The war to bring career opportunities to Facebook’s over 750 million users is on in a big way here at SHRM Conference.
Sunday, Monster launched BeKnown, an app that lets Facebook users harness their social graph to find a new job. If this sounds familiar, its because it is exactly what BranchOut has been offering since its public launch in January.
Tom Chevalier, the product manager for BeKnown at Monster, told me that they created BeKnown in response to the demand from their users on Facebook. However, Monster views this as an answer to LinkedIn and BranchOut, and also an opportunity to extend the reach of its existing job network. In fact, Tom just changed his job title on LinkededIn to Product Manager yesterday, but his Twitter bio still reads “Job Distribution Strategy @ Monster.”
Both Beknown and BranchOut have elements of the traditional job board in their offerings. They both plan to gather more job postings native to their applications, but right now both are relying on sources that are outside their apps for job listings — BeKnown lets users search Monster’s jobs, while Branchout relies on Indeed to backfill their job listings. They also let users connect to each to network their way into a job. They feel very much like LinkedIn circa early 2008.
At the time, LinkedIn had been criticized as being too static — a place where people “connected” professionally and maintained a resume, but did little else. Since then, the company has extended its offerings to better engage its users, most notably with the runaway success of LinkedIn Groups in August 2008 and more recently the launch of LinkedIn Daily in March of this year. The user base interacts more frequently on LinkedIn now, and this propelled the site past the 100 million user mark earlier this year.
BranchOut and BeKnown have both embraced game mechanics to incentivize Facebook users to use their respective services, but as they exist today, it is hard to see how they are going to get that kind of repeat use. These services call themselves social networks, but will users use them to truly network their way into jobs? Or are they just a clever way to latch on to Facebook’s incredible user base to grow very traditional job boards, with most of the actual use in the form of job searches and viewing employer profiles?
When I spoke with CEO Rick Marini, he touted this chart of BranchOut’s monthly app users as evidence that its growth has exploded since they made some changes a few weeks ago to make the product “less spammy.”
The growth is impressive. (BeKnown just launched Sunday, so there is no comparable chart, but right now Facebook says that there are 6,434 monthly users.)
But there’s another chart that’s also interesting — it’s the percent of those monthly BranchOut app users that have been coming back each day. And it looks like most of those new users are not sticking around for long.
BranchOut and BeKnown are both interesting offerings, but if they are going to effectively compete with LinkedIn, they are going to have to follow in LinkedIn’s footsteps and find a way to build a more lasting connection with Facebook’s users.
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Facebook Wars: BeKnown & BranchOut Take on LinkedIn « « RecruitersNation RecruitersNation Jun 28, 2011 at 6:58 pm
[...] print [...]
Beknown – A Monster Using Facebook To Attack LinkedIn | The Social Recruitment Guide Jun 28, 2011 at 8:35 pm
[...] I’ll stop from writing another review – you’ll see too many of them over the coming days, and besides, I think it’s already been done by others who have gone deeper than I would have. Here are my favourites so far, representing the supportive from Megan Biro of Talent Culture, to the critical by Josh Constantine of InsideFacebook, to perhaps the most balanced by David Manaster of ERE Media [...]
GE MCS Jun 29, 2011 at 12:57 am
Very nice analysis and find it a good article…
Regards,
GE Measurement & Control Solutions
5 Recruitment Marketing Articles of the Week 6.25.11 to 7.1.11 « Recruitment Marketing Innovation, Technology and Ideas Jul 1, 2011 at 11:13 am
[...] Facebook Wars: BeKnown & Branchout by David Manaster (@DManaster) [...]
Game On! LinkedIn Fires Next Shot in War for the Career Social Graph - ERE.net Jul 2, 2011 at 12:13 am
[...] we’ve reported, both services are designed to leverage Facebook’s social graph and more than 750 million users [...]
David Smooke Jul 22, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Great Source.
Here’s an update on “The Battle for The Professional Network”
http://www.smartrecruiters.com/static/blog/evolution-of-internet-recruiting/
Does BranchOut Have the Muscle to Take On LinkedIn and a Crowed Social Media Landscape? – The Buzz Bin Aug 5, 2011 at 9:05 am
[...] But the company extended its offerings to better engage its users, most notably with the runaway success of LinkedIn Groups in August 2008 and more recently the launch of LinkedIn Daily in March of this year. The user base interacts more frequently on LinkedIn now, reports ere.net. [...]
Monster Speaks Out About BeKnown & BranchOut Comparisons @ #SHRM11… | Fistful of Talent Oct 10, 2011 at 5:04 pm
[...] folk yesterday. Obviously, our friends at Monster took notice. Not just to us necessarily, as the comparisons have been hitting the blogosphere and press… but what I think may have struck a chord with Monster were the sweeping statements saying [...]
LinkedIn Opens Conference Amid a Changing Social World - ERE.net Oct 17, 2011 at 6:13 pm
[...] the five months since LinkedIn went in May the world has changed. Google launched a social network, Monster launched BeKnown, a careers network, BranchOut, a startup careers network, announced a partnership with [...]
BeKnown – професионална мрежа во Facebook | iBrand Nov 3, 2011 at 7:41 pm
[...] веб сајтови и платформи за понудата на работни места и според некои експерти многу наликуваат на тоа што LinkedIn го нудеше во 2008. Тогаш [...]
Comparaison entre BranchOut et BeKnown | HRevolution Aug 10, 2012 at 5:30 am
[...] BeKnown et BranchOut sont donc partis pour se lancer dans une vraie bataille sur Facebook tout en menant une véritable guerre avec un 3ème larron qui n’est autre que Linkedin comme le décrit très bien l’article Facebook Wars: BeKnown & BranchOut Take on LinkedIn. [...]
Beknown – A Monster Using Facebook To Attack LinkedIn | Hung Lee Mar 29, 2013 at 2:30 pm
[...] I’ll stop from writing another review – you’ll see too many of them over the coming days, and besides, I think it’s already been done by others who have gone deeper than I would have. Here are my favourites so far, representing the supportive from Megan Biro of Talent Culture, to the critical by Josh Constine of InsideFacebook, to perhaps the most balanced by David Manaster of ERE Media [...]