Read RI5's review of the SoMe Conference, January 2013.

Welcome to this year's Graduate Recruitment Social Media (SoMe) Conference & Awards, 10th January 2013, still the only one of its kind in the UK.

The key aim of the conference and awards ceremony is to demonstrate how graduate recruiters can successfully use this vital new media in order to enhance their campaigns.

The conference will open with some significant research from The Potential Park Group, looking at the Savvy SoMe student across Europe and how they are using these new platforms and services. This will be followed with a further piece of research from AIA/Milkround who will consider year-on-year trends based on a repeat of the survey from last year which will have been completed again by this year’s cohort. Thought leaders from the industry will be asked to give their views on how to best introduce LinkedIn, Twitter and facebook in a graduate recruitment strategy.

We will have several Master Classes from last year’s award winners. We will hear from the winners of best use of a single social media platform, best use of Twitter and best blogger relations (Centrica, Eversheds and Grant Thornton respectively.)

After lunch the conference will turn its attention to the use of mobile in conjunction with an organisation’s social media strategy. We will start with what this year’s Mobile Report, from C-Disc, can tell us about student mobile usage in terms of what they think of mobile apps and how they use them.

Educate will then go one step further and share the findings from their research which has looked into exactly how UK graduates use mobile.

We will then look at a case study from Thales and see how mobile technology fits into their media mix?

The day will end with a little hearted, but informative balloon debate – 'This House believes that if you are not doing mobile, then you are not doing social media!'.

In conclusion, as last year, the aim of the conference is to help graduate recruiters to 'educate-demonstrate-implement'.

All attendees will leave the conference armed with a greater insight on how to use SoMe products and platforms to help improve their own graduate recruitment strategy. They will have learnt how other organisations have successfully navigated these new waters, and will be better prepared for internal battles they may be facing to educate their peers and managers as to why and how they need to embrace the SoMe offerings into their strategy going forward.