Most management consultancies are present on social media, but are not yet persuading their audiences to interact with them on a regular basis, according to the 2013 MHP Management Consultancy Social Media Survey.

LinkedIn ranks as the most popular social media channel with nearly 86% of consultancy firms actively managing their brand on LinkedIn. Eighty-percent have an active presence on Twitter and 77% actively post content on Facebook. Only about 46% have an active presence with their own company-branded YouTube channel. Thought-leadership material and career information dominate the content, with the latter generating the most response.

The large, broader based consultancies, such as Accenture, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PwC (aka “the Big 5”), and the more high-profile strategy consultancies like McKinsey & Company, the Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company and Booz & Company, tend to be more advanced in their use of social media and attract a significantly greater following than others. For example, only the Big 5 plus McKinsey and Bain have over 10,000 followers and 10,000 likes for their corporate Twitter and Facebook accounts. This is the first time management consultants’ use of social media has been analysed.

“Compared to other business sectors, management consultancies have deep vaults of content ready to disseminate on social media,” says Martin Forrest, director, author of the MHP Management Consultancy Social Media Survey. “The big challenge for management consultancies is to attract greater audiences and engage them in more conversations by adopting a more ‘personal’ than ‘white paper’ tone in their social media communications.”

Many management consultancy social media channels only have audiences in the 100s. For example, 57% of the 108 active Twitter feeds in the survey had fewer than 1,000 followers and 38% of the 58 active Facebook accounts had less than 1,000 ‘likes’.

Much of the communication on Twitter and Facebook is one-way with management consultancies posting content, but rarely prompting responses from their stakeholders. LinkedIn is the channel that sparks the most interaction with interesting examples including Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz, Alvarez & Marsal, Hay Group and A.T. Kearney.