How to condense everything you know on a subject into 10 minutes? My approach has long been to use acronyms to give me some focus and structure. Here’s the one I’ll use for this talk:

S – Social vs Anti-Social – As explained here

O – Objectives - Be clear on WHY before you start worrying about HOW

C – Consistency - What will your target audience be interested in?

I – Identify yourself (profile and photo) – See point one on my 20 top twitter tips

A – Advertising is a turn-off – As explained here

L – LinkedIn vs twitter and facebook – I compared them here

M – Marketing – It’s Social MEDIA not Social MARKETING

E – Educate, stimulate, emulate – Entertain is good too.

D – Dare to be different – But, how different do you need to be?

I – Ignore the Idiots – Don’t Interact with them. Unfollow them, Unconnect from them

A – Allow time - It’s not free and you won’t become successful overnight. Is it worth the time?

NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two half day masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. You can attend either or both. Full details here.

One that works for you….. and

One that doesn’t work for you

One that you enjoy…. and

One that you find a chore

One that is Social…. and

One that is Anti-Social

One that is random…. and

One that is focused

One where your profile photo enables people to recognise you when they meet you…. and

One with a pretty pointless photo or logo.

One where you determine how best to achieve YOUR objectives…. and

One where you copy other people who may have different objectives

One where your activities are focused on sharing to help or entertain others…. and

One where your activities are focused on selling and promoting your business

One where you follow real world focused advice…. and

One where you act by reference to assumptions made by self appointed social media experts

One where you are genuinely interested in other people…. and

One where you adopt a sales focused mentality

One that integrates with your other marketing activity…. and

One which becomes your only marketing activity

One that reaches your target audience…. and

One that reaches other social media advocates

One that is real…. and

One that is fanciful

One where you can post messages that remain private…. and

One where what you post can be seen by anyone

One that makes you money…. and

One that makes you friends

One where you really engage with other users…. and

One where you give the illusion of engaging with others (and vice versa)

One that involves you pursuing a Quality focused approach…. and

One that involves you pursuing a Quantity focused approach

One where your strategy is well thought through from the outset…. and

One where you pursue a succession of short-term tactics

One that you use to keep in touch with people you already know…. and

One where your main interactions are with people you don’t already know

One  where you ‘get it’… and

One where you don’t get it (yet)

One that is effective….and

One that is ineffective

Do please add your thoughts on this post in the comments box below

NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. Full details here.

Until you start tweeting it’s hard to get to grips with what it’s all about. And it’s even harder to decide if it’s something you would want to do.

The media make twitter seem almost ubiquitous and yet you struggle to see why you would want to join in. It all seems so pointless. It isn’t and I’ve addressed this fallacy before.

You may also have seen marketing focused explanations of the (alleged) business benefits of twitter. I will address some of these ideas in subsequent blog posts – without the hype! First though I want to highlight the NON-business reasons you might want to be on twitter. I’ve identified ten of them (so far!) And I would add that many people who use and enjoy twitter do so for one or more of these NON-Business reasons.

Summary

Twitter can be a lot of FUN; you can share views and pick up on interesting breaking news and trivia about your favourite sports, hobbies, teams and other non-work interests. You can also use it to pick up on work/business related real-time news, views and trivia too.

Many people tweet stories that interest, annoy or amuse them. You simply choose to ‘follow’ people who share your interests or who seem to tweet interesting stuff. This lets you fill in the gaps and gain a broader perspective than simply watching broadcast news, reading one daily paper, chatting with friends, listening to the radio/podcasts or reading your favourite website/mags.

Many people use twitter as a real-time search engine for hobby, personal, shopping or business related topics and for tv, film, holiday, travel and local issues. You can follow the tweets posted by local/national/international celebrities (from sports, film, tv, politics, science, business and every other field). You can gain insights and you can contribute to the discussion about such issues. This is often best done for searching for all tweets on a specific subject or that include a specific hashtag (#).

NB: Twitter takes some getting used to and it can also become obsessive. For more of my ‘introduction to twitter‘ type posts follow this link. Remember too that you only see the tweets of people you follow. You choose who they are. And you can stop following someone whenever you like. So you aren’t forced to read anyone’s tweets if they bore you. The list of ten NON-business reasons to be on twitter

1. To find out what’s going on
   • …. in the National news (reports through twitter tend to be faster than more traditional media)
   • ….in your business sector
   • ….as regards a specific topic that interests you – sports, hobby, politics, films, tv shows, radio, podcasts, IT, holiday destination, a specific celebrity, sports person, politician, journalist
     • ….locally
     • ….regionally
     • …at a holiday destination or somewhere you’re loved ones are based
2. To elicit or simply listen to opinions on any of the above or products, brands, films etc. These may be shared by friends you know well, people you have met occasionally, journalists, celebrities etc or simply by virtual contacts.
3. To find stuff out – by asking and getting answers to questions about your daily life (eg: computer issues), your plans or your friends.
4. To be entertained – whether by famous people and their tweets or by your friends or new contacts who tweet amusing stuff either randomly or on topics in which you are interested.
5. To be amazed – Sometimes it’s more than mere entertainment. Many people post tweets containing links that could make you go ‘wow’! You may be touched, inspired or motivated by the tweet or the item in the link.
6. To make new friends – either virtually around the world or closer to home, as you choose.
7. To connect up with old friends and contacts – if you find that they are active on twitter
8. To attract interest to your blog or activities (remember we’re talking about NON-business blogs and activities on this post)
9. To entertain or amaze your followers – SOME of whom will see SOME of your tweets
10. To help other people - locally or more generally – by sharing tips, warnings and problems that you have encountered/resolved and which may benefit them and/or prevent them encountering the same issue. To reciprocate for all that you have gained.

NB: If you find this list helpful you might choose to tweet a link to it so as to help others who may also find it helpful  (Some of the best tweets are those with links to blog posts AND a note of WHY the tweeter recommends the item). What are your NON-business reasons for being on twitter?  Please share your stories and thoughts as comments on this blog post.

NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. You can attend either or both. Full details here.

The other day I was asked the following:

I’ve established a group – no members yet, though I’ve yet to invite them!  What I plan to do initially (and see how it goes) is each month to send out say three topical points – and invite comments.  Is it in order then at the end to give the dates of my next seminars and webinars, for the benefit of anyone who might want to give them a go?  Or is that somehow frowned upon, as advertising? It was said to me today that it might be.

Can I find ‘the rules of combat’ anywhere?

Here’s my reply:

Must admit I quite like your plan. The KEY is to ensure that members of the group/messages perceive two things: a) that you are giving away something of value and of interest to them; and b) that the promo message does not overwhelm the helpful/valuable info.

So 30 lines of useful info (3 x 10) plus 4 lines of promo should be fine. Whereas 9 lines (3 x 3) of useful info followed by 15 lines of promo would be frowned upon.

There are no rules anywhere. It’s all down to perception and none of us can predict how anyone else will respond/react.

My advice is to adopt a similar approach to what you might do if you wanted to engage with people at a free evening event. If you spend 20 minutes talking about your paid for seminars and just 10 minutes sharing practical points you wouldn’t make any friends. On the other hand if you spent 20 minutes covering practical points and just 5 minutes at the end talking about the paid for seminars no one would complain. Well, some might but you can’t please everyone.  Linkedin is much the same.

Do you have any related tips?

NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. Full details here.

More and more people are experimenting with social media. I say ‘experimenting’ as all too often there is no real strategy behind the activity. Many accountants, for example, simply buy into the ‘hope’ that their social media activity will lead to more clients. It’s rarely as simple as that.

Whatever you might have heard about social media the same principles apply as to any other new business related activity you might wish to explore. You first need to determine WHY you want to do this. Only then do you need to start working out HOW to do so.

Imagine you were thinking about adopting a new online accounting system in the cloud for instance. Before spending time finding out how to use any of the key options you would first have to decide WHY the idea was of interest and how it might benefit your practice. Think of all the questions you would have.   Only after you understand what the benefits would be, the costs and consequences can you weigh these up and make a considered decision.

It’s the same with social media. Except that many people assume that the answer to the WHY question is that social media opens up new marketing channels. Whilst this is true it is is NOT a new ‘broadcast’ channel and it take more time and effort to get the desired returns than many users had expected. There are plenty of social media and marketing ‘experts’ who can help you. Sadly many of them focus on the HOW without helping you first to understand the WHY. If you did you might choose not to explore it further, not at this time anyway.

Or is there another view? Sticking with the analogy I drew earlier; Might you simply decide that online accounting in the cloud is the way of the future?The WHY is answered simply by your desire to stay ahead of the game.  And if that’s the way you operate then you might just as easily decide that you have to start getting involved in social media. If this is your normal way of operating, the WHY is very simple.   And that then just leaves the HOW.

Are you someone who knows WHY you choose to try new things before you learn HOW to do them? Or do you play around with new things and hope that you’ll work out a good strategic reason afterwards, if you enjoy them enough?

I have been asked a number of times if I could go in-house to train or tutor the members of professional firms in-house on the ‘WHY bother’ and ‘How to’ side of social media – to best effect.  I am also putting the finishing touches to a couple of half day seminars I will be running on 23 February 2012. The morning will be the ‘WHY bother’ side of social media including how to get started. The afternoon will be focused on HOW to get the most from your involvement with social media. I’ll be focusing on LinkedIn and Twitter although other options such as facebook, blogging, youtube, Google+ and online forums will also get a mention.

I often speak on Social Media to business people (generally accountants and suppliers to accountants). But I don’t talk about Google+ 

Here’s why:

1 – It is too new: I do not think that my audiences need to be at the forefront of the newest social media fads. IF Google+ becomes an established alternative to LinkedIn for professional business audiences THEN I will discuss it in detail during my talks. Until and unless THEIR target audiences  (clients, prospects and referrers) are engaged on Google+ there is no need for them or me to spend time on this new platform.

2 – Walk don’t run: To date very few in my audiences are already engaged to any material extent with social media. Some have registered profiles on Linkedin or twitter but they don’t yet USE them effectively. Anyone who is going to dip their toes into social media is best off starting to experiment with these established tools. Some may try facebook business pages or ecademy. The choice should be determined, as I’ve already noted, by considering where your target audience is and engaging with them there.

3 – Horses for courses: To date, the only people I have encountered who are USING Google+ are IT geeks and those who are promoting social media and/or marketing – in a generic way. These people are not my audience and no one in my audience wants to do more than to use social media for marketing their own business. I know this isn’t the right motivation but I accept it is the reason for their interest. I always explain that Social Media is NOT a new broadcast medium. In any event, the more established social media sites are where my audience should start experimenting, not the newest latest fad.

4 – Damn statistics – I don’t care that over 40 million people registered for Google+. This is very different from the number of people who REALLY use Google+.  In fact the stats tell us that only a small proportion of that 40m are using Google+ to any real extent. I guess many are like me. I registered and had a look when it was launched in July 2011. I went back once or twice and then stopped bothering. Much as I did with Google Buzz when that launched. By the way I understand that Buzz has recently been killed off.

5 – It’s not for me – The bottom line is that I think it’s unlikely I’ll be using Google+ for business anytime soon. The only people I know using Google+ are people I am already connected with on other social media platforms. Why do I (or they) need to be connecting and interacting on a new platform as well?  Is there a good enough reason to migrate across to a new platform, to learn new techniques and build new habits? I think not. Indeed, even if there were some fantastic new amazing features only available with Google+ I would still not want to be a pioneer.  They seem to be lonely.

Listening to a Social Media Podcast recently I found myself agreeing with the expert contributors: It’s unlcear what Google+ is FOR. By comparison, and I appreciate this is simplistic: Facebook is for friends and fun; Twitter is for fast news and insights; and Linkedin is for business and CVs. Until there is a similar simple way to express what Google+ is for and thus a compelling reason to use Google+ I won’t be advocating it to my audiences and I’m comfortable that they won’t be missing out.

What do you think?

NB: On 23rd February 2012 Mark is speaking at two masterclasses in London addressing (respectively) The ‘Why bother?’ side of social media and The ‘How to?’ side of social media. Full details here.

After attending a formal dinner at the ICAEW last night, I posted a tweet:

Enjoyed a fab dinner at ICAEW with other current and former Council members. Many accountants with interesting hobbies and backgrounds.

And one of my followers on twitter posted the perhaps inevitable response:

Interesting accountants? Are you sure?!

The simple fact is ‘yes’. Absolutely. During the evening I spoke with a number of middle-aged accountants who are evidently not boring. Including:

• One who originally trained as a fighter pilot in the air force in the 1970s;
• One who took up flying twenty years ago and has recently sold 3 light aircraft he has been flying over the years;
• One who runs 2 marathons a year;
• One who is a solicitor, New York attorney, licensed insolvency practitioner, arbitrator and a professor in business law.
• Then there’s me – a member of the magic circle who spent 25 years as a childrens party entertainer and later a roving close-up magician at dinners and celebrations.

It occurs to me that it is time to nail the lie that accountants are boring. Please add your stories and recollections of accountants with interesting hobbies and backgrounds as comments on this thread. And pass the word.

Here’s a slide I prepared for recent talks about Social Media for Accountants. I reference it after I note the desire that an increasing number of firms have to experiment with social media.

Whoever takes responsibility for your social media activity could be doing something else. So you need to determine whether the time spent on social media could be spent more productively. This is true whether it is you, a colleague, someone in your marketing department or a third party consultant ‘doing’ your social media work for you.

Let’s imagine that you ask Harry to devote some time to managing the firm’s social media projects. In order for Harry to devote any time to this new project he’s going to have to give up doing something else.

The equation sets out his priorities in formulaic terms. He could stop doing X, to do Y in order to accomplish Z which is more important than Q.

Starting with X – What is going to give? Your newsletter? Your direct mail campaign? Harry’s smoking break?  Is he currently wasting his time? Or does the practice or business benefit from what Harry does at the moment?

Moving onto Y - You can’t just say: “Harry I need you to do our social media”.  You need to agree a reasonable amount of time each day or week. And a word of warning. Once Harry starts it can be quite hard to stop. It may start at just 2 or 3 hours a week. It can easily end up as 2 -3 hours a day. It’s likely to require at least 5 hours a week IF you plan to use social media as a serious marketing tool.

Now Z – This is the value you attribute to the strategic and financial impact you hope to achieve from having Harry involved with social media activity. If you hop on the bandwagon without a clear idea of what you hope to achieve, how can you determine that it’s more important than anything else you’re doing? ie: X

And, finally, Q - If you’re considering getting engaged in social media at your firm or company, don’t you think it would be a good idea to consider what else Harry could be doing with the time you are going to free up and the impact that might have on  your business? It’s basic due diligence I think.  It’s the same if you are considering recruiting someone to run your social media campaign – or outsourcing this to a marketing organisation.  What impact might you reasonably expect from any OTHER activity you could engage them to do for you? Social Media is NOT the only game in town although, perhaps, there are some firms who are doing EVERYTHING else they could be doing such that Social Media is the only thing they have yet to try.

Does this equation work for you? How might we improve it?

This was the topic I was asked to speak about at yesterday’s Cloud Accounting conference run by Cloud Advocates (David Terrar and Richard Messik).

A couple of hours before I was due to speak I posted a tweet:

Any accountants who’d like a mention during my talk @ #clouda21 , please answer the Q: Why should accountants bother with social media?

This was retweeted a couple of times and I received far more responses than I would ever have expected. I’ve posted most of them below with, in some cases, my observations. I’m conscious that not all replies directly reference twitter and may refer to other forms of social media:

Simple 1. It wins us business, 2. It helps us keep in touch with existing clients and potential, 3. To follow our competitors

I’m not attributing this yet as I’ve asked for clarification given the tweeter has only 105 followers and has only posted 410 tweets since joining twitter last November. I’m guessing she has had her success on other social media platforms. Re “keeping in touch with existing clients” – this implies that she has clients she follows on twitter or elsewhere.

how about because it shows that we are real people and not just hidden away? clients appear to like it and can easily get us (@Theataccounts – 96 followers, 124 tweets since joining twitter on 30 March 2011)

Assume that those clients are on twitter or the other social media platforms where this accountant is active.

‘cos we often have to use a lot of tedious financial jargon: social media gives us a great chance to connect, chat & be fun !! (@EacottsTeam – 33 followers)

Fair enough. I stressed the fun side during my talk.

we should be part of the conversation on sm, from a technical and accessible point of view. Our Partners love blogging too! (@MercerHole with just 114 followers despite a twitter presence for over 2 years – July 2009)

A classic case of big firm marketing team approach. Following the crowd but not really making it work.

it keeps you in touch with your current clients and a presence for others to see you and company.. I think it …. Be a mix of business and personal, as people do business with people.  (@Cam42 – Alex Walls with 154 followers since march 2009)

Of course it only keeps you in touch with those clients who are engaged on the same social media platforms where you chooe to be active.

Social media is a vital tool in marketing accountants and allowing access to millions of potential new clients. (1/2)  Cloud accounting then enables us to remove any distance problems with the click of a button. Cloud accountants @GloverStanbury (@bussdean 70 followers)

Sorry. This all sounds like wishful thinking. Whilst accountants may be happy to service clients anywhere in the country, only a TINY minority of those prospects seeking a new accountant will choose one outside of their local area. Much better to focus your efforts on social media with a LOCAL bias.

To show how witty, smart, approachable and normal we are oh and to tell the world that we’re pretty good at what we do x (@NicolaSwalwell who works for Wright Vigar and has 362 followers, having been on twitter since Feb this year).

to prove we have personality! (@TheYowser – 67 followers)

Accountants need to talk to their clients – social media is a way of talking, it builds trust, and it’s dynamic. And if I look like a marketer, yes I am, but I’m also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. (@divariotweet with 171 followers, since joining twitter in March of this year)

Common view expressed by marketing types and based on a series of assumptions that will only be true in some cases.

as a result of engaging with a web savvy audience, they help us (helps both parties) use cloud more effectively  - and it is Twitter more than any other SM tool which really makes the difference (@proactivepaul with 1355 followers built up over the last 3 years)

Paul is very active on twitter and has been at it for some time.

Social Media allows us to communicate with a wider audience at little cost. We have advertised Seminars & gained contacts (@RobertShawMyers with 113 followers – on twitter since June 2010)

Think they’ve bought into the myth. The wider audience to which they refer is a subset of the 113 followers they have – as they won’t all be interested, and even those who are won’t see your every tweet.  Gaining contacts is good but follower numbers looks very low after more than a year on twitter.

SM = potential to reach & engage with a much wider audience, incl clients, prospects and associates/colleagues (@chapperscounts 478 followers since May 2009)

Potential indeed. Lots of things have potential.

f in forensic analysis indicates that if you want to raise your f in profile then SM is an f in fun way to do it ! - I’m the f in (forensic) accountant BTW ;o) But you knew that already (@forensicfreddie – 86 followers since Nov 2010)

Agreed. On all counts. Though you still need to consider whether the audience with whom you want to raise your profile is engaged on social media. Mine is. is yours?

My favourite reply was this one from @figurate (Louise) and I suspect there’s an element of truth in it:

because it pleasantly passes the time, whilst on hold to #HMRC

The last response I received, an hour after I completed my talk, was:

We believe it provides a megaphone to promote our services. It also challenges the status quo of “old fashioned” accountants!

I’ve not attributed this one, to avoid embarrassment, as the tweeter is very new to twitter (32 tweets and 64 followers) and completely misunderstands how it works. As I said in my reply:

‘fraud with that approach you will be sadly disappointed that no one is listening or interested in your megaphone

We continued exchanging tweets for a few minutes and he thanked me for my help – which included pointing him at the twitter page of this blog.

NB: I’ve only quoted follower numbers and joining dates above to show that many of the comments come from relatively new or inactive tweeters. There is no point in chasing follower numbers. There are plenty of tweeters who do this with the sole aim of getting large numbers of followers in the mistaken belief that this means a wider audience who are going to see every tweet they post. That’s not how twitter works. It’s only worth following people in whom you are interested. For most local accountants that should include as many local business people and tweeters as you can find using twitter search facilities.  For the record, at the time of writing I have over 2,800 twitter followers built up slowly over a 4 year period.

I appreciate that there are many more accountants on Twitter than are quoted above. Only those who happened to be around and saw my tweeted Q or the ReTweets of it will have answered. I’d be delighted to receive further responses and feedback in comments on this post.  Feel free to reference other social media too.

As part of my focus on how accountants can use social media I have not, to date, paid much attention to Facebook. I do compare key features and benefits of facebook with other social media sites during my talks and articles but that’s about it.

My gut tells me that spending BUSINESS  time on facebook might be worthwhile for some accountants. But only if you focus on certain niches – such as inheritance tax, landlords, the newly self employed or business start-ups.

I’m not convinced but, as always, I’m willing to be persuaded – by evidence rather than by hype. In this connection I was intrigued when I came across a tweet this week that linked to a blog post titled: “Examples of good facebook pages for accountants“.

The author of the blog post, Lara Solomon, had been trying to find great examples from the Accounting profession.  She claims to have looked at over 500 accountants’ pages on Facebook and was clearly unimpressed. She identified just 3 of these as being worthy of reference as good examples.  I’ve looked at all 3 of them. Well, I tried to. It seems only one is still there. That’s when I noticed that the blog was written in June 2010 and that the author is based in Australia. I also noted that, despite a clear request to ‘like’ the facebook page of the accountancy firm in question, just 145 people have done so. I don’t know how many had done so before Lara wrote her Blog post, but either way it’s not proved very popular over the last 15 months. This is a shame but may be evidence that my gut feel re the value of facebook to accountants is well founded. I’d like to find out.

I wonder whether much has changed since Lara did her research. Do let me know if you have your own accountancy firm business page or know of any accountants with facebook business pages.  Just like Lara I’m especially keen to find some ‘great’ examples. Are there any? And are any of these in the UK?

Please post your links as comments on this blog post. If there is enough interest I’ll then write an article on the subject for my regular column on AccountingWeb where I am consultant practice editor.