Industry humor and fun

Philadelphia Police Blew Up Social Media with Its Most Viral Job Ad Ever

Recently, the Philadelphia Police Department needed to hire some new patrolmen. It was also around the time Kanye West announced he’s $53 million in debt.

The department decided to seize this opportunity and really get creative with their job posting. So they took to social media. Here are two of their posts:

philadelphia police job ad

The public loved it. A normal Facebook post on the Philadelphia Police Department’s page gets around 20 or 30 likes and a few shares. This one got more than 14,000 likes and more than 9,800 shares.

The department posted on Twitter too, to equal success. A similarly themed Tweet was retweeted more than 26,000 times and liked more than 23,000 times.

philadelphia police job ad

Here were some comments regarding the posts:

philadelphia police job ad
philadelphia police job ad
philadelphia police job ad

Analyzing the posts, Philadelphia Police took a topical issue that people were already talking about, had a funny take off it and it was incredibly popular. Media-types call that “trendjacking,” and it can be a really effective way to help you recruit on social media, if you do it well.

These social media posts probably drew more interest than any other job advertisement the Philadelphia Police Department has run, ever. And, it fortified its employer brand in the process.

So might be an idea worth copying.

*Image from Philadelphia Police

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