The White Space report, How consulting firms are using Twitter as part of their content strategy, and what they need to do better, found that @Deloitte, @Accenture and @KPMG lead the way in terms of volume of tweets, collectively tweeting more than 20,000 tweets over the five month period. However, only @IBMbigdata – with an average of 20 tweets per day – came close to what the research uncovered was the optimal number of tweets per day, while the average firm tweeted just 3.5 times per day.

 

The report also states that rather than focusing on just building a large following, consulting firms should aim to increase the volume of retweets. On the surface, the report found that from the 59 accounts analysed, nearly 78,000 retweets were generated over the five month period. However, when this was broken down, the data became less impressive. For instance, just 11 accounts (19 per cent) accumulated 2,000 retweets or more, and only nine accounts (15 per cent) succeeded in having an individual tweet reach 100 retweets or more.

 

With, on average, 16 retweets per 100 followers over the five month period, the report found that sector-specific accounts score best on follower engagement. However, very few consulting firms have sector-specific accounts. Based on Source’s knowledge of how clients consume thought leadership, developing and disseminating sector-specific material is a real opportunity for consulting firms.

 

Rachel Ainsworth, Senior Research Manager of Source said:

The White Space report also ranks Twitter accounts from the 14 leading consulting firms: A.T. Kearney, Accenture, Bain & Company, BCG, Booz & Company, Capgemini Consulting, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Hay Group, IBM, KPMG, McKinsey, PwC and Roland Berger. It also discusses other important areas such as the use of hashtags, funnelling followers from one account to another, and whether to converse or broadcast?