Regular readers may be surprised to see this post here – remembering my first post about twitter: Twitter is not for accountants.  In effect that suggested that accountants can get by quite happily without using twitter. It’s also true to say that accountants do not need to try telemarketing or direct mail. But many do and some do so successfully.

I still enjoy using twitter myself but I’m not sure my view about twitter and accountants has really changed. However I am seeing an increasing (although still very small) number of ambitious accountants experimenting with twitter.  I have therefore accepted that the time has come to help accountants explore twitter.  If you’re inclined to experiment I’d like to assist you in getting maximum value and pleasure from the time and effort you devote to this.

I’ve set out below some basic steps to help you get started. A subsequent post will contain twenty tips (my top ten Do’s and Don’ts) to help you use twitter and then, if there is sufficient interest, I’ll offer some thoughts on how accountants can develop a twitter strategy.

What’s stopping you?

Last month I sought to clarify the biggest misconception about twitter.  It arises due to those in the media who still think that twitter is a ‘micro blogging website where users post inane messages telling each other the answer to a standard question: “What are you doing right now?”  Indeed plenty of people think that twitter is full of people talking about what they had for breakfast or tea. BUT I use twitter without ever seeing that rubbish. And you can too.

It’s easy. You only see the tweets of people YOU choose to follow. People you find of interest. If someone you are following posts stuff you think is ‘rubbish’, uninteresting or “pointless babble” you simply stop following them. And that’s it. You won’t see any more rubbish.  The secret is simply to choose who you follow with care and to ‘unfollow’ them (it’s really easy to do) if you’re bored by their tweets.

Conversation not advertising

To avoid disappointment let me just stress that accountants can derive business value from of twitter. However that value is often indirect in nature and depends greatly on your personal approach and twitter strategy. I set out my own twitter strategy here.

Just as with all other forms of online social media, the overt : Tax worries? Call now! messages will fall on deaf ears.  Do not bother experimenting with twitter if you are thinking of using it for overt advertising. It doesn’t work like that. You will simply waste your time.

Set up your account

You start by going to www.twitter.com and setting up an account with a username (eg: AndyPandy) and a brief biography. Identify your locality (eg: Shropshire, or North London) and your website address.

Choose your username carefully

Be clear whether you are going to post tweets in your name or in the name of your firm.  I suggest that, in most cases it’s generally best to start using your real name as your username, the one that people know you by. Of course, if you have a common name (as I do) you may need to adopt a variation. I’m @bookmarklee). You can use underscores if that helps. Another exception is if you’ve built a brand around a name other than your own (e.g., @thetaxbuzz), then staying consistent takes priority.  In time you may choose to start a separate twitter account using your firm’s name but that’s often best saved until you’ve got the hang of twitter and decided how you want to use it for business.

Add a photo

It’s clear that more people will want to follow you if you also add a photo showing your face, rather than a logo or any other sort of photo. A face photo can also help your followers feel that they are getting to know you as it will appear alongside each of your tweets. And this is the first step towards them starting to like you and trust you – which are usually prerequisites to them becoming clients.

Tweeting

Tweets cannot be more than 140 characters in length. It’s common to provide links to interesting items on the web, websites and blogs. Most people who do this use url shorteners (eg: bit/ly) to reduce the length of their links

You may want to follow a few other accountants to see the sort of things that they tweet. There’s a list of over 130 accountants using twitter on the UK tax and accountancy listing here.

Who will read your tweets

There is no point in starting to send loads of tweets until you have people following you. They become your ‘followers’. There’s a bit of a catch-22 here as few people will follow you until you start posting tweets. So do post maybe 2 or 3 a day and think about what sort of style and approach you want to adopt. If you only post promotional messages no one of value is likely to choose to start following you so that would be a self defeating policy.

Your tweets can only be seen by people who are following you or by those who search twitter for words contained in your tweets. In time your tweets may be seen by other people if any of your followers ReTweet (RT) your tweets so that their followers can see them too.

As distinct from your followers are the people you choose to follow. There will often be some overlap but despite what some twitter ‘experts’ suggest there is no logic in following back all those people who follow you. That would be like saying you should subscribe for the email newsletters of everyone who reads yours. We all have different interests and different reasons for choosing who we follow.

Finally – in this post – let me stress that you will often find that a good proportion of people who choose to follow you are based overseas. Many of them will be in marketing, social media ‘experts’ or hoping that you will buy their products. My advice, unless it makes strategic sense for you to target or engage with such peoples, is to simply recognise that the NUMBER of followers is NOT a reflection of the number of people who are genuinely interested in reading your tweets or engaging with you – other than for their own benefit.

If you think you might continue with twitter do send me a message on twitter (@ bookmarklee) and ask me to add you to the UK tax and accountancy listing.

More to come

In the next post in this series I’ll set out twenty top tips collated and adapted from the hundreds I’ve read over the last year. I’ve created what I hope is a useful list of top Do’s and Don’ts for accountants using twitter. And then finally, if sufficient people are interested, I’ll offer some tips and ideas to help you develop your twitter strategy by explaining WHAT accountants can do with twitter and HOW some accountants are benefitting from using twitter. In the mean time if you have any questions by all means post them as comments on this blog.