Volunteer View: Modernizing Recruitment Practices with Social Media
We’re seeing record occurrences of isolation in society. Many people have lost the sense of community and personal connections as they have become more reliant on the digital world. How does this affect recruitment for emergency services organizations? Organizations can provide a solution to this problem for many individuals, particularly youths.
Touchpoints
The fire service understands community and how to build bonds. Furthermore, volunteering with an emergency services organization isn’t like other volunteer opportunities, for which people show up, do their time and leave without building a significant relationship with fellow volunteers. In the fire service, a family culture yields lasting and meaningful relationships. Many people crave this. Volunteer fire departments can capitalize on this to bring in volunteers.
That said, to break through all of the noise, a volunteer department must run a highly engaged hybrid recruitment campaign. It must use modern marketing techniques, including social media; run streaming advertisements; post podcasts; use local influencers as well as traditional techniques, such as recruitment booths at local events and fliers; and host open houses.
It takes about 7–13 touchpoints to convert someone to be a volunteer. In other words, people must see branding and messaging 7–13 times before they decide to take that first step into volunteering. Face-to-face interaction plays a significant role in pushing an individual from thinking about volunteering into actually signing up. However, modern marketing techniques, including social media ads and location-targeted ads, plant the seed, so that when people find themselves in the face-to-face interaction, they already began to think about volunteering, and they just need one more push.
Modern marketing has numerous options other than social media, but these can be beyond the budget for many organizations. However, with an effective social media presence, volunteer departments can reach myriad individuals for free or for a small spend.
Social media marketing
The most important things when using social media as a recruitment tool are the department’s internal bandwidth for maintaining its social media presence and its target audience. Social media contains limitless options; chasing trends and overextending won’t be productive. Social media often favors posts from pages that have a strong audience following, making those posts more likely to be seen by new individuals. Having a consistent presence and developing audience are important parts of maintaining a social media presence.
The first step to getting started is to find the right platform based on recruitment goals. Start with one social media platform and do it right. Once success is achieved with that platform, a department might consider whether taking on another is feasible. Always use larger strategic goals, target audience and bandwidth as guides.
This platform had some 250 million U.S. users as of 2024. Its largest age group is 30–49-year-olds. The platform is great to use if a department has a broad audience. It also is more popular in rural communities than it is in urban or suburban communities.
Instagram is one of the most diverse platforms, with 58 percent Hispanic and 57 percent Asian adults using the platform. The platform also has more female users than male users. It’s most popular among 18–29-year-olds. Because it’s owned by Meta, departments can promote their ads on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp without a presence on those platforms.
TikTok
TikTok is a gamble for many U.S. emergency services organizations. It has grown swiftly in popularity and is particularly popular among 18–29-year-olds and appeals to those who are younger than 18 years old, too. However, many emergency services organizations are prohibited from using it directly. One way that a department might be capable of reaching this audience without having an account is by paying a micro-
influencer to promote volunteer opportunities or by using a marketing agency to run ads on behalf of the department. If this is done, a department must make sure that no department rules or policies are violated.
X
This is a fast-paced, quick-information platform. It tends to be used best for communicating with other organizations, particularly news agencies. About 22 percent of U.S. adults use the platform. Recently, some users have moved to Bluesky, which is a new social media platform that’s similar to X. Although Bluesky’s audience isn’t comparable with that of X, it’s growing rapidly and already is making its mark as a popular alternative.
Consistency and variety
Regardless of what platform is selected, every good social media presence involves consistency and a variety of content. A recruitment ad that includes a call to volunteer only should be posted at a minimum of a 1:5 ratio. In other words, for every one recruitment ad that’s posted, at least five posts that are about other topics, such as highlighting volunteers, engagement with the community, a fun event or a member training, should be posted prior to posting another recruitment ad.
For content development, you can use the tools that are provided by the social media platform or a design tool, such as Adobe, Canva, Pixlr, Visme and VistaCreate.
Don’t be afraid to engage people and organizations on social media. Invite the community to an event. If the department had a booth at another organization’s event, comment on the other organization’s post with a “thanks for having us” and tag it in your posts. This all builds a positive brand and helps market the department to the community.
Departments can preplan and schedule posts by utilizing social media management tools, such as Buffer, Hootsuite, Planable and Sprout Social. These typically allow for collaboration, a review and approval process, and scheduling posts to multiple platforms. However, I get the best results when I plan my posts in a Word or a Google document for review and approval and then post them directly into the social media platform or schedule them through the social media platform’s scheduler. Although this process is more time-consuming, the quality and reliability are better than they are when social media management tools are used. I don’t have to worry about broken connections stopping my post from going out, images displaying incorrectly and broken links, among other issues that can happen with social media management tools.
Departments that don’t have the time to build out a social media presence on a platform can use influencers to help to reach audiences on the platform. For a fee (usually based on the influencer’s audience size), an influencer will promote the department and its volunteer opportunities.
Departments also can buy ads through other companies, such as Audacy and iHeart, which will use their social media presence or their influencers to push recruitment ads.
Jenny Bragiel
Jenny Bragiel is the volunteer program manager for the Loudoun County, VA, Combined Fire and Rescue System (LC-CFRS). In her role with LC-CFRS, she focuses on the recruitment and retention of volunteers, volunteer benefits and HR processes. Previously, she worked in the LC-CFRS Public Information Office as a communications specialist. Before working for LC-CFRS, Bragiel worked for the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) as staff liaison to the Volunteer and Combination Officers Section and as a program specialist with the IAFC’s Volunteer Workforce Solutions. She has a bachelor’s degree in international relations and a Master of Arts in European and Eurasian Studies with a specialization in international security policy from George Washington University. Bragiel is the founder of Bragiel Global Consulting and is an international presenter who specializes in branding, marketing, and storytelling in the digital realm.
