Cairns and Hinterland health organisation needed to attract a wider pool of job applicants. With the help of some team members and myself, we conducted an online recruitment campaign that promotes the environment and lifestyle in Far North Queensland. We focused on Facebook and Instagram channels.

Having done very little of this style of work, I was excited to branch out and give this a try.

I developed the creative concept of, 'life in the tropics', to portray the picturesque locations and activities in the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (HHS) region. Taking components from other successful campaigns, we featured staff members in iconic locations. The concept was to emphasise the ideal work/life balance in Far North Queensland by creating an immersive sense for the characters in the images; a balance between a generic tourist photo and a high-quality recruitment campaign! Utilising the picturesque locations around the region the focus was to demonstrate ‘you too could LIVE here’ not just 'visit us on your next vacation' message.

With a mixture of photos and videos, we were able to create a representation of life in the Cairns region and the opportunities available living here.

Our objectives

• To build interest in and awareness of working in Cairns Hospital and region.
• To generate a greater number of job applicants, particularly in the high need areas.
• We also wanted to build recognition and pride with our staff
• The digital advertising objective was to encourage click-throughs to the landing page of the Cairns and Hinterland HHS website which would then continue to the job application process. 

The Creative

• A series of high quality 'hero' photographs, of staff, holding the #healthupnorth sign.
• Accompanying photographs of staff conversing and enjoying the 'far north Queensland experience'
• A small 90-second video of each staff member being interviewed describing their life in and outside their work. 
• A small internal Instagram campaign to encourage staff to photograph their version of "life in the far north"

The Plan

The online campaign was based on paid social media advertisements (sponsored posts) on Facebook and Instagram platforms with an Australia-wide Nationally and New Zealand location target. Additionally, we boosted the same posts to our followers on our local CHHHS Facebook page and Instagram site encouraging shares and engagement with current followers. The posts were also featured on our LinkedIn page (no paid advertising).

To generate internal momentum with our staff for the campaign, we encouraged staff to snap and submit their best and most creative #HealthUpNorth photo for sharing on our Instagram platform, to show off the lifestyle and work/life balance. Some of these were also shared on our social media. A great prize was donated as a reward for a more creative and relevant photograph. 

Technical Skills

This was the first time I had taken part in such a digital campaign. From coordinating the creative to understanding and implementing the delivery. 

I was able to research and learn in detail some Facebook and social media marketing techniques, learning about various methods and ensuring I was targeting the right audience. The plan was to target educated and experienced health professionals, who also have an affinity with the great outdoors (because it's in abundance in the far north). I was then able to play with various campaign types, some encouraging engagement, video views, and/or click-throughs.

In addition to the photographs, I was able to put together a number of short videos. This was a fun experience, interviewing the employees, then working with them in their work environment, to capture secondary footage, as well as teaming up with Tourism Queensland to use their available stock footage. The result was fantastic, with some video's getting up to 34,009 engagements. 

Internal Staff campaign

Parallel to the key #healthupnorth campaign and in order to build some momentum with staff recognition, we put together an internal competition for the best Instagram pic and adding the "#healthupnorth" to their photo.

With the task to "take a snapshot of your best work/life balance living in FNQ" a chosen winner (judged by the CE and communications team) would receive a donated prize. The competition received approximately 250 posts, and an increase of approximately 300 followers on our (then newly created) Instagram page

The campaign reached 375,000 people over the 2 months across Australia and New Zealand.

40% of people who were shown an advertisement on their social media profile, engaged with it (either by sharing, commenting, watching etc.) (This also means that the advertisement creative was relevant to the target audience.)

Videos were among the most engaging posts. As a result, 7,100 people clicked through for further information. This is a 2.3% conversion rate. (The average social media conversion rate is 0.71% across all industry).