Social Media B2B

This post is a recap of a case study presented at the recent B2B Social Communications event held in New York City. John Keller, Sr. Manager, Brand, Reputation, and Recruitment Marketing of Deloitte Services shared how one of the world’s leading professional services organizations embraces social media and networking to find and retain the best talent.

The lifeblood of any consulting organization is their people. Deloitte views their recruiting pipeline as a funnel, similar to any other B2B lead management process. They receive nearly 147,000 applications per year. These are reviewed and screened and 4,000 candidates are interviewed. This yields approximately 1700 new hires, which is just over 11% of those who applied. And assuming that this percentage is constant, and the number matches the new hires needed, Deloitte’s challenge is to make sure to fill the funnel with applicants.

And the response to the challenge is social media, which allows them to target individuals by school and degree. For example, it is now easier than ever to connect with MBAs from Cornell. Deloitte has not tried to reinvent their approach to social media, but they have followed the examples of employees who have already been doing it. They found their own internal champions of social media.

They are using a variety of social sites to connect with candidates where they are, and the intent is to drive traffic back to the main Deloitte site where more and relevant content can be provided. LinkedIn is used to post job openings that spread through networks. These are also posted in targeted groups. Twitter is used for short messages and links to job postings and other content on the site. Since many of their prospective employees are recent college grads and MBAs, they have a large presence on Facebook. They post invitations to job seekers, connect with alumni, post videos, publish podcasts and provide mobile content. They have even created interactive games and campus microsites within Facebook for targeted universities.

The other side of recruiting is employee retention and Deloitte is using social media for that as well. They understand that employees who are happy in their jobs, not only stay longer, but become advocates for their recruiting efforts. They have an internal social network called D Street, which is similar to Facebook. This lets employees build an internal social profile and connect to other Deloitte employees. These connections are important in a company where many employees spend time at clients’ sites, rather than in the office.

They also created a Deloitte Film Festival on YouTube, which has 400,000 views. And in a survey after this film festival, 33% of employees indicated an improvement in their connection to the office.

The first-ever Deloitte Film Festival invited all people of the Deloitte U.S. Firms to make short videos that answered the question “What’s your Deloitte?”. Teams comprised of one to seven people submitted films about their lives and experiences at the organization. Nearly 400 submissions were received and more than 2000 participated in the filmmaking process.

Deloitte’s social media practices are targeted, professional and focused and have been successful in managing the employment funnel that is such a key part of their business.

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen.