Social media marketing for accounting firms has become an essential component in developing a marketing strategy. But what exactly is it? Is it simply a matter of a tweet here, and a hashtag there?
It seems everybody is dabbling in social media, but what does truly effective social media look like?
That’s the point of this post. Our goal is to help accounting firms create value in social media marketing, driving inbound leads to your firm.
However, if you want to get the most out of your social media, you’ll have to meet a few requirements:
- Each of your posts should include valuable, purpose-driven content.
- You should share content consistently and to platforms your target audience is using.
- Your content should be unique.
Tip: To make this even easier, we’ve put together some social media templates to help you with your strategy. Access the templates here!
With such a busy schedule as an accounting firm owner, it can be challenging to meet all of the requirements for a successful social media presence, and with the discouragement that may come from a lack of engagement, avoiding it altogether may seem like the easier option.
But don’t let the challenges turn you away from social media, if you stick to the requirements, your social media will begin to produce results and work as a powerful tool in aiding your firm to grow.
Why Social Media Matters to Accountants
One of the key benefits of social media is that it’s a platform for brand awareness. This serves as a huge advantage for accounting firms because it continuously puts your name in front of current and potential clients.
While new followers may result in new clients right off the bat, most of the people reading your posts won’t be in need of your services at that very moment, however, your continuous presence on their feed will keep you top of mind, so when they do need you, they know who to contact.
Social media also stands as a great way to differentiate your firm. Through branded images and a distinctive voice, it enables you to create a personality different from your competitors. Your content will focus on how you can best serve your ideal client, which will grab their attention and keep them interested in your firm.
Once you’ve caught their attention, you’ll have the opportunity to build trust through your posts. You can do this by creating content that educates your audience. If your content simplifies intimidating and potentially frustrating topics, your audience will see your value and consider you an expert.
Social media lays a foundation for brand awareness, differentiation, and creates trust between you and your followers. However, it must be done correctly in order to reap the benefits. Here are a few tips you can use to get the most out of your social media.
Share Valuable Content
Sharing valuable content is incredibly important in getting the most out of your social media. The easiest and most effective way to do this is by being intentional. When you are intentional you are creating a path for your target audience to gather everything they need to become a client.
For the most part, each of your posts will include a graphic or image and a caption. Both of these aspects should work together to create valuable content. Your goal should be to share a graphic or image that is visually attractive and engages your audience. It needs to grab their attention.
Once you’ve caught their eye, it’s time to really pull them in with your written words. In the caption, you should redirect them to take action, provide them with additional information, and/or explain how they can benefit from your services.
To gain the most value, both components of your posts (graphic/image and caption) should answer a question from your target audience, make it obvious what your business offers, explain how you can get them from point A to point B, and provide a call to action.
A good, intentional post will:
Answer questions from your target audience
Answering questions from your target audience can mean anything from posting tips to keeping their books clean, defining different ways to grow their business, and explaining the benefits of working with an accounting partner. As long as you are providing your target audience with information they care about, you will be more effective at reaching them. This ties back into building trust by educating your audience. It’s the perfect opportunity to show them you can be a trusted expert in the field.
Make it obvious what your business offers
Each post should include information about how your business can serve your target audience. When they see your posts on their feed, they should be able to understand what your firm offers and how you can help them.
Explain how you can get them from where they are (point A) to where they want to be (point B)
Explaining how you can get your audience from point A to point B ties directly into making sure they know what services you provide and including a call to action (which you’ll find in the next section).
In this section of your post, you’ll want to explain why your services and content matter to your audience. It won’t be enough to simply tell your audience what services you offer, you’ll need to explain how those services will help them. From there, be sure to let your audience know how they can connect with you via a call to action.
Include a call to action
A call to action may be the most important element to each of your posts. A call to action tells your audience what to do to take advantage of what your firm offers. It should tell them where to go to learn more information and how to get in contact with you. Without this piece, your client will be receiving information about your firm and its services but not know what to do with it.
Create a Content Schedule
To save you time and the struggle of remembering what to post and when, you should create a content schedule. Your content schedule will keep everything in one place and outline your content so you can avoid repetitive posts and ensure your posts are consistent.
Include scheduling sites? https://buffer.com/library/social-media-management-tools/
Consistent posting will do wonders for your social media platforms. Here are a few benefits of consistent posting:
- Consistency helps you and your firm improve. When you post consistently you are forcing yourself to look at all of the ways your target audience needs your help and connecting that with how you serve them.
- Consistency keeps you top of mind. Your posts are great reminders to your audience that you are there and providing services but if you aren’t posting regularly to remind them, you will fall off their radar. A regular schedule will help you stay fresh in their mind.
- Consistency demonstrates trustworthiness. When your posts are regular, it shows you are attentive, reliable, and care about providing your audience with useful information.
While posting consistently is important, you should also make sure you are posting to the right platforms. If you have strong followings on Facebook and LinkedIn, make sure you spend time posting to those platforms. If your Instagram and Twitter bring you the most leads, focus on those.
Note:
If you are overwhelmed by the thought of posting on all four major platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter) try selecting two that resonate with your ideal target audience and stick with those.
In addition to using the right platform, you should also schedule posts at peak traffic times. For example, 2 a.m. is probably not the best time to post an image explaining cash flow. Try posting that around a time your target audience is more likely to be checking their feeds.
Once you’ve completed your first content schedule, it will start to become easier. You will start to see the benefits of consistent posting, learn which platforms are most successful for your firm, and discover what times your target audience is most active. From there, you can tweak your schedule to be as effective as possible.
Create a Content Mix
To get (and keep) interest in your content, you should strive to post a good variety of content. A mixture of content works to actively engage your audience. Consider using one of the following “content mix rules” when deciding what content to share:
- The Rule of Thirds
- The Rule of Thirds refers to splitting up your content into three categories:
- Business – These posts are aimed at promoting your business
- Informative – These posts provide useful information to your audience
- Community – These posts highlight local, internal, or industry-based community members or topics
- The Rule of Thirds refers to splitting up your content into three categories:
- 80/20 Rule
- The 80/20 Rule refers to sharing 80% of your posts to educate and entertain and 20% of your posts to promote your business.
It’s important to note that in both “rules”, your posts should not promote your business more than ⅓ of the time. Remember, the goal of social media is to connect with your audience by providing content they want/need.
Examples of Content
Stuck on what kind of content to create? Here are a few examples:
How-to’s
A “how-to” post will give your audience tips on completing certain tasks and can be everything from a simple step-by-step instruction to a video demonstrating the task.
Example:
Contact information
Sharing contact information on a regular basis keeps that necessary info near the top of your page so when a potential client searches your feed to figure out how to contact you, it will be easily accessible.
Example:
Reviews
Client reviews and testimonials are excellent sources of content. They prove that you are doing great work and you are actively serving clients.
Example:
Repurposed content
If you are creating blogs or articles for your firm’s website, make sure you are sharing those to your feed. This is a great source of educational content and is likely to answer your audience’s questions.
Example:
Q’s & A’s
You likely receive plenty of questions from clients (or at least know what questions they need answers to). This is the perfect opportunity to create an informative post. Odds are, if one of your clients asks, another client wants to know too. Q & A posts educate your audience and show them you are listening.
Example:
Share Others’ Content
Many people believe one of the requirements of social media is creating and sharing your own content for every post. However, this is not true. There are plenty of other people sharing content your audience may find useful. Don’t be afraid to share it! This shows you are active in your niche and reiterates that you want to provide the most useful and informative content to your audience.
Example:
Services
Sharing what services you offer is a great way for your audience to learn more about you without having to leave the comfort of their app. When they see your posts or page, they will quickly learn what you do and how you do it. These posts are great for explaining what your business can do for your audience.
Example:
Ready to level up your firm’s social media presence?
The benefits of consistent, quality social media marketing are massive for a growing accounting firm. But hopefully these tips help. We’ve even taken another step to create templates of the best types of social media content.
Love the idea of it, but not sure where you’ll find the time to create the content?
We’re here to help!
Let Full Stadium Marketing be your source for all things content marketing. We take your expertise and industry knowledge to create, develop, schedule, and promote content for your blog and social media. Visit our website to learn more ways we can help you grow your firm!
