How your accounting firm can up its social media game

Ask yourself the following:

• Does your advisory firm have a documented social media strategy?
• Are you future proofing your firm through social media activity by regularly engaging your audience with thought leadership and business content?
• Has your firm embraced video on social media?
• Is your firm conducting live Q&As?

Despite the long history and deep uptake of social media, there are still firms out there who aren’t taking full advantage of these platforms.

There’s a lot of low hanging fruit out there ready to be plucked.

You may well have some of this in hand, however it’s almost certain there are weak spots and omissions that you can patch to better engage your clients and promote your value through social media.

The age of video is upon us

The standard page post (either image posts, text posts, link posts or a combination of all three) remains a viable and popular marketing mechanism. It may be no surprise that its popularity is being eclipsed by video.

Traditional sites like Facebook are showing rapid video adoption and image/video social media sites like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok keep soaring in popularity.

Did you know?

• 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every day.
• The average engagement rate for Facebook video posts is 6.01 per cent. This is compared to photo posts (4.81 per cent), link posts (3.36 per cent), and status posts (2.21 per cent).
• 54 per cent of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support.
• 87 per cent of businesses across different industries now use video as a marketing tool.

The barrier most firms and other organisations face when attempting to insert more video in their social media marketing mix is time and money.

Creating a branded video is often seen as an onerous, time consuming and expensive undertaking. This could still be true if you use external agencies and seek ‘perfection’.

However, there’s a growing trend toward more organic and less polished approaches to video. Creating a short self-interview or topic discussion is easily achieved on today’s high-end smartphones. You don’t always need the bells and whistles of proper video production equipment.

Create a documented social media strategy

Are you still pursuing an ad-hoc or reactionary approach to social media platforms? It’s time to step it up and draft up a more structured method to share content.

• Have you drafted up a formalised social media marketing strategy?
• How are you reviewing your social media impact in terms of money spent and rewards gained? Determining return on investment, particularly with social media ads is important.
• Do you have a solid metric-based reporting process for engagement, views, click throughs?
• Are you working from a formal social media content calendar, to map out your social media strategy and execute a rich and pre-planned content mix?
• Have you set your firm benchmarks and achievement goals to keep an eye on your social media marketing performance?

Live Q&As

Consider using Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram or a similar service as a platform for a Q&A session. A Q&A is a fantastic way for accounting firms to better engage their audience and provide valuable insights.

Set up a Facebook Live feed featuring a subject matter expert, who will not only present pertinent information but also answer questions. By doing so, you position yourself as a valuable source of information and boost your credibility and value.

Perhaps you have someone on your team that has information to share around new government incentives, compliance changes or ways to improve cashflow?

Instead of passively presenting the information, try interacting with client questions in a live setting. You’ll gain far more traction as a thought leader doing it this way.

Authenticity is a highly valued aspect to business marketing. Creating an authentic livestream with audience interaction connects you actively with your audience in a way passive posting cannot.

If you snoop around a little, you’ll notice a lot of top firms are already doing this – and for good reason.

Future proofing your firm through thought leadership

In a sea of competing posts and social media activity, pinpointing your own value and expertise and then demonstrating that value is the aim of the game.

To gain client confidence, you should be positioning your firm as an industry professional with a finger on the pulse and valuable skillsets.

To do this, you need to demonstrate thought leadership. Social media is undoubtedly the best space to be doing so. To cement yourself as a thought leader, be sure you’re creating and sharing genuinely informative and insightful:

• Blog posts
• Video interviews
• Live Q&As
• Short form posts or responses to compliance changes.

By stepping up your social media strategy, you’ll not only demonstrate your value to clients and potential clients, but you’ll also solidify your firm’s reputation and brand. This will inevitably lead to more business, greater client confidence and longer prosperity.

Up your firm’s brand identity

One aspect of professional social media marketing that requires careful attention is branding.

The act of sharing valuable content on social platforms will itself help brand your firm. It will assist in creating the idea of your organisation in a viewer’s mind and attachments will be formed between the information you present and your brand identity.

To keep on top of this, make sure you have a well-articulated brand voice, brand identity, and a set of documented brand guidelines. By reiterating your firm’s image and keeping it on track and consistent, you convey a tight and highly professional impression of your organisation.

This impression will be lasting. Never let your branding slip on social media.

Alex Alexandrou, general manager - operations, Reckon