Deloitte's Social Media Presence

I'm really impressed with how Deloitte has integrated Twitter and Facebook into their recruiting strategy.  The @lifeatdeloitte Twitter account, which is used by a different Deloitte professional every week, is a particularly novel approach.  Not only does rotating the user keep the feed interesting, it also capitalizes on the intrinsic value that people attach to personal viewpoints, which have made Yelp so popular, by allowing people within the company to describe their experience.  I'm sure that they have guidelines and restrictions on what they can post, but just knowing that it is coming from an individual makes it more valuable than a generic Deloitte PR attempt.

In a blog post last month, Stephen pointed out that "VCs are all over Twitter," and it sounds like they see it as a valuable way to develop their brand.  Although a lot of the major Management Consulting firms have a social media presence, I don't think that they are utilizing it as well as Deloitte.

Most firms use their various accounts as RSS feeds; mainly to push out articles and documents that the company has produced.  Unfortunately, this strategy fails to utilize social media's potential for connecting individuals and building relationships; something that I think could go a long way in giving applicants a better sense of the culture at the firm.  In talking to classmates, it is apparent that a lot of people value the culture and "fit" of particular firms and use them as differentiators, which is also true for peer grad schools, given that they all offer similar features.  Their impressions of a firm are generally based on interactions with a small set of company representatives, which may not be representative of the company as a whole, but in the end, perceptions, whether accurate or not, have a big impact. 

I'm hopeful that as the firms begin to accept the value in social media, more people at all levels of the firms will be encouraged to use these channels in order to communicate their experiences, which in turn will build up the brand.  Instead of hearing about a firm's new white paper on "How Green Energy Is Driving Innovation," I'd rather hear first-hand accounts from the consultants that are experiencing this everyday.

BTW, here is a video from careers.deloitte.com where their CEO briefly discusses how to distinguish yourself from others in consulting recruiting.  According to him, it is all about building a unique "brand" for yourself, and clearly, Deloitte is doing the same thing.

Frozen Lake and Northwestern's Twitter Prototype

This is a particularly busy week for us.  We have to juggle midterms, bidding for Spring classes, and recruiting (most students) in addition to any extracurricular responsibilities.

Earlier this week, I took a break from studying and decided to explore the campus a bit.  In particular, I wanted to check out Lake Michigan, which sits right next to Northwestern University's campus, because I've heard that it freezes during the winter.


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The scene that I found on the beach next to the Norris Student Center did not disappoint.  The surface of the lake was almost completely frozen.  It was the first time I've ever seen anything like that, and it blew my mind.  I spoke to a local that I met at the beach, and she told me that this was the least frozen she has seen the lake in years.  At this point, I imagined past Northwestern students throwing on skates and playing ice hockey out there.  Of course, I grabbed a quick video of the scene with my trusty camera, which I now carry at all times.



As awesome as the lake looked, what really drew my attention was Northwestern University's "Twitter prototype" that sits right next to the lake.  There, you'll find a lot of rocks (possibly hundreds) that have short messages painted on them for everyone to see; some of the ones that I read were 6 years old and others were from last year.  The messages combined with the frozen lake create an eerie feeling that you are standing in a frozen moment of time. I am extremely grateful that the university has left the messages in place.

I loved the fact that given this unique communication channel, the majority of people chose to write love letters, marriage proposals, farewells, and other positive messages; it made the optimist in me smile.  Sure, there were a few ugly messages thrown in, but the positive ones absolutely overwhelmed them.  If you ever visit Kellogg or Northwestern University, I recommend that you try and check it out. All of my pictures of the rocks are available here.  Here are just a few of them.