Social Media for Accountants and Bookkeepers: Getting Started
Social media might have started as a bit of fun for students but it could be just as accurately described as networking and business media these days. While it is a great way to connect with friends, social media has now become a vital part of modern marketing and getting ahead in business. It is the digital high street of our global village and if you don’t have a shop front there you might not exist.
Every business, even those with a more traditional and serious background, is getting on board so it is just as important for accountancy firms as it is for party planners to be social savvy. Here is everything you need to know to get your social media marketing started.
Which Social Media Platform is Best?
If you are going to maximise the potential then multi-platform is the way to go but there is no need to sign up to everything, pick the platforms that will work best for your business and your audience. Here’s a quick run down on three of the biggest:
Facebook is probably the first platform you think of when social media is mentioned, it’s fun and friendly but has an increasingly serious business purpose. It’s a great place to show your firm’s personality and reach out to prospects.
LinkedIn was created specifically with business and employment in mind, it is the ‘grown-up’ face of social media. The hundreds of millions of profiles include business leaders and decision makers, which make it the biggest networking conference ever.
Twitter is broad spectrum, everyone from the US President to the Pope has a handle. The limited characters needn’t limit your message, it ensures you keep things short and sweet but by using links to interesting articles, blogs, stories it’s easy to share much more than the time of day. It’s also a great place to discover trending topics and commentary.
How to Use Social Media to Market Your Practice
All the social media platforms will help you to engage with clients build your brand and nurture new leads. One of the best ways to do this is by posting good quality content. It is worth spending time on content as it can improve your all important search engine ranking through SEO as well as engaging your social media followers. Check out our blog on Content Marketing for Accountants for ideas.
- Frequency of posts is important but complex. Certain times of the day and week will be more fruitful for posts than others, so take care to spread your posts among the most profitable times not wasting good content by dumping it all online in one go. The idea is to stay in your followers front of mind, not pester them. It is more important to focus on the quality of your posts than sticking to any twice a day rule.
- Variety of content keeps things fresh and interesting for your followers. Post images, infographics, white papers, podcasts, webinars, case studies, videos and simple comments to inspire (with quotes and memes), advise (with industry insight) and amuse (with care – keep well clear of anything controversial).
- Questions are a good way of prompting engagement and a conversation with your followers. By commenting they will spread your post throughout their own friends and followers and therefore increase your potential audience exponentially.
- Respond to your followers quickly keep them feeling engaged and appreciated.
Post, Repeat and Understand
One of the most exciting ways that the digital world has changed marketing is our ability to quickly see and analyse a campaign’s results. With detailed analytics of your social media campaigns you can make each one better than the last – better targeted, more effective. You can learn what works for your accounting firm rather than just applying a few general rules by crunching the numbers – and that’s something accountants already understand.
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