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.

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.

An unnamed accountant has written the following confession for AccountancyAge. It accords with my perception of the position many firms of accountants are in or will find themselves in:

Having spent a great deal of time and effort on new social media methods of marketing it was a happy day when we recently acquired a client originating from Twitter.

We have had lots of initial enquiries, loads of conversations, even a few meetings but to finally sign up an actual client was a real joy.

A couple of us within the firm have been so desperate to prove that the new social media marketing methods actually work when it comes to acquiring business, that we have probably spent a disproportionate amount of time on it just to prove the point.

In the cold light of day it probably hasn’t been worth it so far and I’m sure at the next partners’ meeting the issue will probably be raised.

A huge amount of time has been spent learning and putting into practice the new methods – and on a cost-per-hour basis the return at the moment just isn’t there.

I am still convinced that Twitter and Facebook are great ways to market the practice but I will probably have to admit that now is the time to delegate the task of tweeting and posting to staff who have lower charge out rates, or maybe even administrative staff.

Regular readers will know that I am not surprised. I have often questioned whether the time that some professional advisers devote to twitter and other forms of social media is worthwhile. Often it seems unfocused, overly promotional or unsupported.

Twitter and other forms of social media can be worthwhile activities but only when the adviser (or those at the top of the firm) understand enough about what it involves, what it requires and what it implies. What will not be worthwhile is the approach that the unnamed practitioner suggests his firm will now adopt – delegating tweeting to a junior member of staff.   This MAY be all the biggest firms need to do. But for most it wil simply mean that a more junior person is the one wasting their time instead of a partner.  Far better to review the firm’s strategy and to ensure that its social media activity is more focused going forwards.

What do you think?

I apologise to those readers who have no interest in social media. I completely understand your disinterest. You may even be right – for the moment anyway – but it’s also clear that more and more professionals are expressing an interest in social media.

If you’re active on twitter for example you may have noticed a capital K in a little red box followed by a number, appearing alongside each of the twitter names in your twitter stream. This is their ‘klout’ number.

Klout is NOT really an indicator of anything beyond RELATIVE involvement in social media. Klout purports to measure:

• How many people you influence
• How much you influence them
• How influential they are

In practice it does this largely by reference to your involvement in various social media including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Foursquare.  My klout score is generally around 60 which is higher than most but not as high as full on marketing, social media or celebrity tweeters. At the weekend when I don’t tweet much my score drops a point or two. Klout suggests that I am ‘influential’ about ten topics including business, accounting, social media and linkedin.  I’m not complaining. But Klout also makes a number of less accurate assertions about me and presumably therefore about others too. As such I take Klout with a pinch of salt.

So I don’t suggest you go chasing a high Klout score. As with so much of social media, the important thing is to first identify your target audience and then to do whatever is appropriate to capture their attention and interest so that you can engage with them. Klout won’t help you here and I cannot believe that anyone is ever going to choose their accountant, for example, by reference to their Klout score.  I would say though that if you’re ever inclined to pay for social media related advice I WOULD suggest checking out your consultant and their Klout score. If it’s low then they are not using twitter etc effectively. In which case are they best placed to advice you on the subject?

Klout appears to be the most widely referenced tool for measuring activity and influence on social media. It also has a simple but clever name. Other options include PeerIndex, EmpireAvenue and Crowdbooster.  Again I don’t recommend you devote any time to these tools. I mention them simply to let you know they exist and that I see no direct relevance of any of these to your role as an ambitious professional.

What do you think?

When I write and speak about accountants and social media I always make the point that Linkedin is different. It’s the only online networking site where you can get some benefit simply by having your profile there, even if you’re not active.

But of course you can also choose to be active on LinkedIn. One accountant who does this is Andrew Diver of Beatons in Ipswich. He posted the following recently in answer to someone claiming (wrongly in my view) that LinkedIn doesn’t work for accountants. I have copied it here with Andrew’s permission:

We have had a number of successes from using Linkedin. The overwhelming message I would send is that Linkedin is not a marketing strategy in itself. It is a tool, like an e-mail account, a website, a seminar, or a networking event.

There are many strands to what we use it for. Some of them are routines others less prescribed. But it always comes back to using it to enhance the more traditional marketing techniques. 90% of our new business comes from referrals. Staying in touch with intermediaries and people who can refer work. We regularly alert these people to opportunities to save tax, deadlines and opportunities for themselves and their clients.

Moreover I believe technology has pushed the emphasis onto collaboration. Looking for opportunities for our clients, connections to be more profitable either through winning new work or reducing costs. Hence why people refer work to us, we are working hard for them too. There is a lot of weight placed by consumers into the power of social advocacy.

We also post on local groups and give guidance to local businesses. We then become a trusted source of information, and can start forging a relationship with the individuals or businesses concerned and taking the relationship offline.

I must say that I saw this as a breath of fresh air.

I was surprised recently to see a firm of accountants being applauded for the fact that partners were given goals regarding client time. This is hardly newsworthy. Then I read more closely. The partners in this firm are measured in terms of three categories of time:

1. chargeable time (as has long been the case in many larger firms);
2. contact time with their clients in a relationship management capacity (with a view to scoping ABOs – Additional Billing Opportunities); and
3. time spent with prospective clients.

The most significant issue here was that the category three time was rated as important as chargeable time. This is worthy of applause, although it is open to abuse if not carefully managed. That though is indeed a management issue. It is absolutely right to record and measure the time. To consider the  LONG TERM impact of attending a regular networking group and comparing this with more generic and random networking events. In both cases it’s important to also spend time and track the time spent on follow up 1-2-1 meetings with prospects and referrers. Focusing on short-term results is to misunderstand the way that business networking and referral marketing work.

Long time readers of this blog may recall a post I wrote 3 years ago: Are accountants as ‘stupid’ as lawyers? In it I repeated a David Maister story that is relevant here. David noted that there is general agreement amongst lawyers (and most other people too) that it is generally easier to win more work from existing clients than it is to get engaged to provide services to strangers (new clients). “Why then,” he asks, “do we risk upsetting clients by treating all the time we spend with them as potentially billable? And why do we only consider ‘billable’ time to be of value”

I would put it this way:

A firm will encourage and motivate the partners to devote time to those activities that they believe are being recorded and measured and rewarded. I stressed the importance of looking beyond fees billed in my 2006 blog post: Fees, fees, fees.

In the traditional model all the focus was on ‘billable time’. More sophisticated models take account of how much of such time is actually billed.  This then requires careful monitoring to ensure that write-offs are fairly allocated to the partner’s time costs vs that of their teams or of specialists who have been working on the same clients.

When I was at Touche Ross (now Deloitte) many years ago they already had a time recording system that allowed client time to be recorded ‘below the line’. This was the category two time above and quite forward thinking for the 1980s.

Almost thirty years later, how many firms track and monitor category two or category three time? Do you think they should?

I brought a sense of realism to the ICAEW’s recent seminar on social media. An early tweeter using the event hashtag had noted:

“Nice to see so many accountants interested in social media”

During my presentation I suggested that this clearly was NOT the case. There were less than 40 people in the room, a number of them being from the organisers (ICAEW), the speakers or sponsors. It’s fair to say that the feedback afterwards showed that everyone was very happy – from the organisers, to the sponsors to the audience. That’s great. I enjoyed myself too and have already referenced some of the positive feedback I received.

However this seminar was promoted across the ‘ICAEW IT Counts’ forum for weeks. It was also actively promoted on twitter by three of the speakers, by the sponsors and by the organisers; and on linkedin. Despite all this I estimate that less than 30 accountants paid to be present at the seminar.

I had mixed emotions  -  as a delegate noted was clear from my presentation. On the one hand I was disappointed by the relative lack of interest as I love social media and this always comes across when I talk about it. But the low level of interest in the event validated the view I first expressed in 2008: Accountants – in the main – are not really interested in social media. Certainly not many had chosen to attend the seminar.  Maybe the marketing was too focused on people who have already chosen to use social media such that they didn’t think there was any need to attend.

My stance continues to be that social media is NOT something that ALL accountants need to embrace.  Yes, there are plenty of positive stories about work won, information obtained, friendships established and relationships built through social media. But few such stories come from established accountants in general practice. (I ran my own seminar/masterclass on the subject ten days after the ICAEW event. I was pleased to attract a similar sized paying audience. The attendees and feedback made me realise that the level of interest is growing. At last. Whether this translates into greater USE of social media by accountants in established businesses reamins to be seen. Notes and slides available here by the way)

Social Media can be of great benefit and good fun. But it’s not for everyone. Before embarking on a social media strategy it’s important to understand what is involved and to avoid the hype about all the things you COULD use it for. You need to set clear and realistic objectives and to determine how these can best be achieved.

If you’re an accountant in practice do please leave your comments below about how useful or otherwise you found social media to be. Thanks!