What #winning means for our Social Recruiting

{ 07/10/2011 @ 3:15 pm } · { Awards, Creativity, Effectiveness, Recruitment, Social Media, Social recruiting }
{ Tags: Awards, Digi Awards, Recruitment, Social Media, Social Recruiting }

It means so much to us. And last Tuesday night, when we were awarded Best Use of Social Networking and the overall Grand Prix at the Digi Awards 2011, it felt extremely rewarding. For the past couple of years, we’ve been promoting, persuading, experimenting and learning what it takes to create successful Social Recruiting campaigns for many of our clients. It’s hard work, it’s challenging but ultimately it’s worth it. (Think that’s enough clichés for now.)

Winning those two awards on Tuesday, showed us three things.

One, that creativity in social recruiting is much more than producing social games or apps – and this saw it recognised against the creative might of agencies such as AMV BBDO and Ogilvy. After all, our creativity for the winning storyliners campaign was the ability to write ‘ads’ in 140 characters, while the strategy played on the strengths of each social media channel.

Secondly, that it’s not all about budgets. (We’ve always believed that – it doesn’t matter how much, or little, you have to spend it’s what you do with it that counts.) Ours was probably the smallest budget in the shortlist – especially compared to the spending power of Aviva, O2 and the Met police – so it kind of proved our belief.

And thirdly, that if you take social recruiting out of the recruitment and HR arena, it can stand proud in social media against any marketing campaign. At times, the recruitment world becomes so obsessed about whether it’s right or wrong, how to do it or what not to do – that it can forget what social recruiting can actually achieve.

Then there is one more reason why it means so much. It rewards the faith of clients, like ITV, who are prepared to test the waters of social media for recruitment. Where they have seen the benefits and results but now have gained the recognition that they deserve.