Social media is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. It’s a great way to stay in touch with clients and colleagues and to promote a service. In the sales industry, it’s common for a marketing team to employ a social media copywriter who will solely focus on promotion using services like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Competitions and promotions can swell follower numbers and help get the word out to customers about your services.
But how well have accountancy firms adopted social media as a promotional tool?
An Accountants Online Marketing report created by Bizink in 2014 suggested that 59.22% of accountancy firms were regularly using social media. At the time, this was higher than other businesses in the UK – for the same period, only 34% were regular users. It is expected that in the past three years these figures will have increased.
Why do accountants use social media?
In the survey, the main reason accountants use social media is ‘to project a modern image’. There is a common belief that younger people will check social media before engaging with a business, and if a business has no social media presence, they will be seen as old-fashioned. Other reasons listed were to create a sense of community and to demonstrate expertise.
I’m training to be an accountant. Should I be using social media as a professional tool?
Absolutely! Firstly, come up with a plan. What do you want to achieve through social media? What are your goals? Is it to start building a client base? To create leads with existing accountancy firms? To meet other accountants and people training to be accountants? All of these are valid reasons to get online and promote yourself.
Think about how you present yourself on social media. This will be very different from a personal account. You want to come across as professional, but still show some personality. Think about what makes you different, what image would you like to project?
Accountancy Firms – How can I measure success on social media?
There are a number of analytical tools such as Google Analytics, Hootsuite and Buffer which can tell you how large an audience and what kind of demographic your tweets are reaching. You’ll also get a good idea yourself from the number (and quality) of likes and followers that you gain. Remember – any personal success that you have now with social media will be a great experience for your future career, as it looks likely to become more and more important to the industry.
Interested in studying accountancy at Mont Rose College? Get in touch with us today for more information.