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Social Media and the CPA’s Practice
Central Chapter, Arkansas Society of Certified Public
Accountants
Jim Karrh, Ph.D.
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Background
I have a professional-services practice myself:
• Consulting on marketing, sales and communication
• Training• Professional speaking
…supported by online and offline media and networking activities!
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Perspective
So, from one professional services person to another…
• Is there anything to this social media stuff? (Absolutely.)
• Should you be using some of it for your business? (Yes, I believe so.)
• Should you be using all of the options available to you for the business? (I highly doubt it.)
• Which options are best for me and my business? (Let’s talk about it!)
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Our Destination
• Review how quickly the online publishing and networking world has changed
• Consider your marketing and communication objectives
• Look at major social-media tools and how each might help your practice and career
• Establish a relative hierarchy, including resource allocation and how to keep score
• What to do next
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This World Has Changed Quickly…
• Offline publications go online
• Blogs get started
• Aggregation• Curation• Sharing• Following
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From Pull to Push?
An interesting trend, at least for now:
Facebook is growing more quickly than is Google, and an increasing pct. of users have Facebook as their start page
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Where Do Social Media Fit For Your Practice?
Here are some of the questions you have about social media:
• How to grow your network• What NOT to do• To blog or not to blog• Who should be on LinkedIn?• Managing your image online
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What is the Big Goal?
• New Business Development?
• Client Retention?• Building Reputation?• Media Attention?• Hiring?• Environmental Scanning?
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• The most-used social network, by monthly active users
• Began only in 2004!• Considered mostly for social use, it
has been increasingly adopted by businesses…
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Sample business page on Facebook
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• A social networking and microblogging service
• Uses short text messages (up to 140 characters in length) called “tweets” to friends or “followers”
• The short format allows for informal collaboration and quick information – beats email fatigue
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“Twitter Quitters”• Twitter has grown rapidly
but is still in its infancy• User retention is a real
problem – much worse than what Facebook or MySpace had at similar points on their life cycles
• More than 60% of new U.S. users fail to return the following month (source: Nielsen, April 2009)
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Good Business?
Criticism of Facebook, Twitter etc., especially when it comes to business…
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• LinkedIn is a networking site devoted to businesses and professionals
• Claims more than 30 million users worldwide (21 million in the U.S.)
• I have had success with it and have been recommending it to clients
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• What can your business do with LinkedIn?
• Who from your firm should do it?
• Should you be a “LION”?
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Blogging
• A blog is a particular type of website, usually maintained by one individual, with regular entries of commentary and perhaps audio, video, etc.
• Many corporate blogs as well
• Some people have built careers through blogging
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Blogging
The growth of blogging has been phenomenal:
• 78 million unique visitors in the U.S. during 2008
• As of the beginning of 2009, more than 26 million Americans had started a blog
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Hierarchy for Businesses and Executives
• Exotics• Podcasts, video• Facebook, MySpace
• Blogs: Showcase for Expertise• Opinions, insights on
recent events and/or trends
• Website• LinkedIn: Storefront for
individuals and groups
Web Presence
Blogging
?
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So…What’s For You?
First, consider your target audience(s)
• Who are they?• Where are they now?• What are they using now?
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So…What’s For You?
Next, do some research• Where are the relevant
conversations online?• Which sites?• What are they saying?
http://blogsearch.google.com
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So…What’s For You?
Consider your goals, resources and constraints
• Is there a marketing plan in place?
• Who would be on the team?• Who is going to create and
maintain?• What is your planned
cadence of messaging?
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Risks
You don’t want to be part of this…
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“What NOT To Do”
• Doing it to be cool or trendy, rather than to be strategic
• Making it about you, rather than about creating value for others
• Using any of these tactics without a solid marketing plan
• Jumping into it without considering resources (especially time) and opportunity costs
• Trying to do it all yourself• Failing to establish metrics and keep
score
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“What TO Do”
• Consider social media as a set of potential communications tools that can help you grow
• Use social media as a part of your marketing, public relations and business development efforts
• Understand that what you say, and to whom, is more important than how you say it
• Leverage these tools to build contacts and reputation
• Make it a team effort, matching capabilities and accountabilities
• Decide upon the right ways to measure the results of your investment in social media
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Thank You!
• Email: [email protected] • Web:
http://www.themarketingdoctors.net
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimkarrh
• Facebook• SpeakerMatch.com
