By Jessica Micmohen 
Accountants are always in high-demand, but despite their importance, many companies are under patronized. What’s the problem? Though different businesses obviously face different challenges, for many accounting firms, the biggest barrier to growth is a lack of social media engagement.
If you’re looking for ways to boost your accounting firm’s appeal to clients and new employees alike, it’s time to recalibrate your social media strategy. As we move into 2021, these practices should form the foundation of your social outreach.
Assess Your SEO
SEO isn’t a social media-specific issue, but it is one of the most important professional skills today, and it will directly inform your firm’s success. Furthermore, your social media presence has the ability to either bolster or hinder your firm’s SEO rankings. Ideally, you’d have at least a part-time marketing professional working on your SEO and social media management, but how you proceed on these fronts will depend on the size of your firm, employee skills, and other factors.
Read The Signs
If your accounting firm is going to use social media, then you need to be able to interpret the related data, and that means mastering the analytics. Luckily, this is an area in which, once you’ve learned your way around the tools, accounting firms may have an edge. After all, compared to professionals in other industries, accountants are more likely to be able to spot data trends and interpret social media engagement data, and that will make it easier to spot underperforming content, identify the optimal time to post, and otherwise evaluate KPIs.
Practice Promotion
Because of the ways we all interact with social media today, most companies understand how social media marketing works to attract customers. Social media content isn’t just for customer-facing engagement, however. In fact, it’s a great way to grow your firm by promoting career advancement opportunities.
How can you connect with potential hires on social media? There are several approaches. For example, if your firm is looking to hire more CPAs, you might talk about the benefits of working for your firm. Or, you might highlight support you offer to recent graduates who want to take the CPA exam, such as reimbursement for prep courses or registration fees. You can also use platforms like Facebook to link directly to job postings or profile current employees.
Ensure Your Relevance
One of the major challenges facing accounting firms is that they tend to exist below the radar for the majority of the year. That’s because, unless they’ve got tax prep on the mind, accounting services aren’t a significant priority. That’s not ideal for business, however, especially since accounting firms offer a variety of other valuable services for businesses and individuals, though workloads do tend to be lighter outside of tax season.
Savvy accounting firms can use the offseason to generate valuable content, curate their social media presence, and build relationships that will keep them relevant year-round. Even if your services are of limited value to individuals outside of tax seasons, ensure that your brand stays at front of mind. It’s the best way to boost your client conversion and retention when peak season arrives.
A Complex Skill
Developing a successful social media marketing campaign is a challenging undertaking, and one that takes expertise to do successfully. If your brand hasn’t mastered this process in past years, then, don’t be surprised if it takes some time to get your campaign off the ground.
With time and attention, though, you’ll find that your business reaps the rewards of your new digital presence, both in terms of client growth and talent acquisition, not just during tax season, but in the long-term.
SME Paid Under
Digital Editor