Social Media Marketing for Accountants
Accounting is one of the industries that seems reluctant to engage with social media marketing. Perhaps you feel your firm has nothing to offer on social platforms, or that you won’t attain any new clients through social channels. But there are many reasons to include social media marketing for accountants as part of your digital marketing strategy.
If you want your business to grow, social media is a tool you can no longer ignore. Some 3.8 billion people across the globe are on social media, with 500 million of those on LinkedIn. That’s a huge potential audience to be missing out on – especially if your competitors are taking advantage of it.
Let’s take a look at why social media marketing for accountants is important.
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Brand awareness
The first step on social media is to create brand awareness. Make sure you regularly get your business in front of other businesses who may require your services – these could be start-ups or SMEs – so that you spring to mind if they happen to decide to outsource their bookkeeping or need a management accountant. If you offer services such as Inheritance Tax Planning, ensuring the local marketplace knows about you is important, as meetings around tax and estate planning are often best done face to face. You can geo-target your content on social media to ensure local consumers are aware of who you are.
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Relationship building
Social media is a great way to build relationships, both with other businesses that may wish to access your services, and with private clients. LinkedIn is the ideal place to engage with businesses by interacting with them, offering tips and advice, and sharing relevant content. If your firm is advertising for new staff, it’s also a useful place to post jobs and find local talent.
Facebook is a more appropriate platform for engaging with private clients. Your business page should show the faces behind the business, and have a more relaxed, personal tone. Engage customers by asking questions or posting polls, by sharing activities your partners have participated in for charity or the local community, and by posting infographics or presenting information in bitesize ways. You can also consider paid advertising, which can be targeted to people who fit your key customer profiles.
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Establishing authority
Customers want to use the services of brands they can trust, and social media is the ideal platform to show your authority in the financial sector. Not only can you use channels such as Twitter to remind clients of things like self-assessment tax return deadlines, you can also use LinkedIn, for example, for more detailed commentary that might be of use to small businesses. Remember to keep content relevant to the channel and those who use it, and track the engagement levels of posts to see which content performs the best. The more familiar users become with your brand, the more they’ll turn to your website or social channels for information, and this can result in conversions further down the line. It’s a long game for sure, but one worth investing in.
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Making accounting accessible
Most businesses are aware of what accountants can do for them. But what about sole traders and private individuals? Do they know how you can help and how accessible your services really are? Social media is a great place to put creative content that educates users and helps them to understand what you can do for them. Make videos or infographics, or create quizzes to engage those who aren’t familiar with the accounting world – and through these, you can inform potential clients of how you can help. Probate services, for example, are something that many people need at some point. But it can be a daunting prospect, especially at a distressing time, so if audiences know it’s something you offer before they need it, there’s a greater chance they’ll come to you.
If the prospect of adding social media marketing to your extensive to-do list is a little intimidating, you can always engage a professional accountancy marketing expert to help. At Whitefish Marketing, we specialise in social media services for accountants and will be happy to help you get started or to take on your marketing duties.
