaps, could be an employee who reveals proprietary information or insider tips which could ultimately affect business prospects.

Many companies feel forced to create social networking guidelines

In response to the potential security risks unregulated social media can create, companies of all sizes have found the need to change employee social networking guidelines. School systems, government offices and large corporations such as Costco, Target and General Motors have recently felt the need to create company-specific regulations.

According to Proskauer Rose’s second annual “Social Media in the Workplace Around the World 2.0” report, 68.9 percent of employers in 2012 said they had to create policies specifically to regulate social media use, a 13.8 percent increase from the previous year. According a survey of nearly 250 multinational businesses last year, 35.8 percent of employers felt the need to monitor social media use. This was an 8.4 percent increase from 2011.

The New York Police Department (NYPD), for example, recently issued guidelines for how it expects officers to behave when using social media. The officers, according to the New York Times, are prohibited from posting photos of other officers or tagging themselves in uniform on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Only exception noted in the three-page document was if the photo was taken during an official police ceremony.

Some groups have put on the brakes on what can be said on social media while on the job using company equipment. The Philadelphia Police Department policy, for example, includes activity on city equipment. If something is posted while the employee should be working, then they should not expect or assume privacy or confidentiality. In addition, if the worker identifies him or herself as working for the city, they must note their opinions are their own and do not reflect that of the city.

Typically, companies seek to depress negative and unconstructive comments. In order to do this, it’s important you openly discuss the implications of divulging corporate information and/or criticizing the company, managers or fellow co-workers.

While creating standards can be vital for both company security and workplace productiveness, limiting your employees’ mode of expression has become a bit controversial. As many companies have discovered, there’s a fine line between trying to protect your business and violating the rights of your employees.

National Labor Relations Board halts restrictions

In reaction to the firing of employees over the years for making disparaging remarks about their employers and/or co-workers, the National Labor Relations Board has recently stepped in. Workers, the board indicated, have 5^th Amendment protection allowing them to chat about work conditions without fear of punishment, whether they are at work or at home using social media.

While the right to speak out is protected, companies are finding there is a ‘grey area’ when it comes to how much the employee is permitted to divulge.

You can’t fire someone, for example, for revealing who spilled the 2-liter bottle of soda in the company kitchen, but you can restrict the sharing of confidential company information. You can’t fire an employee for whining about a co-worker’s performance, but you can terminate a worker for using social media to threaten bodily harm.

Another fine line brought to light by the National Labor Relations Board ruling: companies are not allowed to adopt broad social media policies that ban posts that criticize an employer if the regulation interferes with a worker exercising their right to communicate with one another with an aim to improve wages, benefits or work conditions.

Putting the brakes on social media

So how can you protect your business from the possible negative implications of a careless or vengeful employee? As an employer, it’s essential your workers understand what their restrictions are. You need to carefully construct balanced social media guidelines that don’t impede on rights and clearly communicate your expectations. Remember to investigate local requirements and privacy laws when constructing these guidelines.

Guidelines to help safeguard your company

To protect your company, it is recommended you implement the following:

1. Set forth official social media guidelines complete with acceptable and unacceptable usage. Be sure to include what can be said inside and outside the workplace and in the event of termination.
2. Develop guidelines regarding personal versus work-related accounts to include photos, language and the sharing of company and personal information.
3. Employees need to know whether they are allowed to use social media during work hours and any regulations.
4. If you plan to monitor social media usage, be sure the employee is aware of the policy set forth and the extent and nature of possible monitoring.
5. While social media gives you a glimpse of an employee, be careful not to make employment-related decisions only based on what you see posted.

Implementing Social Networking Guidelines can guard your company from unwanted exposure and loss of business. Is your company protected?

If you’re new to Twitter or been on it for a while and wonder what will kill your twitter recruiting strategy, think about this: It may be that you’re committing one of the following mistakes.

If you are looking to maximize results on twitter, you must diligently avoid the following 5 mistakes:

1. Neglecting the profile!

Your Twitter recruiting account should have a profile photo and a completed profile that includes a link to the company career site. Twitter profiles, like tweets (Twitter posts), have a 140 character limit, which eliminates the possibility of posting a lengthy company description. If possible, include a catchy motto or short description of the business that will encourage potential applicants to visit the company’s career site. Filling out all these basic details makes your twitter account look authentic, and helps candidates to find and remember your company.

2. Posting protected tweets

All recruiting tweets should be public. Twitter offers users the option of “protecting” their tweets, which means that they’re only visible to a list of other Twitter users approved by the account holder. This is a crucial mistake. To reach the most potential applicants, make sure that the recruiting profile is on the “public” setting. You may have good reasons to lock your account, but if you want to be that private you might want to reconsider why you have an account on Twitter at the first place.

3. Not interacting with potential applicants

Twitter offers recruiters and applicants the opportunity to interact with one another on a social level. Key elements of a long-term Twitter approach are: be responsive, accessible, and build a community, not just a following. You should involve with the community by replying to mentions, be accessible to candidates during business hours and response to questions/queries candidate might have. Doing this will keep people interested in what you have to say and entice new followers to join in the conversation.

4. Tweeting only about open jobs

Recruiting accounts should be more than just a litany of links to open jobs. Conversing with other Twitter users and posting links to interesting websites or news articles builds goodwill and promotes your company as a multi-dimensional entity. Assign one person to manage the account; this will help you give the profile a uniform tone and personality.

You can also increase the effectiveness of your Twitter profile by sharing a bit of the daily lives at your company. You can regularly upload workplace photos, pictures of events happening at your company, or pretty scenes you saw around your office. These tweets emphasize human face of your company that is approachable and a pleasure to communicate with. This can be accomplished without compromising the company’s privacy, as well.

5. Not tweeting regularly

Letting your social-media business accounts languish may hurt your brand in the long run. If you are not actively tweeting and maintaining your twitter presence, you’re missing opportunities to interact with existing and potential candidates. You don’t have to tweet every day, but if you’re only tweeting once or twice a week (or less) the chances are candidates will miss your tweets and you really won’t interact at all. Plan your content in advance (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly), however be flexible to add in time-sensitive or newsworthy content.

Recruiting on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites is an increasingly trendy practice. Social networking sites are free, easy to set up and allow recruiters to communicate quickly and easily. Very large companies may have so many job openings that a single Twitter liaison is insufficient to post them all. Recruiters at these firms may find automated posting services like HireRabbit quite valuable. These programs save time by automatically posting available jobs. In this case, recruiters must be exceedingly careful to not run their Twitter profile on proverbial autopilot. Automated links lists don’t pose a problem, provided that the human recruiter is actively involved with the Twitter profile as well. The importance of this human element cannot be underestimated and is an absolutely crucial aspect of hiring on social media.

 What are some other things to avoid when recruiting on twitter? Let me know in comments!

We recently discussed 6 Ways to Innovate the Candidate Search, and its importance in finding the right employees. Likewise, using hashtags specifically for sourcing candidates can help recruiters make their job posts stand out, but also get seen by the right people.

What Are Hashtags?

Hashtags are a word or phrase (with no spaces or special characters) preceded by the # sign. The # and word combination makes that word easier to search and find within Twitter’s database. If you were to search “jobs” within Twitter, you would then see every tweet that includes #jobs within its 140-character limit, starting with the most recent tweet.

Hashtags can be used to take part in an overall conversation, to tag posts with specific subject indicators, and to identify participants in a group chat.

Hashtags are functional on several social media platforms, including Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, but not Facebook.

How Are Hashtags Useful?

Hashtags open up your Twitter content to the masses – not just your followers. Anyone can search for the hashtag and find your tweet, even if they aren’t specifically following you (yet). Being found by job seekers within Twitter’s search can increase the number of followers you have.

By making your posts more accessible, hashtags can also increase your likelihood of being retweeted – which expands your tweet’s exposure exponentially.

Conversely, you can also take action to seek out potential followers.  By following specific industry- or business-related hashtags, you can find potential business partners, job candidates, or interesting people to follow and build an online community with.

How Can Hashtags Help in Recruitment?

Utilizing the right hashtags within your tweets can broaden your influence on Twitter, increase your retweets, and ultimately help you connect with potential job candidates. Hashtags expand your reach to get the attention and involvement of people in your industry, people looking for jobs, and people who are connected to people who are looking for jobs.

Again – by adding a hashtag, your tweets are visible to more than just your followers or those viewing your specific Twitter feed – but anyone following or searching for that particular hashtag.

Just as there are established best practices for Twitter in general, there are also rules for how you use hashtags. When you begin using hashtags in your recruitment tweets, keep these guidelines in mind:

1. Limit yourself to one or two hashtags within each tweet. Any more than that looks like spam, and leaves you with fewer characters to get your actual message across.
2. Always check the history and meaning of a trending tag before you use it. It may have unknown negative connotations that will throw your business in the middle of a conversation with which it plays no part. To prevent a social faux pas, make sure the tag means what you think it means.
3. If you make up a new hashtag for your business, make sure that it’s intuitive for your followers and easy to understand. Since your posts are limited to 140 characters, the shorter the tag is, the better.

Making Hashtags

You can make tags with your business name, your industry keywords, or your city name. Be sure to use hashtag standards when applicable; Reading, Pennsylvania is tagged as #rdg, not to be confused with the books people are #reading.

Popular tags for recruitment include: #job, #jobpost, #employment, #recruiting, #hiring, #career, #interview, #resume, and #staffing.

The average tweet has a half-life of less than 3 hours – the amount of time that it will receive half the clicks it will ever get. Create multiple versions of your job post tweet, with different, related recruitment hashtags, and send them out regularly to make sure that you’re reaching the most people in the right audience.

Remember that consistent engagement over social media is the key to gaining followers, attention, and, ultimately, successful job candidates. Even with effective hashtag usage, your recruitment efforts over Twitter will fail if you don’t populate your account with more than just job postings.

Engage in conversations with your business community, post interesting industry-related content and respond to messages from your followers. Potential applicants who find your job posting through hashtag search will consider your Twitter presence in their decision whether to apply. A disingenuous presence could drive them away – no matter how compelling the job offer.

How are you using Twitter hashtags for increased exposure? What hashtags are working for you? Share it all in the comments below.

Do you wonder how to use social media to attract, engage and hire candidates?

We asked the pros for one social recruiting tip businesses need to know today. Here’s their advice to help you pump up your social media recruiting -

#1: Find Your Audience First In Social Recruiting

Andy Headworth

Social media is an infinitely large place to try and recruit in. When starting with social recruiting the first thing you need to do is to narrow this down, with specific focus on the types of candidates (your audience) you recruit.

Establish which social media platforms they are both present and active on, and start with them. Once there, build your position as knowledge experts first, recruiters second, by contributing and sharing great relevant content and engaging with your audience.  You will quickly establish yourself as the go-to recruiter in your sector sooner than you think.

Andy Headworth,  Social Recruiting Strategist & Managing Director of Sirona Consulting

Follow Andy on twitter at @andyheadworth

#2: Master and Balance 3 Interrelated components

John Sumser

In order to do social recruiting, you need three things – jobs, traffic and a place to host the intersection of the two. The difference between social recruiting and old fashioned job board style sourcing is that you are responsible for all of the pieces.

The way you get people to come back is by giving them something that they value while they look at your jobs. That’s really hard to get right. The thing you have to care about is what matters to the audience in order to get what matters to you.

John Sumser, HRExaminer

Follow john on twitter at @JohnSumser

#3: Go Where Your Audience Is

Todd Raphael

Don’t be sucked into a given tool just because you perceive “everyone is using it.” Use social media where the audience you want to reach is hanging out.

If that’s Quora, Great. Facebook, Great. Pinterest, Great.

Heck, it may even be in person, at alumni events or bars or networking events. I’m always a little suspicious when I hear that “are the cool people are doing it..”

Todd Raphael, Editor in Chief at ERE Media

Follow him on twitter at @ToddRaphael

#4: Look for Consistency and Accuracy In Candidate’s Online Profiles

Kevin W. Grossman

Employers, HR pros, recruiters and hiring managers should ensure that applicant online profiles are as consistent and accurate as possible across all social points of presence.

In other words, whoever they say they are and whatever they say they’ve done and they do is close if not the same, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, G+ and the many other industry and association niche networks and communities they might belong to. Looking for consistency and accuracy is key.

Kevin W. Grossman, Writer and Founder of Reach-West

Check out Kevin’s recently published tech job hunt handbook and follow him on twitter at @KevinWGrossman

#5: Learn to Communicate with Candidates on Social Media

Jonathan Campbell

To get the most out of social recruiting, you should look at the potential of social media in 3 ways:

1. The web is a database of candidates with social media accounts, profiles and web pages. Learn how to search for them.
2. Over 50% of all time spent online is on social media sites. If you want to influence people these days, you need to have a strong brand presence within your niche on social media sites.
3. There are more ways to communicate with people then just email and the phone. Successfully using Twitter, for example, could be as simple as tweeting someone to say hi, then taking it further offline.

Recruiters need to know how to use these channels to communicate with potential candidates which means both knowing what to say and exactly how to send it.

Start with this simple framework: Database, Marketing & Communication and Social Recruiting will start working for you.

Jonathan Campbell, CEO of Social Talent

Follow Jonathan on twitter at @socialtalent

#6: Start Developing a Short and Long Term Strategy

Jessica Merrell

Social Recruiting is Interactive; you can’t just post and pray on social media.  Building a recruiting strategy that will last when it comes to social media is one that involves many moving parts.  This means developing content, conversation, and community in a number of different social platforms, that suit your target candidate audience while driving job seekers to either your talent community or careers page.

Different positions dictate a different strategy as well.  Recruiters need to insert themselves into candidate and job seeker ecosystems using targeted blog posts, resources like employer branding videos, and Twitter hash tags & chats.

Companies must begin developing recruiting strategies for the short term as well as long term to develop a candidate pipeline where through your influence, thought leadership, and interactions you drive candidate populations and their friends to open positions.  Like consumer marketing, candidate marketing involves many touch points along the way.  Social recruiting uses these very engaging platforms to help facilitate these interactions bridging the gap between the job seeker and the recruiter when they are actively looking for work.

Jessica Merrell, Chief Blogger & Founder of Blogging4Jobs 

Follow Jessica’s tweets at @blogging4jobs

#7: Get Your Basics Right

Jorgen Sundberg

There are still a lot of recruiters and HR professionals out there who are either hesitant for social recruiting or simply don’t feel comfortable with the new platforms. When beginning with social recruiting, it’s important to understand the platform, have patience and get the basics right.

For example “when recruiting with twitter, you need to make sure that your job tweets contain a searchable, easy-to-recognise hashtag, an obvious description of the position, and a link to an accompanying page which describes the opening in more detail.”

Jorgen Sundberg, Founder and Director of Link Humans

Follow him on twitter at @JorgenSundberg

What are your thoughts? What social recruiting tactics have worked for your business? Please share your hottest social media recruiting tips and questions in the comments box below.

In this post I have compiled 40 interesting social media statistics and figures of Pinterest, Google+, YouTube and Instagram, These stats will get the gears in your head turning about the limitless possibilities these new channels provide.

Pinterest Statistics :

1. Pinterest hit 10 million U.S. monthly unique visitors faster than any independent site in history. (source: Sirona Consulting)
2. Total unique visitors to Pinterest increased by 2,702.2 percent between May 2011- Aug 2012. (source: Ultralinx)
3. 80 percent of Pinterest users are women, while 50 percent of all Pinterest users have children. (source: Search Engine Journal)
4. The most popular age group on Pinterest is 25 – 34 year olds. (source: AllTwitter)
5. 28.1 percent of Pinterest users have an annual household income of $100,000. (source: Ultralinx)
6. Users spend an average of 16 minutes on Pinterest a visit. (source: AllTwitter)
7. 83.9 percent of a pinners time is spent Pinning, while 15.5 percent is spent liking and 0.6 percent is spent leaving comments. (source: Repinly)
8. Over 80 percent of pins are repins. (source: AllTwitter)
9. 25 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies have Pinterest accounts. (source: Burson-Marsteller)
10. Out of 17 million brand engagements, 15 percent occurred on the brand’s boards and 85 percent occurred elsewhere on Pinterest. (source: Curalate)
11. Over 1/5 of Facebook-connected users are on Pinterest daily, which represents more than 2 million members. (source: AppData)

Google+ Statistics :

1. 625,000 new users on Google+ every day. (source: AllTwitter)
2. Google+ pages appear in search results for 30 percent of brand term searches for brands with G+ pages. (source: Bright Edge)
3. 68 percent of Google+ users are Male, while 32 percent of Google+ users are female. (source:Mashable)
4. 42 percent of worldwide Google+ users are single; 27 percent are married. (source: Website-Monitoring )
5. Google+ active users spend over 60 minutes a day across Google products (source: Jeff Bullas)
6. Google+ users spend on average 12 minutes per day in the Google+. (source: Jeff Bullas)
7. At least 60 percent of Google+ users log in daily. (source: tecmark)
8. At least 80 percent of Google+ users engage on a weekly basis. (source: Chris Brogan)
9. The Google +1 button is used 5 billion times per day. (source: AllTwitter)
10. 48 percent of fortune global 100 companies are now on Google+. (source: Burson-Marsteller)
11. Websites using the +1 button generate 3.5x the Google+ visits than sites without the button. (source: HubSpot)

YouTube Statistics :

1. YouTube is the third most trafficked website in the world, trailing only Google and Facebook. ( source: alexa )
2. Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month. ( Source: YouTube )
3. Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube. ( Source: YouTube
4. 500 years of YouTube video are watched every day on Facebook. ( Source: YouTube )
5. over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute. ( Source: YouTube )
6. Video results appear in about 70% of the top 100 listings, the type of content most often displayed in universal or blended search  ( Source: Invodo )
7. 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week ( Source: YouTube )
8. Over 50% of videos on YouTube have either  been rated or commented on by the community ( Source: YouTube )
9. Millions of videos are favorited every day ( Source: YouTube )
10. Videos are 53 times more likely than text pages to show up on the first page of search results. ( Source: Gigaom )

Instagram Statistics : 

1. In August 2012, Instagram hit 80 million users and counting. (source: Visual.ly)
2. There are 575 likes and 81 comments by Instagram users every second. (source: Digital Buzz Blog)
3. Instagram had 432,000 more daily users than Twitter in August 2012. (source: All Twitter)
4. The average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing. (source: All Things D)
5.  More than 5 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day. (source: Business Insider)
6. Nearly 4 billion photos have been shared on Instagram since its beginning. (source: The Realtime Report)
7. In a six-month span, Instagram’s average daily mobile visitors jumped from 886,000 to 7.3 million, which is a 724 percent leap. (source: Marketing Land)
8.  This year alone, Instagram users liked 78 million photos. (source: Digital Buzz Blog)

What is your favourite statistic? What are some of the interesting social media statistics and facts you have come across this year? Share it all in the comment box below.

I still see recruiting agencies and companies using a personal Facebook profile to promote their business. And if you are one among them you need to do something about it, or you run a risk of losing your profile as stated clearly by Facebook -

Maintaining a personal account for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. If you don’t convert your noncompliant account to a Page, you risk permanently losing access to the account and all of its content.

In this post i will take you through the steps you need to perform to convert your personal Facebook profile to a page, So lets get started -

Step 1 – Back up your profile data

When you convert your profile to a business page only your profile photo and friends(converted to likes) will be moved to your new page, No other data is moved to your page. So if you need any information on your new page from your existing account, you should first download your profile data which include posts, photos, bios and anything associated with the account. Full list here.

You can download your information from the Account Settings page.

1. Click  at the top right of any Facebook page and select Account Settings
2. Click General in the left-hand column
3. Click on “Download a copy of your Facebook data”
4. Click Start My Archive

Step 2 – Change your profile name & address to reflect your business page

The business page which will be created after migration will have the same name as your profile name. Also if you have more than 200 friends, you will not be able to change the name of your page after the conversion. Make sure your profile name reflects your business page name before going to the next step.

If you already have an active business page you probably would want to merge these pages. In this case, you need to provide same name and address as your active page or you might not be able to merge them.

To change your name

1. Click  in the upper-right corner of any Facebook page and select Account Settings
2. Click General in the left-hand column
3. Look for the Name setting and click Edit to the far right
4. Type in your name and save your changes

To change your address

1. Click on the Update Info button under your cover photo on your timeline.
2. To edit the info in these sections, click the Edit link that appears in the top-right corner.
3. Enter in your new info, and save your changes.

Step 3 – Convert your personal profile to a business page

You might as well be managing other pages/groups from your existing profile. If you are the only admin for these pages, do not forget to assign new admins before you proceed with the migration. Remember you are about to delete your profile and migrate to a business page.

To convert your profile to a page go here. Below is how the next steps look like -

Choose a category most appropriate for your business and proceed to next step

Provide your password to confirm migration, Make sure to download your data

Your fan page is created with your friends converted to likes

Step 4 – Merge Duplicate Pages

If you have duplicate pages for your business you should merge them. In order to merge duplicate pages, they need to have the same name and address. Merging Pages combines all your likes and check-ins, but all other content from the Page with fewer likes, such as wall posts, photos and its username, will be permanently deleted.

Content on the Page with more likes will remain unchanged, except for the addition of likes and check-ins added from the Page with fewer likes. Facebook removes the Page with fewer likes and you will not be able to unmerge it.

Here is how to merge pages -

1. Go to the Page with more likes. This will be the one you’ll keep.
2. From the top of your Page, click Edit Page 
3. Select Update Info
4. From the left sidebar, select Resources.
5. Click the Merge duplicate Pages link. This link will only appear if you manage two Pages with similar names.
6. A dialogue will show Pages you manage that qualify to be merged. Select the Page(s) you wish to merge. If you’re merging Pages with a location, they must have the same address information.

Don’t promote your business on Facebook with an individual profile, convert it to a business page using the steps mentioned above. If you know someone who will be helped by this information, do not forget to share this article with them!

On Facebook fan page your brand interacts exclusively with fans, candidates, employees and admirers. Therefore you get to promote your employer image in front of a wide loyal audience.  On the cover you can put up  pictures of your work space, employee testimonial or exclusive messages depicting your company culture.

To help you get started with your cover image, we have compiled 21 examples of successful brands from different industries, who are promoting their employer brand image through Facebook timeline cover.

1.  AirBus :

AirBus cover features its modern innovative aircraft and an employee testimonial. This cover shows how to utilize employee testimonial effectively to make a greater impact.

 2. Allianz :

The worldwide leader in insurance and financial services, Allianz, is not behind when it comes to recruiting on Facebook. Their cover is depicting their employer message “build world’s strongest financial community with us”  straight from their recruiting team member.

3. Astrium :

“Where there’s space, there’s Astrium“, Astrium is the leading space company. And what can be more fascinating for science and engineering candidates than space?

4. AT&T :

Yes, This 136 year old ridiculously innovative company is recruiting through Facebook. AT&T is showing off a refreshing, colorful cover photo on their career page.

5. Averitt :

Averitt is one of the leading transportation companies in the US. Their attractive cover speaks of their culture “where driving force is people” very effectively .

 6. Boeing :

Boeing, world’s leading aerospace company is utilizing modern age tactics of employer brand promotion very well.  Their cover page is on target with their employer message “Amazing people doing amazing things.”

7.  Crown :

Crown, one of Australia’s largest entertainment groups. Their cover depicts employee playing a key role in creating the special crown experience.

 8. DaVita :

Great DaVita cover showing “Davita Stars” having a great time. If you don’t know already, DaVita is the leading  provider of kidney care in the United States.

 9. EA :

This global interactive entertainment software company’s cover photo is showing what its best known for “the best games in the world”.

 10. G4S :

This global security solution company’s cover is showcasing world-class security professionals at work.

 11. H-E-B :

Largest independent food retailer H-E-B is spreading employee smiles through their cover.

12. Hyundai :

Korean automaker showing their latest masterpiece on Facebook career page cover.

13. Ledcor :

Leadcor, one of the most diversified construction company has a superb cover image, showing their specialty in building multi-disciplinary projects.

14. Microsoft :

Software giant is promoting company ethos on Facebook with their attractive career page cover.

15. British Army :

British Army knows the importance of keeping up to date on Facebook. British army is promoting their brand to future soldiers with this impressive cover on their official Facebook career page.

16. Taco Bell :

Taco Bell is looking for candidates who are passionate about delivering the best, Mexican-inspired food. Taco Bell is delivering this message with this creatively branded cover on Facebook

17. Telecom NZ :

Telecom Group is NZ’s largest telecommunications and IT service provider. Their cool Facebook cover gives a behind the scenes sneak peek into life at Telecom.

18. Unilever :

Unilever’s engaging cover is delivering the message “Do what you love, love what made by you do” with a twist.

19. United Nations :

United Nations is making a great use of Facebook cover, by showing united workforce to inspire future employees.

20. Vocus :

Vocus, the leading provider of cloud-based marketing software, is introducing candidates to the Vocus Experience with this well-designed cover.

21. Walmart :

Walmart is again a great example of how to utilize employee testimonial in the most powerful way.

Which cover image did you like the most? What is the most interesting cover page for Facebook career page you have come across? Share it all in the comments below.

YouTube is a highly underutilized social network when it comes to recruiting. And if you haven’t looked at YouTube as a tool for recruiting and employer brand building this infographic will definitely get you thinking:

Display this infographic on your site, Use the code below:

<a href="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/why-use-youtube-for-recruitment-infographic"><img src="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/YouTube-for-recruiting-infographic.jpg" alt="Why Use YouTube for Recruitment?"></a><br />Source: <a href="http://blog.hirerabbit.com/why-use-youtube-for-recruitment-infographic/">Why Use YouTube for Recruitment?</a><br />

So what do you think? What are a few YouTube recruitment channels you like? Do you have a social recruitment strategy for YouTube? Don’t forget to share it all in the comments below!