Top Strategy Consultants: What is your Twitter strategy?
02.03.2009 von Martin Meyer-Gossner
Kategorie: English Content, Featured Stories, Web Marketing
They are said to be the ‘strategy elite’: top strategy consulting companies. They explain other companies how to define business targets, engage their core value in a tactical manner and improve revenue growth with a strategic vision. Taking this from a communication perspective, it is fair to say that these companies should be aware of what is the latest ‘trend of communication’.
In fast moving times like these a short process of decision making is becoming more and more important. So does communication turn around the word-of-mouth quicker than companies could ever have imagined. And some companies are overwhelmed by the new quick communication trend called micro-blogging.
Top strategy and IT consulting companies are ‘best-of-breed’ business thinkers and first-time movers shaping the future for companies. Their web 2.0 activities can be seen everywhere. Accenture blogs a lot around technology and career topics, the McKinsey blogs can even be explored via a wiki format and Booz Allen Hamilton offers an interesting whitepaper on ‘New Models of Online Consumer Behavior Demand Changes in Corporate Strategy’.
So, why not asking these strategy companies ‘What is your present Twitter strategy?’ The Strategy Web did it… Sending those companies a brief email has opened up a world of ‘light and shadow’ which shall be shared with you. What can companies learn from top consultants around Twitter? Do these companies run their brand account? What does the account tell us about the intention to run it?
So let’s see how far they are with Twitter. Today, we will start with the top strategy consultants – the view on top IT consultants will follow tomorrow…
Top strategy consultants (in alphabetical order)
The questions that The Strategy Web asked these companies were like… Do you have a branded corporate Twitter account (brand account), how do you use it and what is your strategy behind it? Please find the answers, some were translated into English by The Strategy Web …
Company Account
twitter.com/Accenture
The manager behind the Accenture account is Antonio Altamirano, an internet marketing expert who drives Accenture’s social media programs. The expected answer came from him when asked on Accenture’s social media strategy: “…we are not commenting on the strategy around social media (…) at some point Accenture will be ready to share but not at this point.” It did not come as a surprise, did it? Strategy consulting companies always keep their secrets around their know-how and capabilities. Fair enough…
Summary
Their Twitter conversation is open, natural and business like, Accenture publishes PR messages around their testimonial Tiger Woods, promotes their co-operations with strategic partners and shares their research reports. This company Twitter stream is informative, interesting and educating. A real must ‘following’ for corporate strategists…
Company Account
None – brand account options available.
A.T. Kearney replied quick and short: “There is no intention to use Twitter, although we monitor new communication opportunities and channels. The Twitter story is not really on our radar.” (Frank Schroeder, Marketing & Communications)
Summary
The first Google result I found when I was searching for ‘at kearney twitter’ is funny… and I am sure (and hope) A.T.Kearney loves this joke. Well, don’t worry. A.T. Kearney still has the option to reply with a company brand account as this one seems to be still available. If I was A.T. Kearney, I would take it asap…
Company Account
None – brand account options available.
Even shorter feedback from PR team: No account, no usage, no intention.
Summary
The brand account is gone but there is another chance here and my advice is… We all know, right? Why giving away a nice brand value which you can own for free?
Company Account
None – brand account options available.
“As we don’t use Twitter for company purposes, we cannot give any appraisal to this topic and will read your post with interest.” (Maike Zander, Press Relations)
Summary
There was an interesting development when I created this post. When I started to create it, the account twitter/boston was busy in use but when I checked it some days later, it was suspended. Now, we don’t know why and don’t want to spread any rumors but if Boston cannot get this account, there is obviously another option for a brand account.
Company Account
None – brand account options difficult.
“We don’t twitter right now and there is no Booz & Company Twitteraccount. Please understand that we cannot give any information on our future strategy.”(Robert Ardelt, Manager Marketing & Communications)
Summary
Sounds like Accenture but Booz & Company is far behind in terms of social media development. There two options for a brand account are gone, here and here. Or is the second one already owned by a company member? Interested to see what happens in the future…
Company Account
twitter.com/capgemini
“Twitter is amongst all the different social media a really interesting approach which changes the communication- and therefore also information behavior intensly” (Achim Schreiber, Marketing & Communications). The Capgemini CTO also runs a CTO Twitter account , also tweeting on consulting topics.
Summary
Capgemini uses Twitter as a communication tool to talk with alliance partners, clients, employees and last but not least to keep in touch with competitors (!). At Capgemini Twitter and blogs are media formats that the company supports, and the company encourages employees to take part in the conversation. Nevertheless, Capgemini sees b2b communication in early stages. Real-time communication will become more important in the next years, is their opinion.
Company Account
twitter.com/Deloitte
“Social media channels are providing Deloitte firms the ability to engage in meaningful discussions with clients (B2B), people, and communities thereby effectively providing a knowledge portal that will help drive our ongoing business success. By thinking innovatively about communications, and using innovative technologies such as social media, Deloitte can harness the best thinking of an entire universe. The dialogue these channels facilitate is very powerful and they are clearly changing the way our organization approaches both internal and external communications.” (Katrin Henschel, Marketing & Communication)
Summary
What a powerful statement! If we look behind the scenes, there is minor activity visible and a certain lack of authenticity. If a strategy consultant talks about the top 10 media trends (including Twitter), shouldn’t you then also ‘live and breath’ digitally what you are praying? The Twitter account does not show many posts, and not many followers as a consequence. The users may argue for themselves.
Company Account
twitter.com/McKQuarterly
The short statement that we got from the German marketing team is that the McKinsey Quarterly is using Twitter alongside other communication channels to alert their readers to their content and start conversations about it.
Summary
It sounds like a pr statement but the brand account lives the cluetrain manifest. The Twitter account seems like in an arms-length with the pr and marketing department strategy. And there is a lot of expertise to share collective McKinsey wisdom. The content is helpful, informative and of strategic value for executives. Unlikely that more than 5.300 followers follow a wrong track… Obviously there is no interest and necessity in the brand account which somebody else offers…
Company Account
None – brand account options available.
“We monitor the Twitter community and detect that this form of communication becomes more and more popular. Right now, Twitter is in a hype-phase, primarily used in private environment with more less than meaningful content. Up to now, we have not seen any reasonable Twitter ideas, so that the added value does not open up for us as a consulting house.” (Birgit Eckmueller, Head of Corporate Communications & Marketing)
Summary
We do not want to comment on this. There is definitely an option to get a brand account still…
Company Account
twitter.com/OliverWyman
“Twitter and other social media initiatives are innovative channels we are engaging to provide a deeper connection to our professional community and insights. In fact, we have been monitoring our company and brand on Twitter for quite some time and recognize the value it can have to our professional corporate communications for strategy consultants as a platform for knowledge (e.g. corporate news, links to industry studies, research findings and case studies) and direct communication.” (Pierre Deraëd, Leiter Corporate Communications und Marketing)
Summary
The approach by Oliver Wyman (formerly known as Mercer Consulting) is predominately contributing to a marketing (and pr) message. Their Twitter stream seems not to follow the intention to communicate with clients, partners or competitors but still they are engaging key thought leaders within their tweets. The obvious intention is to raise the level of immediacy, authenticity and influence to their insights and activities. Planned are activities like blogs in the near future as they see here a great potential for a knowledge exchange.
Spot On!
The different opinions that top strategy consulting companies gave, mirror the completely different perspectives that businesses have when evaluating Twitter for business. I had one more comment from another big strategy consulting company but decided to carve the company description out. ‘In our company we don’t use any Twitter forums’. Hm…. Twitter definitely made a case and yes, there is some stupid talk going on in the streams – not forums… but usually not in the business ones.
There are numerous companies that have shown how to make this new communication tool efficient for daily business. Need examples? Dell (96.000+ followers!)offers discounts for followers, Zappos does in services and Asos shows an exclusive preview on their new fashion community only for followers. So, customer service and customer care are key in a world where social brands are exchangeable for customers. Twitter offers companies another big transparency option: Showing customers what companies think about customer valuation – and clients love that, don’t we?
PS: If any other strategy consultants have Twitter accounts, feel free to share… and if one of the named companies took the advice and got one of the accounts, please share as well, ok? Come on, be humans…
Michael Leander am 02.03.2009 11:14
Now Martin, that was a very original piece of journalistic work. I liked that one, but won’t comment on the contents for now.
Keep up the good work.
News Update – Best of the Day am 18.12.2009 10:05
[...] Tigers sponsoring partner for years. Antonio Altamirano has been my point of contact for the Top Strategy Consultants: What is your Twitter strategy? post. He contacted me as he is not working for Accenture anymore. Here is is excellent post about [...]
Suyati am 25.09.2010 11:47
Nice comprehensive list! The listed firms are well known strategy cosultant firms through out the globe. However I’m not sure how good they are in social media strategy consulting services. We’re often bombarded with information on how to get the most out of our social media strategy, whether it’s ROI, awareness or creating a community. But is a social media strategy suitable for every business? Should your business interact on the big three: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn?
Martin Meyer-Gossner am 28.09.2010 12:21
In my opinion it always depends on the business model the company has in place, the clients they are working together with and the products they are selling. Every social media strategy should focus on the main aim of the business, not on the social tactics they are using.
Dave (@TweetSmarter) am 01.02.2011 00:56
Looks like ATKearney joined Twitter right as you were contacting them, despite their denial!
Martin Meyer-Gossner am 01.02.2011 16:05
Fantastic observation! There you can see how a blogger can “wake and shake” a big brand …?! Can we really believe they started on Twitter just the day I published this blog post? Could make sense to have a word with them…