September 17, 2019
When it comes to digital marketing methods in the modern-day, social media marketing is considered as the "in-thing." This is because of the latest buzzword for marketers who wish to optimize their online presence and increase their sales. Also, it is a buzzword for people across the globe as they spend a lot of their time using social media channels daily.
When it comes to marketing and promoting your accounting business, whether old or new, you need to be ready to play the game. Why? Because countless businesses today realize that their marketing strategies are incomplete without social media marketing. If you aren’t sure about why this marketing type is so popular and crucial, take a look at the benefits of social media marketing for accounting firms.
Eases Meeting Goals
Irrespective of what your goal is, social media marketing for accounting firms can help you achieve them. Whether you wish to create brand awareness of your newly established accounting business, create an identity that sets you apart from competitors, or wish to position yourself as a thought leader, you can leverage social media to its best and achieve these goals. Gaining effective brand recognition is one of the premier marketing goals of accounting businesses as clients prefer organizations and brands they easily recognize. Social media marketing allows you to that kind of brand recognition. Social media benefits for business are huge and that is why it is one of the most powerful digital marketing methods that are used to syndicate content and increase your brand’s visibility and awareness. Implementing a target-oriented social media strategy will greatly increase your brand recognition, as this will help you be engaged with a broad audience of potential consumers. It has great benefits over traditional media as with its help, marketers can highlight their brand in front of people in the quickestpossible fashion. And if your goal is to increase conversions, social media for accounting firms can assist you there as well. With increased visibility, your business gains more opportunities for conversion. Every blog post, image, video, or comment may lead viewers to your company's website and increase traffic. Social media marketing allows your accounting business to give a positive impression through a humanization factor. Putting your accounting firm in an atmosphere where people are sharing, liking, and talking, can only improve the conversion rates on your existing traffic.
Humanizes Your Firm
Today, a lot of businesses strive to present themselves as "real" on the digital front. They wish to show off their human side on the internet because people tend to connect and engage better when they know there's some human on the other side. A human that identifies as a ‘people person’ is often perceived as warm and inviting and is particularly great at interacting with others. For your accounting company to be a ‘people person’, it has to achieve a reputation for being outstanding at engaging with the audience. Although we all understand that social media marketing for accounting firms cannot work without humans, we still wish for a human touch. Simply showing off your colleagues and employees is an easy way to put a face to your accounting organization as people come to know who'll be looking after their books and other functions like communicating with them when they outsource to you. But that isn't enough. You need to be consistent and be human consistently. And social media marketing for accounting firms lets you do both of these. Humanizing your company means giving the people behind your posts permission to be people and breathe life into the unique brand voice that will forge the connections. These connections keep your audiences invested, and help you to convert them into clients in the future. Social media marketing for accounting firms lets you use warm and inviting words, respond to queries and feedback openly, and ask questions as a human so that your social media profiles can look alive.
Creates Amazing Sharing Web
Social media channels mentioned above are sure amazing for sharing posts, tweets, stories, and what not. But do you think that's it? If yes, then you are sadly mistaken. Social media marketing for accounting firms is much more than just social media updates. Using these channels, you can create a great sharing web. Let's say you recently updated a blog on your website. The blog will be visible to people who regularly follow you. It will also be shared via newsletters to your database. But to give it a larger scope of exposure, you can use social media platforms. All you have to do is share the blog on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. All the followers and audiences you have on your social media profiles will be able to view your new blog. And you can make this a regular habit whenever you put up a new blog. Likewise, you can use infographics, videos, and podcasts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and so on. Moreover, you can even go live on channels of you are holding a seminar or session for a particular client or for interested masses. This will let people know about the events you do. Also, people who couldn't be a part of the session can benefit from your live and shared updates. And don't just limit yourself to one or two channels; create an entire webwork by using as many channels as possible to share what you can show to the world about your accounting business. No matter what your goal is from social media marketing for accounting firms or even digital marketing, almost all of them can be achieved by sharing several updates on social media.
Aids SEO
There are a lot of factors that help your accounting firm's website and web pages to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs). Social media marketing for accounting firms can be a helping hand in this process. You must've noticed several times that when you put a search query on Google or Bing, a Facebook or LinkedIn profile is displayed in the top results. This is because even search engines give importance to social media channels. Let's understand how social media aids SEO of your accounting website.
Social media profile of your accounting business, whether Facebook or LinkedIn, is the gateway to the website, and it helps you to ensure more traffic for your accounting website. Every piece of content posted on these profiles offers another opportunity to acquire a new customer, as social media is like a melting pot that incorporates different types of demographics at one place. Social media marketing for accounting firms plays a great role in improving search ranking of your website too as it drives traffic from social media page to your official site. It increases the organic reach of your accounting business and influences potential clients to reach your site. Use of social media opens your business to a wider variety of versatile consumers and helps your site have better search ranking.
Furthermore, Google has repeatedly said that social media likes, favourites, shares, backlinks, etc. are not direct ranking signals. But there is a correlation between social media activity and how or why it is ranked by the search engines. So, although social media shares don’t serve as actual, full-value backlinks, your potential clients and audiences that may see your accounting firm's content via social media may very well link to your firm's content, and those backlinks would certainly hold real value.
Combines with Other Marketing Tactics
When it comes to social media marketing for accounting firms, it isn't just limited to the social media platforms. Actually, you can combine your social media marketing strategies with other marketing tactics for better results. We already saw how SMM can help your SEO efforts. And of course, SEO matters the most in today's world. But social media marketing for accounting firms can help you beyond SEO also; it can complement your online and offline marketing and promotion efforts too. Let's first take the example of press releases. Press releases are crucial when you’re launching a new service, moving to a new location, or making a huge change in your company. But most accounting firms and businesses get the distribution part terribly wrong. If what you’re accustomed to is writing a press release and sending it out on PRWeb, you aren't utilizing all the opportunities you have because such traditional press release distribution services are incredibly overrated. Social media, on the other hand, provides you with a space where you can reach your target audience in a more personal, conversational way. You can share the press release on social media channels and even put every word about your business out on the internet. And if your potential clients have questions, they can ask you right then and there.
Uncovers Industry Trends
When it comes to running an accounting business, it is essential to know what people are saying about your firm in specific or what their expectations from an accounting firm are. Considering the transparent nature of social media, the task of understanding what your potential and existing clients need is simplified. Using almost any social media channel, you are able to see unfiltered, real-time conversations between clients and accountants alike. If you want to know what your competitor accountant is doing well or likewise what customers are complaining about, it’s all out there in the open. Social behaviours and conversions can clue you in on everything from which services your clients love to areas where your company might be falling short. A flurry of praise or customer complaints can spur you to take actions based on their feedback. The feedback can be a direct complaint or praise or an indirect comment that they may leave for you to work on your services. In turn, you can come up with real-time solutions and services that your target audience can buzz about.
Moreover, you can be in the competition and make yourself better in multiple ways if you know the insights and trends of the accounting industry. That's where social media marketing for accounting firms can help you. Reading the comments and tweets of people on your as well as your competitors' social media profiles is one thing. But other things that can help you in taking cues too, like hashtags. For instance, hashtags on Twitter like #accountingdiscounts and #accountingserviceoffers can help you understand what kind of discounts and offers are working out in the industry. Likewise, you too can introduce various offers and use the same trending hashtags. This is how your target audience’s social activity and shared content can clue you in on industry trends.
Lets You Compete
Just like you understand that 3.48 billion users are present on social media, your competitors know that too. Irrespective of what accounting services and products you provide, there is a good chance that your competitors are already present and involved on social media channels. This not only suggests that there is an opportunity for your firm to do well on these channels, but it means that some of your potential customers may already be talking with the competition as you just start reaching out to them. So how do you make sure you make up to the top or at least meet your set goals? It’s a lot easier than you think because most brands aren’t doing it right. Bigger brands may have sophisticated social media presences, but small accounting firms and newly established companies rarely do. They start a few social media channels because it’s cheap, and it’s what everyone else does. Without investing in social media strategy, however, they rarely make a big impact. They post irregularly, rarely engage with followers and don’t develop a sophisticated persona and voice. To outperform your competitors locally and globally, you need to have an impeccable social media strategy that will help you stay on top of the competition. Social media marketing for accounting firms allows you to not only show a little bit of your brand personality, but it also presents an effective outlet for demonstrating your industry expertise and knowledge. So, sticking to the benefit mentioned above, use the power of humanization, create a unique persona for your brand, and move ahead with the same for a long time. This way, your audience will be able to differentiate between your firm and competitors.
Makes Advertising Easy
Did you know that 26% of people who clicked on Facebook ads made a purchase from the same brand? Well, it's true. Advertising allows you to remind audiences of their unmet needs; the first step, though, is finding where they are and we already know that the place is social media. Advertising on social media gives your brand instant visibility. Paid ads are guaranteed a place in the user’s feed. Despite the noise of the larger social platform, this gives you a direct window to drive leads, website traffic, and other benefits too. Not only this, but paid advertising on social media gives you complete control over who sees your ad. Each social media platform offers a plethora of targeting parameters. Beyond basic user demographics, you can choose from psychographic factors such as interests, hobbies, personality types, and more. Also, social media is an ideal way to distribute your best content. Aside from coaxing leads down the funnel, ads for content will help you to drive web traffic, boost engagement on social media, and improve the ROI of your content marketing. And what matters the most at the end of any advertising campaign is the ability to gain insights and measure the performance of ads. With social media marketing for accounting firms, you can gain real insight into how your ads are performing and how they resonate with your target audience. No more projections or having to conduct surveys as services like Twitter Analytics and Instagram Insights provide you with stacks of data to help you understand how your ads are performing with consumers.
Provides Cost-effectiveness
One of the most notable benefits of social media marketing for accounting firms is its cost-effective nature. It is possibly the most cost-efficient part of any internet marketing strategy. Signing up and creating a social profile on different social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. is free, and even if you go for paid promotions on them, they are also relatively affordable than other marketing tactics. Being cost-effective is such an advantage because you can see a greater return on investment and retain a bigger budget for other marketing and business expenses. If you decide to use paid advertising, always start small to see what you should expect. As you become more comfortable, fine-tune your strategy and try increasing your budget. Just by spending a small amount of time and money, you can significantly increase your conversion rates and eventually get the return on investment on the money you initially invested. You can promote your business on Facebook for any budget. Facebook also automatically directs your ad toward users that are interested in what you’re advertising. Twitter works the same way. You have to set up a campaign, and they’ll work with your budget. That means you’ll have a huge ROI, and you'll use your marketing budget in an effective way.
Helps in Reaching Specific Audience
Another benefit of social media marketing for accounting firms is that you are able to strategically target different audiences based on the channels that your brand is active on. Rather than just putting your marketing message out there for everyone to see, you can reach your target market and work to drive more qualified leads back to your site. In other words, you can segment your target audiences and potential clients and market to each one of them exclusively. Create a clear list of your audience demographic values – the more detailed it is, the better. This list can include their gender, age, location, interests (the services you provide), etc. Knowing these aspects will give you more idea on which social media channel you should use to reach them. Also, this will help you in creating content that will engage your audience, thus increasing your chances for conversions. Suppose you figure out that a particular style of posts or blogs work well for set 'A' audience based on the engagement you measure, you can create more of similar content to keep them glued to your social media profiles. The more relevant this traffic is, the more likely you will be to boost conversion rates. No matter who you are trying to reach, you can find your audience on one of the many popular social media channels that consumers are using every day. The key to getting the most out of your social media marketing for accounting firms is to strategically choose which channels you plan to invest your time, money, and effort in.
Allows Measuring Responses
80% of companies online are under the impression that they deliver exceptional social media customer service, while only 8% of their customers say that they agree. Those 80% may have most of your competitors too. So make sure that you don't end up like your competitors and fall under the same category. Study the responses and numbers you get after analyzing everything thoroughly. And once you do so, only then move ahead with your next social media plans and strategies. Measuring these responses and gauging return on investment are some of the toughest things that every business person has to deal with. But with social media tracking and analytics tools, you can see the full impact of your social media activities, from follows to engagements right through to purchases. Every social media channel has its own insights and analytical tool that you can use to figure out how your social media profiles are working. Moreover, tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite Impact track website traffic generated from social media, conversions, email sign-ups, and ROI for both organic and paid social media campaigns. This means that you have ample options to understand what’s going well for your accounting firm’s social media profiles and what isn’t. Based on the measurements, you can then tweak your marketing tactics until you actually hit your goal and gain success.
Social media just keeps growing and growing, and so do the immense benefits from them. All you need to do is understand the importance of social media marketing for accounting firms and create awesome strategies consistently. Your strategies should cover as many social media channels as possible and grab all kinds of marketing opportunities. Social media marketing can be fun when you do it in the right way. Find a social media marketing firm that can help you design several successful strategies and make social media marketing for accounting firms fun.
