It's a rave. It's a buzz. It's the hep-cat, king-daddy of the moment: social media recruiting.
Maybe there's a reason for it. All the hub-a-bub-bub, that is. We don't know yet - trouble with developing metrics for a new ad medium is you're still figuring out what actions within that medium are the ones that actually drive results. Now, there are some companies working on this. Crowe Horwath is proving it can be done, and Laurie Ruettimann is building a list. It's getting done - and since you're one smart cookie, and read industry blogs to keep up with your industry, you'll probably help work on all that measuring.
That said - let's assume the gut's correct: it works. Why? What is it about this medium that has all those recruiters all excited?
It's fairly simple: recruiters are hunters. Used to be, figuring out where to connect with candidates was like hunting in the deep forest. With social media, things change - now we have an idea where the watering holes are, and that makes life so much easier. If you'd rather look at it from a more humanistic perspective, think about it in terms of tribes (TribeHQ is building a business off of this - and they're smart folks, so...). As groups in LinkedIn, Facebook, etc allow us to tribalize by interests, smart recruiters will be watching. Heck, in the best cases, they'll be creating the groups in the first place.
Think about it - if you recruit, say, actuaries, have you started a discussion group for actuaries on LinkedIn? What about one for people 
who like chess, baseball, and gambling (hint, hint: the intersection of that particular Venn diagram would say "Actuaries!"). You can do it - repeat (and say it like this guy): You. Can. Do. It. The "It" in this case is: creating a spot where people who are interested in will gather and talk. Get some conversations going initially, just to prime things (don't use these as direct recruiting post, ever). Sit back, keep sponsoring the group, watch activity, who seems interesting, etc. Post jobs to the jobs tab. Get the people there comfortable with you, while getting to know the players and learning more about your candidates' industry.
You're the recruiter - I imagine you can take it from here.
