While accountants don’t have the same advantages as, for example, pet spas or gyms when it comes to social media, there is still plenty you can do to create an excellent impression of your business for new and existing clients. You may not have shots of cute, fluffy animals or impressive before and after fitness shots, but you provide a valuable service and you have a lot to say to impress your audience.
What we’re going to give you are our best social media tips for accountants, along with the reasons why it’s worth your time to build and maintain an audience on social media.
Why is being on social media valuable?
For accountants and CPAs, social media can be an excellent way to build a community of businesses and families that follow you for interesting and helpful financial and tax tips. You can use your expertise and experience to answer questions and to educate your audience, and that helpful approach will in turn establish your professionalism and expertise and show people that you know exactly what you’re doing when it comes to managing money and producing professional accounts.
It’s then far easier to introduce people to your services and suggest that they get in touch, providing a low key, subtle way to market your business and bring in leads.
Here are just a few more reasons why it can be very valuable to spend your time on social media:
1. People expect your business to be active on social media
How many fellow accountants do you know that don’t have a social media presence at all? We’d be surprised if you know any because social media really is where people expect to find pretty much any type of business nowadays.
If you don’t have a social media presence at all, then it’s likely people will wonder why, and they may then choose an accountant that they can connect with on social media over you.
Your competitors are on it, it’s a great way to market your business and find new leads. You need to be there too.
2. People rely heavily on peer validation
We’ve all asked friends and family when looking for a builder or a cake decorator, or for any other kind of business. We know we have a far better chance of a good experience if we use a company someone we trust has already used and had great results with. Even better if we can find several people we know to tell us how great that company was.
Things cost money. We don’t want to pay out for a service and then not get what we paid for.
Peer validation is an excellent way to be as sure as possible that we’ll get what we’ve asked for with no nasty surprises or hidden costs.
Social media is exactly where people go when they want to talk to people they know and find their next accountant. If you’re fully present on the right social platforms where your potential customers hang out, and you have a great, engaging page with excellent information, clear details on how to get in touch, and quality reviews, it’s easy for people to see that you can provide what they need.
All the person recommending you needs to do is point your potential new client to your page and tell them how brilliant you were and you’ve probably got yourself a new client.
3. People use social media platforms for discovery and research, just like Google
People find Facebook and other platforms convenient. They can head there to relax after work and connect with their friends. They can also use it to search for what they need and find their next CPA.
While many people do still use Google, it’s also very easy for potential customers to search social platforms and find what they’re looking for. It’s always good to make things easier for potential clients.
From your point of view, you can provide so much information on your Facebook page or your LinkedIn profile. There’s room to talk about your services, you can receive reviews or endorsements, and it’s simple for people to look at your details and see if you might be for them. And if you’ve done things right, it should be easy for them to find your contact details and get in touch.
4. People want an insider view into what their experience will be like with your business
You can show people what your offices are like, introduce them to your staff, write a “day in the life of” style post, talk about what it’s like to do your job, and proudly show off how much of a difference you’ve made to the businesses you serve.
You can also provide educational posts and answer questions to show people how much you know and what you can do.
That’s a great convincer and it lets people get an idea of who you are and what it’s like to work with you.
5. People want to see results and how others have found success with your business
As we said, you can’t produce pretty before and after shots, but you can write case studies and blog posts to show both how you can help and how you have helped other clients. You also have the opportunity for current clients to comment on your posts and say good things about you, and for them to leave great reviews on social platforms.
You could dig into your statistics and data to show how many businesses you’ve helped, show a yearly calculation of how much money you’ve saved your current clients and any other suitable statistics that let people get a taste of your results before hiring you.
Social media tips for accountants
So, now we’ve hopefully convinced you that social media can be a very good thing for accountants and CPAS, here are our best social media tips to help you make the most of your social media presence:
1. Post consistently and share visually appealing images and videos
We get it. You’re busy. Particularly when it comes to tax season. But you do still have to find time to post consistently. You’re trying to build a community around you of people who highly rate your business and are considering you as an accountant. You can’t do that with sporadic posts.
What can really help is to build up a content calendar where you plan out your blog posts and social media posts for the next three months in advance. You can include the type of post too so that you allow time to source images, have graphics created, and create videos.
This can give you a clear picture of what’s involved and help you allocate resources and people where needed, along with planning in time for you to get involved. You especially need a content calendar if you’re going to hire writers to create posts for you as they need notice, and you may want time for revisions.
Your content calendar can really be a time saver too. It takes time to put it together, but once you have, you don’t need to spend time staring at a blank page and wondering what to write. You can plan ahead, hand over some of the work to others, and even schedule completed posts in advance.
It really is possible to post your content consistently and keep up with your audience and your work as an accountant.
2. Treat platforms differently
You have to work with your social platforms and use them as they are meant to be used. Each one is different with its own algorithm and types of content that suit it.
People also use social media platforms differently, so you need to be sure that you’re posting the right content on each platform at the right time of day.
You can post longer form content on Facebook or LinkedIn, which is perhaps more suited to accountants, but you’d be wasting your time trying to do that on TikTok or Instagram because that’s not what people expect on those sites. TikTok users want short videos with actionable advice.
Instead, choose the platforms that suit you and the types and lengths of content you need to create. Then check your analytics regularly on each platform and find out when the best times to post are.
3. Respond to comments and questions
One of the best things about engaging on social media is that you can quickly build up real relationships with people. You can answer their questions, comment on their posts, sympathize with them with just a quick emoji, and get to know them and what they need.
You can also let them get to know you and how you work. That way, you will attract the people you’re more likely to get on with as clients rather than people who will give you a headache.
Answering comments and questions is certainly a big part of building up relationships and ultimately a community around your accountancy page.
4. Educate your community
Another part of both building your community and your reputation is to educate your community. People love to see excellent content that answers their questions, allays fears, and shows them shortcuts and easier ways to do things. And there are so many things you could talk about as an accountant that show your expertise as well as genuinely help your community.
You could provide how-to posts and quick tips on software, such as Xero or Sage, you could talk about the latest tax changes and what people need to do now to avoid problems later, you could define terms so that people understand what things mean and how they might benefit. You could do live video Q&As and let people ask you whatever they like about accounts.
The possibilities really are endless for an experienced accountant or CPA.
5. Be authentic
Unfortunately, there are some real scammers and frauds online and people have their guard up, especially if they’re going to be spending significant sums on hiring a new accountant. While your content will help to reassure them, and so will your engagement online, the best thing you can be is completely authentic.
The best thing about this is that being authentic is highly attractive, and who you will attract are the right people for you. If you really are the funniest accountant out there, then be that. You’ll attract the kinds of clients who love you for it and put off the ones that never will.
People know when someone is being too “salesy.” They know when someone is fake and not true to themselves. They might not be able to put their finger on it and say why, but they will feel uncomfortable if you try to be anyone else other than you.
6. Set goals and be strategic with your time spent on nurturing your social media presence
You can’t spend all day on social media. You obviously have other things to do. As well as your content calendar to help you manage your time, you need to set goals for what you want to achieve so that you can measure your results and ensure you’re achieving what you want to achieve.
You need to keep a close eye on your analytics and make sure that you’re posting on the right platforms where your potential customers are, and that you’re posting at the most effective times.
You also need to take advantage of scheduling in advance and save as much time as possible. With social media, you do need to be there to engage and respond, but you can plan and schedule in advance to ensure you only spend the time you really have to while still getting the excellent results and qualified leads that you really want.
Attend a Surefire Local Marketing Platform demo
Surefire Local offers professional business intelligence marketing software at a fraction of the cost of other tools or agencies.
With our software, you can manage and schedule your social media easily, making life a lot simpler and saving you time. You can jot down ideas for posts, create outlines, write your posts in our software, and then schedule them in advance.
Not only that, but you can also manage all of your most important online marketing activities within one platform, and right from your dashboard.
Plan and manage your content marketing, send email campaigns, request and respond to your reviews, manage your paid ads, and so much more.
Why not request a demo and see what a difference Surefire can make to your marketing?