Week 5 - Blogs in Professional Services

After being introduced to the two big major enterprise social platforms it seemed interesting to research into how organisations in the professional service sector are using blogs to enhance their business. The first sector to come to mind was finance more specifically accounting consulting. Ernst & Young is one of the worlds largest professional services firms by aggregated revenue and also has an interesting implementation of blogs into their core businesses structure.

Ernst & Young have several platforms in which they utilize blogging. They have various blogs hosted on their website, ranging from Energy and Science Blogs to team building blogs. However, the majority of their exposure is generated from their Twitter and Facebook pages. While nearly all professional firms have a frequently update Facebook and Twitter page Ernst & Young utilizes this quite differently by having over 30 different pages for each of these social tools. 

The twitter pages range from individual topics such as Automotive, Banking, Insurance and Real Estate and by specific events that the corporation holds. They even have a separate twitter for each country that they are involved in to be able to make more relevant posts to maximize benefit. This heavily ties into the value levers of implementing Enterprise 2.0 as written by McKinsey Global Institute (2012). An Enterprise Wide Lever is essentially the use of social technology to expand intra or inter-organizational collaboration which is the main objective of Ernst & Young's social media enterprise plan. 

Ernst &Young have taken great care in their social media strategy and understand that it is a consumer driven platform which brings in various risks. In their Social media strategy, policy and governance report they state that the greatest benefit they receive is from their extensive listening programs that allow them to receive customer feedback and monitor and assess negative company branding.

References

Ernst & Young Analysis. (October 31 2012).Social media strategy, policy and governance Retrieved August 26 2014 from http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Social_media_strategy_policy_and_governance/$File/Social_media_strategy_policy_governance.pdf

Erbst & Young Social Media (August 26 2014). Social Media. Retrieved August 26  2014 from http://www.ey.com/gl/en/Home/Social-media