Recruiters have been urged to develop a social networking strategy to engage candidates before ploughing into the next big thing online.

At a workshop at Penna Barker’s London offices, John Davis, digital strategist at Penna Barkers, told audience members that social networking sites should form the last part of the strategy development process. “Don’t start with a Twitter feed. Work out who you are taking to and what you want to achieve and where the content is going to come from and then work out where you are going to put it.

“If you have a content strategy rather than a Facebook strategy then that content can be repurposed. If you shoot a video, it can go on Facebook, YouTube etc. If you just develop content for Facebook without thinking about the others you don’t have that reusability factor.”

Davis added that recruiters need to understand where candidates like to go online and whether they create or consume content before working out the objectives of using social networking.

“Once you know your objectives, work out your strategy of how you are going to achieve your objectives and how you are going to get there. You need to work out what content to develop and where you are going to get it. Once you have the content, you can work out your tools.”