It’s easy to think social media is a trivial diversion, ideal for 20-something’s with an addiction to technology and too much time on their hands. However, recruiters are embracing new technology in the social media arena to gain the best candidates for open positions. No matter the objection, companies need to ensure that they are still able to get good candidates identified through social media.

In today’s day and age, top recruiters need to be able to effectively recruit with social media to continue to brand as top talent destination with serious substance. Luckily, some best practices have emerged that make a social media recruiting process a bit easier.

Especially when you’re looking college recruiting or recruiting passive talent for a company, social media can’t be overlooked. 2012 will be an enchanting year to see how new recruiting offerings will impact the marketplace using Facebook’s social graph as its back end. Today, BranchOut is best known for this integration, though many other applicant tracking systems and recruiting programs have a feature that utilizes Facebook for sourcing functions and connecting people with jobs.

If your organization is looking to dip their toes into the social media pool, start with following tips to add some substance beyond the hype:

• Be aware of your audience — If you’re struggling to find mid-to-senior level executives, social media might not be a place to start your search. However, if you need entry-level, tech-savvy candidates, utilizing Facebook or Twitter will be critical collection for attracting that talent.
• Incorporate video — When recruiting those in Generation Y, consider using a video to share your company and demonstrate things that set you apart from other companies. Using attention-grabbing content in your video will position your company as forward-thinking, helping to attract the best talent.
• Think big — Let’s start ‘big picture’ and then focus in on social media itself. It seems to me that the big issue facing recruiters is the fact talent sourcing will become increasingly fragmented. Years ago, we got our candidates from newspaper advertising. Period. That was basically it. Then we had choice between newspapers and online job boards. In the future, it’s going to be far more fluid and far more dynamic. Today’s whiz-bang social networking phenomena will be replaced by something else in time. And that new medium, in turn, will be superseded by something even more appealing and pervasive.

Sourcers have to be super dexterous, tuned-in, and flexible when it comes to sourcing talent, or we could be fishing for candidates in a dead pond before we know it.

The bottom line when attracting top employees with social media is to always safeguard out greatest skills as a gifted recruiter: attracting top candidates with solid communication as its backbone. Social media should be a pivotal member to your recruiting strategy.