Accenture Social Media Analysis

Accenture Social Media Analysis MKT 436 Ian Cartmill Zach Crawford Edwin Huang Tyler Whitsett Introduction Accenture PLC is one of the leading consulting firms in the country and has developed an extensive social media platform to expand its reach in the business world. Accenture currently has a network of social media across many platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Through Facebook and Twitter, Accenture segments its markets by region, type of service, and career options by making a Facebook page or Twitter account exclusively for that market. With Accenture’s YouTube page, a wide variety of videos ranging from video blogs to educational content on company growth. Finally, through LinkedIn, Accenture profiles its different services as well as connects with professionals who would be looking for their services. In addition to the traditional social media sites, Accenture operates many different applications through Facebook, iTunes, Google Play as well as its own online publication, Outlook. After a description, an analysis will be given to measure the performance of Accenture’s social media’s efforts. Finally, recommendations will be given on how Accenture can improve their efforts to reach a wider audience. Social Media Description Accenture’s Facebook and Twitter presence is extremely large which is shown by the numerous pages on these sites. Currently, Accenture has over â€Å"40 different pages on Facebook and 30 different Twitter handles† (A1), each catering to a particular market. About half of these pages are targeted based on the region or country in order to provide information exactly aimed a country’s business environment. Within each of the country’s pages, discussions and interactions occur with customers and users through contests, interviews, philanthropic endeavors in the region done by Accenture, and information the company provides on different industries. Usually the country’s page will display resume opportunity linksin order to keep acquiring new talent for the company. If career opportunities are not listed on this page, an individual career page is listed to provide information on career opportunities at Accenture in that region. On Accenture’s main Facebook and Twitter pages, different examples of management, operations, marketing, and other strategies are presented so all customers can see the level of analysis they will receive from an Accenture team. Also, articles written by Accenture are shown on the pages that range from work events to in depth stories on industry trends constantly are posted weekly. Finally, the last sets of pages on Facebook and Twitter are used to provide customers with an in-depth look into the different services provided by Accenture. For example, the Sustainability Services Facebook page provides links to articles and case studies on sustainability in a business in order to reduce cost and create efficiencies (http://www. facebook. com/accenturesustainabilityservices). They also engage their customers and users through surveys, games and other actions that keep users coming back to their page. In addition to Accenture’s Facebook and Twitter pages, YouTube and LinkedIn provide a unique and different way to reach out to their customers. Through their YouTube account, Accenture is able to provide different types of new information to both current and potential new customers with its â€Å"251 videos† (A1). For example, a Capital Markets video blog is used to describe different topics related to capital markets and the process of managing the risks with them. In another set of videos, a video podcast shows different traits of a high performance business model that can be emulated by other companies. All content that is put up on the YouTube account is used to attract new customers to what Accenture does and provide existing clientele insights as to how Accenture’s strategies can better their companies. This is a more casual look at Accenture’s customer attraction actions. For a more formal approach to gaining new customers and staying connected with current clients, LinkedIn is utilized. With LinkedIn, Accenture can professionally show their â€Å"core competencies as well as present customer recommendations and feedback† (LinkedIn). They also demonstrate their corporate culture through employee reviews and insight. To go along with Facebook and Twitter, they also have a careers page to continue acquiring talent in every medium possible. Beyond the typical social media realms in which most companies are involved in, Accenture has also grown into new areas that differentiate themselves in the social media marketing. This is done through Accenture’s online journal, Outlook, and the development of apps to further their marketing efforts. Outlook provides a unique connection to existing and potential customers by giving articles that can be anything from industry specific trends or news to skill and service actions. This demonstrates the level of expertise Accenture can provide to new customers, and assist in providing additional offerings to their current customers. Finally, after all traditional online forms of social media are exhausted; Accenture also provides many of the same marketing sites in the form of mobile apps for the iTunes and Google Play markets. This gives customers the ability to see all content and information on the go as most business people are. These applications include a mobile version of Outlook and other service specific applications (Google Play). Social Media Analysis Although Accenture has tapped into the most popular social networks, they don’t utilize them to their full potential. Their main strength across the social networking platforms is the ability to reach current and potential customers, employees, future hires, students, and anyone who might be interested in what Accenture has to offer. An example is their applications through iTunes and Google play. On iTunes they â€Å"have 14 mobile apps and on Google Play they have 11 apps compared to Ernst amp; Young’s 6 apps on iTunes and 3 apps on Google Play† (A1). Some apps are duplicates; some are strictly for employees, while others are for the public. The apps range from a National Postal Forum to Financial Services to Lux in Arcana. Since it is available on iPhone and Android platform, they are targeting the most popular smartphone users. Another metric to consider how large their social network presence is their main Facebook page, Accenture has over â€Å"145,000 likes compared to E amp; Y with 15,000 likes† (A1). With these many options and a well-known presence, they are able to increase their brand awareness and position themselves as knowledge experts in that field. Another strength Accenture has with their social platforms is that they are continuously adding content to them. On their Twitter feed, they â€Å"tweet an average of 66 times a week along with additional links in the message compared to E amp; Y’s 20 tweets a week† (A1). On their Facebook , they post â€Å"39 times a week compared to E amp; Y’s 2 times a week† (A1). More tweets and posts, enables them the opportunity to be noticed more by the market. This is shown through how many Facebook users are talking about them. Accenture has over â€Å"2,000 users posting about them compared to E amp; Y’s 390 users talking about them† (A1). A weakness of their social networks is the lack of integration across the different platforms. An example is their YouTube and Twitter page. In their description, it only provides a link to their home page instead of including their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes store, and Google Play. (About Accenture). After an analysis of their YouTube channel, we determined that they could include more in their descriptions by including a summary of the video, tags, and follow up information. They need to make it easier for users to dive further into Accenture if necessary. Another weakness of their social networking strategy is that it does not incorporate a form of a push/pull strategy. Their current push strategy is not creating an atmosphere of a two way interaction. On their pages, they do not engage or follow up with the users to keep them coming back. Although they ask questions in their tweets, they are not going out of their way to search for potential topics they could enlighten a user about. From comparing Accenture’s social media networks to Ernst and Young’s networks, they both use the same platforms but Accenture has a larger social media presence with more content. In Twitter, Accenture has over 62,000 followers with over 5500 tweets compared to E amp; Y’s 37,000 followers and 2,600 tweets. On LinkedIn, Accenture has over 600,000 followers with 179,000 employees on it compared to E amp; Y’s 364,000 followers and 114,000 employees on LinkedIn. Accenture has the most presence and content in every category except for the amount of YouTube videos they have. Accenture has 251 compared to E amp; Y’s 485. Managerial Recommendations The heart of a successful e-commerce strategy is the ability to attract and engage a potential customer by offering easy access to a variety of different information channels about your company. Although Accenture offers many different informational channels that explain who they are and what services they can offer to potential clients, these channels are not easily accessible. When doing a simple search of Accenture on Google, you initially see a link to Accenture’s website along with a few key words with vague descriptions. In order for Accenture to attract and gain new clients they need to have access points to all of their different social networks. These social media access points will allow Accenture to promote its marketing message to a larger business demographic who will feel more comfortable operating in one of these social media domains. Accenture also needs to do a better job at educating its customer base by explaining who Accenture is as a company and what kind of services they offer to potential clients. As it stands now customers who go on Accenture’s company website have to navigate through web page after web page to find a simple description on which the company is and what services they offer. Accenture’s homepage is full of key words and links to other parts of the company’s website. I would recommend that the include information on value added services that would differentiate itself for competitors. Accenture should elaborate on its many value added services that it has done in the past on projects that reduced cost, improved performance, innovative features, speed responsiveness and customization. These value added services will not only attract and sustain customers it will also help Accenture’s bottom line by causing customers to pay a higher premium for services rendered. Since most of the services that Accenture offers to its customers are intangible they need to do a better job at trying to make their services feel more tangible, instead of just offering detailed, long worded business plans and short, non-descriptive statements on services provided. Accenture could further demonstrate services that they provided to past customers through cost savings graphs, efficiency improvement charts, and customer testimonials. Also, to reduce customer uncertainty and address any questions a potential customer might have I would recommend that Accenture have a live web assistant messaging service on their home page. This service would allow the customers to speak in real time to a customer service representative. These simple tweaks to Accenture’s homepage will reduce some of the unknowns and risk that all customers undoubtedly face when searching for a new company to do business with. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of B2B marketing Accenture should adopt a CRM system like its lead competitor Ernst amp; Young did to manage its client customer base. Ernst amp; Young adopted a CRM software called Aprimo to perform the following functions: targeted direct e-mails, ongoing lead management, inbound interactions via Web form submission, Webcast registration and follow-up, and project management (task assignment and follow-up) for their national and regional marketing teams (Shadick, 2012). Many of the components of the information within Ernst amp; Youngs Aprimo CRM system are shared with customer relationship departments within the firm. For example, opportunities are collected from events, tradeshows, sponsorships, webcast and direct communications, which are then distributed to the appropriate individuals for follow-up (Shadick, 2012). With the adoption of CRM systems like Aprimo, Accenture would have real-time access to client’s interest and inquires allowing them to tailor their response to new and existing client’s needs. Conclusion In Conclusion Accenture is a very dynamic B2B company that utilizes virtually all of the media outlets available to educate and attract new customers. Accenture’s B2B marketing campaign is unique in the fact that it leverages its current ongoing business initiatives with its own customer base through an online Journal called: Outlook. This journal boldly talks about what Accenture is doing now and in the future for its client base. This and many other creative marketing/informational channels that Accenture has created brings assurance and a sense of trust to customers who are uncertain with partaking in a service that really doesn’t produce a tangible outcome and cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars to perform. Works Cited Shadick, David (2011). Ernst amp; Young Better Manages B2B Marketing with Aprimo Marketing, Sun. 17 Nov. 2012. lt;http://www. information-management. com/issues/20030301/6410-1. htmlgt;. Services. Linkedin n. pag. LinkedIn. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;http://www. linkedin. com/company/accenture/products? trk=tabs_biz_productgt;. Apps by Accenture. Google play n. pag. Google play. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;https://play. google. com/store/apps/developer? id=Accentureamp;hl=engt;. Accenture. About Accenture n. pag. YouTube. Web. 17 Nov 2012. lt;https://www. youtube. com/user/Accenturegt;. Appendix A1 – Social Network Metrics