The Impact of Social Media in Military Recruiting

摘要

Given the growing success and user base of Social Media websites and, specifically, Social Networks, over the last decade, businesses have transitioned from traditional advertising to digital platforms. Specifically, their audience targeting features make it very easy to promote products and services to defined groups of individuals with specific characteristics. As a result, in addition to standard advertising, organizations, including educational institutions, started using personal and professional Social Networks (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedln) as a recruiting tool for reaching potential candidates and interacting with them in a quick informal fashion. In this paper, we explore the human factors in the use of Social Media in recruiting for the Army and we detail the results of a study in which we compared the perspective of recruiters and prospect cadets, especially in the context of initiatives, such as the Delayed Entry Program (DEP).