LinkedIn and the Top 100 UK Accountants

As a great fan of LinkedIn and statistics, I thought I would do a rough and ready analysis of the usage of LinkedIn by employees of the top accountancy firms in the UK.  I concentrated on the top 96 as listed in an article published by Accountancy Age as the figures for the Big 4 were extraordinary with numbers reaching 70,000 members on LinkedIn for Deloittes.

For the remaining 96 I looked at the percentage of employees of each firm who are on LinkedIn.  In broad terms the results are as follows:

• For firms with 5,001-10,000 employees    25% were members of LinkedIn
• For firms with 1,001-5,000                       23%
• For firms with 501-1,000                          18%
• For firms with 201-500                             27%
• For firms with 51-200                               25%
• For firms with 11-50                                 35%

The range for each group was very wide with 8 firms having NO company page on LinkedIn and a tiny proportion has added Products and Services to their company profiles.  There is an extreme variation in the quality and detail of corporate information on LinkedIn and also some members are still avoiding including photos.

In addition, as number of firms had 2 profiles and therefore it was difficult to assess if there was any double counting going on.

If branding is important in the financial services sector then each company will require a Social Media Policy and Strategy which makes it clear what is appropriate for each employee to post on a platform such as LinkedIn.