How many times have we wistfully wondered "there is no way this can be a real person, it has to be some HR bot" while scrolling through the Life at Deloitte account? Surely no one is that intoxicated on Kool-Aid. Are they?
According to this interview with Marketing Sherpa, they are.
Deloitte saw the account as — wait for it — an opportunity to give would-be recruits an "honest" look at what it's like to work for Deloitte. You know, after guest tweeters have thoroughly reviewed the guidelines and sworn a blood oath not to tweet dumb shit that will make the firm look bad:
In 2010, Deloitte identified an opportunity to increase the force of its value proposition through Twitter, an emerging medium for B2B marketers at the time.
While the company’s Twitter strategy in the U.S. had previously centered on a B2B audience, the team realized they could launch a separate Twitter handle to answer a common question their talent recruiters often hear:
“What’s it really like to work at Deloitte?”
Translate this into: “If I am your ideal prospect, why should I choose you rather than any of your competitors?”
Sound familiar?
The key thing to remember here is that in order to answer the question, you have to get inside the mind of the customer and see your offer through their eyes.
If your prospects are recruits, there is no better way to do this than to let your employees answer the question for you because, as one-time recruits themselves, your employees identify with your recruiting prospects.
And so, the @LifeAtDeloitte handle was born.
Much like the entrepreneurial drug dealer handing out free samples to school children, you have to get young, impressionable kids where they hang out. Deloitte realized that their future recruits were hanging out on Twitter, wondering — aloud, perhaps — "what would it be like to work at Deloitte? If only I had a corporate Twitter account to tell me."
By using this handle, Deloitte was able to convert the attention of recruits into legitimate interest. The account was an opportunity to increase appeal, credibility and clarity of the company’s value proposition.
Let’s also keep in mind that the exclusivity factor was already there: “Only those who sign with us get to experience this.”
I can't even with that last statement so I'm not going to.
The key takeaway here is that Deloitte claims to give its employee of the week carte blanche to post whatever they like, within reason:
Deloitte has social media guidelines and training programs in place as well as policies to protect our clients’ confidentiality. Our guidelines help our people develop strong networks and their personal brand both inside and outside of work.
Every professional who takes a turn as guest tweeter is given a written guide of leading practices. They also participate in what we call a “primer” to discuss the tactical side of managing the handle. It’s truly the professional’s authentic voice that you see in the tweets.
Does that primer include detailed instructions on not feeding trolls? Just curious.
