Whenever Facebook launches a new product, it threatens an existing tech business. With its videos, it took away views from Youtube. With its ads it hurt Google’s ad revenue. Now Facebook is looking to threaten Linkedin with a native ‘Jobs’ feature.
First spotted by Tech Crunch on its own page, Facebook has silently dropped an option to create a ‘Job’ listing on business pages on Facebook. The feature is in rollout phase now and select Pages can see the option. But it’s looking like Facebook is set to disrupt yet another industry.
Under the jobs category, business pages admins can create customized job listings within the page with an option to describe the job, pay at offer, whether part or full time, amongst others. The job listings can then further be promoted with spends to reach a wider or more targeted set of audience. Notably Facebook has in its possession a large number of user data going as narrow as people’s past roles, employers, interests and preferences. Prospective employers can create ‘jobs’ ads to reach out to this segment.
While it’ll be an additional source of revenue for Facebook, businesses too stand to gain from the feature as prospective job aspirants for the company can ‘like’ a page to keep an eye open for new openings as they roll out on Facebook.
Linkedin, the biggest global professional networking platform, will undoubtedly feel threatened with the move. It has about 400 million users; Facebook has over a billion. If Facebook starts doubling up as a job search and professional-interests-furthering website, it could eat into Linkedin’s market share. Facebook’s entry into jobs will also make dedicated job portals very nervous.
And it’s not just jobs. Facebook has, over the last few months, made that it clear that it intends to enter events, marketplace, and even food ordering and movie ticket booking markets. Zuckerberg now clearly doesn’t think of Facebook as just a social network – he’s planning to turn Facebook into a mini version of the internet.