Recruitment advertising is a great way to attract talent. However, your advertising strategy should be supplemented with an active presence on social media.

The fact of the matter is that advertising will get you the attention of active job seekers. These are the people who are currently seeking a job, either because they are out of work or they’re looking to make a change.

However, passive job seekers are worth their weight in gold. These are people who are open to making a change, but they’re not actively looking for a job. The reason that they are so important to your recruitment process is that they are already people who are in demand. They’re also working for a company that, by all appearances, is happy with their performance.

SEE ALSO: Social Recruiting: How Social Media Can Help You Find the Best Job Applicants

Reach Passive Job Seekers On Social Media

You have a much better chance at reaching passive job seekers with a social media presence than you do with advertising. People are much more likely to check their social media accounts frequently than they are to click on a job search advertisement, especially when they’re not actively looking for a job.

Also, you have the opportunity to establish a relationship with passive job seekers via social media. You’re going to have difficulty building relationships with simple job listings.

How To Use Social Media

How should you use social media? For starters, use LinkedIn to build relationships with people who possess a skill set relevant to your recruiting efforts. You’ll find that people on LinkedIn actually expect recruiters to establish a connection with them, so it’s a great opportunity for you to build your network.

You can also use Twitter to build relationships with passive candidates. Twitter is great because all of your updates (tweets, in this case) must be under 140 characters. So, Twitter is an excellent way for you to provide a quick update and also quickly read the updates of the people that you follow.

The best thing to do on social media, as with anywhere else, is to practice the Golden Rule. Provide help, when needed, to people who follow you, even it doesn’t immediately benefit you. Use social media to pay it forward, and you’ll have the added advantage of looking charitable in front of your online friends.

Remember, one of the important principles of offline networking is to build business relationships when you don’t need them. That way, when you do find yourself in need of assistance, you can reach out to people who are already in your network.

The same principle holds true for online networking as well. Use social media to build business relationships, especially with passive candidates, when you don’t need them. Then, when you find that you have an opening, you can review the qualifications of your online friends and determine who might be the best fit.

Social media is a great tool for networking. As a professional recruiter, you should leverage the various social media channels every day to build your business.