If you are considering exploring the world of social media as part of your practice’s marketing strategy, this guide to social media for accountants sets out what steps you can take to make this activity as effective as possible.
Developing a social media accountant’s profile
Which platform(s) to use
This varies from practice to practice. However, as a general rule of thumb, you need to choose the social media platform(s) which your target audience use, be that clients, prospective clients, business contacts or potential employees. Your main options are:
LinkedIn is still regarded as the main business networking site.
Facebook can be a good way of indirectly raising your profile with prospective clients and contacts as they scroll through it for their personal social media ‘fix’ and then come across your business posts at the same time.
Twitter is a good way of sharing short messages to a target audience and can be very effective on the back of events.
Increasingly Instagram and Tik Tok are also being used by many accountancy firms, initially as a recruitment awareness tool, but also for raising awareness of the practice in general.
If time could be a limiting factor for your social media, I would suggest trying one platform to start off with and perhaps one with which you are already familiar on a personal basis.
Create a professional-looking page
Whether you choose to have a personal social media page (for business purposes) and/or a company page to promote the practice, it is important to provide as much detail as possible. This should include your relevant contact details and an up to date profile/about us section. Most social media platforms set out exactly what to say when you are setting up the pages.
You should also make sure the page looks professional and is consistent with your website and other branded marketing. When adding your logo, make sure this is the correct pixel size for the social media platform you have chosen and also for the cover photo or profile photo areas. It looks very unprofessional if a logo doesn’t fit into the required space and is either pixelated or too big to fit onto the actual space provided.
Get your staff in on the act
When setting up a company page, ask your team to also follow the page and to like and share articles that are posted to their connections. This is particularly relevant for LinkedIn. By getting staff to share company posts to their connections, you are sharing news from the practice to an even wider circle.
Grow your social media audience
In the early stages of launching your business social media pages, you need to make people aware that your page exists. On LinkedIn, this is slightly easier because you can send invites to your personal connections to also follow your company page. However, across all platforms, you should spend time (perhaps on an evening with a glass of something in one hand and your phone in the other!) and start following your clients and business contacts pages. In doing so they are more likely to reciprocate and start following your business pages.
Promote your social media pages on other communications
Don’t just rely on people to come across your social media pages when they are using that platform. Use other forms of communication such as links from your email signatures and your website, but also use the relevant social media icons on brochures, adverts and newsletters to make people aware that you have a social media presence.
Social media posts and engagement
How often to post
To make your social media activity as effective as possible, you need to post regularly. I would suggest 2 – 3 times a week if possible, but I know some smaller firms may only manage 1 – 2 times a month. The important thing is to commit the time to do this. This could rest on your shoulders, or you could share the responsibility across the practice, or you get one of your admin team involved in the process. Another option is to outsource your social media activity to a third party. However, if you do this, they are likely to need guidance on the type of posts you want to make, the topics to cover and the messages you want to communicate.
Engage with others
As the name suggests, ‘social’ media is about just that, being social! So part of your strategy needs to be to interact with others and not just broadcast your own messages.
Like, share and comment on other posts that you find interesting, but also get involved in relevant business groups and forums.
What to post
In a previous blog, ‘The principles of social media’, we expand the discussion about using this channel for your marketing activities and suggest what type of posts you should aim to make.
However, in my experience posts which have photos of you and/or other members of the team tend to get higher levels of engagement. So don’t forget to take photos and tag those pictured into your social media posts so that it gets your practice’s name mentioned in their news feeds, i.e. to their contacts as well. Such posts could include business or work related events.
Videos are another area to explore on your social media posts as these too can help to increase engagement levels. These could be helpful/educational and offer some quick tips on specific accounting or tax issues, or they could be snippets from an event you have organised or attended, such as a golf day, awards ceremony and so on.
Ultimately the reason you embark on a social media campaign is to generate enquiries. So the aim with any online dialogue you start on your social media pages is to escalate it to a 1-2-1 conversation, whether that be meeting up, a phone call or a zoom call.
Your social media networking is no different to face to face networking. It is about connecting with people, engaging in conversations and developing relationships.
If you would like some assistance with your social media strategy, do get in touch and I can run through the approach I take with other clients.
