Social networking and microsites are becoming recognised by employers and recruiters as effective campaigns for broadening the search for candidates.

More and more, businesses are starting to come around to the opportunities that social media can offer, not only for recruitment benefits in the short term, but for long-term brand awareness.

CEO of Employer Brand International Brett Minchington said that social media, like job boards, newspapers and employee referrals, need to be part of an integrated recruitment strategy and measured for business impact.

"Over the past couple of years we've seen social media success stories from companies such as Sodexo, EA, Starbucks, Ford, Adidas and IBM, who have not only saved significant recruitment costs, they have also used social media to build market reach and tap deeper into the passive global candidate talent pool to reach candidates that previously would have been too costly or difficult to reach," he said.

One campaign which has proved a success is integrated marketing firm Ellis Jones' Treescaper campaign for Citywide (www.treescapers.com.au), which aimed to attract skilled arborists and strengthen the employer's brand awareness. In the first month alone, the campaign recorded a 1,200% increase in arborist applications and 700 visits from networks across 13 targeted countries.

Kate Crawshaw, online engagement director at Ellis Jones, agrees that social network recruitment also presents long-term benefits. "While immediate recruitment of arborists was front of mind, Citywide has a longer term goal of growing Treescapers as a destination for all arborists, using it as a platform for implementing a targeted employer of choice strategy," she said.

The campaign asked the employees, not the company, to tell the story of what it's like on the job - the camaraderie, the benefits and the challenges of being an arborist. "By asking employees questions about their work - what they like about it and why - the company gained a range of insights that fed directly into marketing and communication," said Crawshaw.

Developing a brand is not just about creating Facebook and Twitter accounts and writing the occasional post, it's about building market reach and reinforcing the image you want your organisation to present to the public and to potential candidates, said Minchington.

"New media allows for deeper insights into the people behind the brands and an opportunity for companies to engage with candidates on a more personal level than through traditional methods such as newspapers and job boards," he said.

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