Companies are being urged to start appointing dedicated 'social media managers' if they are to continue to attract a talented workforce. TMS Asia Pacific, who deal with recruitment and HR services for the travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, say companies that ensure they have a social media manager on the HR team will have a definite advantage in the 'war for talent'. "Gen Y candidates are attracted by organisations that empower them to be individuals, are socially responsible and promote work life balance," said CEO Andrew Chan. "I've seen some very clever campaigns from hotel companies ensuring these types of messages are clearly carried across to potential candidates and we are starting to see a huge increase in the number of job advertisements appearing through the likes of Facebook and Twitter." Mr Chan said the key advantage of using social media as a recruitment channel was that it was instantaneous, was extremely cost effective and importantly, gave employers the opportunity to interact with potential candidates via far richer and more highly targeted media than traditional channels. "Judging by the speed with which this ubiquitous social media phenomenon has taken a grip on the recruitment process, I think it's highly likely - and timely too - that very soon many employers within our sector will be creating dedicated 'Social Media Manager' roles in order to ensure they are keeping abreast of their competition as the 'war for talent' continues to intensify. Managing director of HR Partners David Owens is not surprised that the role of dedicated social media manager is on the agenda, nor that it has fallen under the HR umbrella. "I think we're seeing a lot more involvement in communications by HR professionals, particularly internal comms and externally around employer branding," he said. "It doesn't surprise me at all that social media should be a concept that's discussed and/or influenced somewhat by HR professionals." Owens is quick to point out the benefits of having a dedicated position to manage all social media activity, rather than spreading the work between several employees. "The person who represents your organisation online should be across the overall strategy. He/she should be knowledgeable of that overall strategy and why that organisation is using social media; for what purposes it's using it; and indeed, be trained in the usage of that media," he said. "You might find you'll be able to control the crispness of the message if your message is going to market through fewer pairs of hands." "There's some lessons being learned and there's probably a fair few people standing to one side right now, looking at who's doing what, how effective it is and what the risks are and how they can best profit themselves from the opportunities this can present, or doesn't present, as the case may be."