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Social media strategy: All or just a bit

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14th Nov 2012
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Around 53% of accountants who spend more than 10 hours a week on social media have seen a return on investment, according to a survey into online engagement in the profession.

The upcoming PracticeWEB benchmarking report reveals that the percentage dramatically drops off for those spending less than 10 hours a week – down to just 23% seeing a ROI. But interestingly, accountants who dedicated a very small amount of time, around an hour or two a week, also saw a return.

This sweet spot trend was shown across a good mix of both small and large firms, with single and multiple partners, varying specialities and turnover.

Regrettably the average number of hours spent on social media across the firms surveyed was six hours a week, meaning most accountants will fail to realise value from their online activities.

The good news is a decent proportion of the profession currently uses social media – with 83% of respondents using social media and a further 8% planning to in the next 12 months.

Overall the survey found that those who invested time in their website and online marketing were the ones to see the return.

Providing an exclusive insight into the research at the Practice Excellence Awards in September James Scanlan said: “97% of firms who achieve 'good' or 'very good' ROI from their website are using social media”. However he added that 10% of firms didn't know if they got ROI from their website often because they were not measuring it.

The research threw up some strong evidence that there is a direct correlation between employing a dedicated marketing member of staff and the number of new clients a firm gains.

Almost half of the firms with dedicated marketing resource saw a significant fee growth of more than 10% in the last year.

PracticeWEB identified search engine marketing as a hot topic: “We consider it vital. There's no point having a website if it can't be found,” adding that the biggest area of growth was content marketing. "We see it as evidence of our credibility” said Scanlan.

The research also found that accountancy practices were changing the way they use digital technology. The successful firms were more like to integrate their marketing campaigns and were using their website as a hub for content and contacts.

Respondents were optimistic about the future of their online presence, with more than two thirds who don’t currently gain a return expecting to do so in the next year.

Interestingly while LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook were the most used channels, the sites expected to see the largest increases among accountants were YouTube and Google+.

If you want to find out more, you can pre-order your copy of the benchmarking report today.

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By Jonathan Brothers
16th Nov 2012 13:45

Statistics

Isn't saying "53% of accountants who spent more than 10 hours a week using social media see a return on investment" the same as saying half of the members surveyed saw no return despite wasting more than 10 hours every week on these type of things?

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By Kimani Mbogo
20th Nov 2012 08:18

Information Value

Majority of professionals are involved in social media in one way or another and so it makes sense for the accounting fraternity to use that forum to enlighten other professionals on the need of good accounting practices if this results to a new client for a firm or consultant then its a win win for everyone.

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By BrightPay
07th Jan 2013 11:47

First things first!

Maybe priorities are not being set out and results in such time wastage. I think there needs to be priorities set. I find that many accountants dont have a solid website set up in the first instance so there is no point developing a social media strategy first if the foundation isn't build, unless of course you plan using Facebook as your website.

 

I work with BrightPay software so we are obviously interested in connecting with accountants so I research closely in this area.

We are a B 2 B business hence we focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. facebook is more for B to C.

It's all about knowing the audience!!! 

 

 

 

 

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