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Why accountants should be a-Twitter

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25th May 2011
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In a presentation at the recent CCH conference, Elaine Clark lifted the veil on how social networking can be applied within accountancy.

Social networking has played an important part in Cheapaccounting’s rapid growth and its success in the 2010 Progressive Practice Award run by CCH Software and AccountingWEB. So, in spite of being more familiar with her blog posts and tweets, it was natural to see Elaine Clark appear in person to discuss her social media practices at the CCH UK user conference in Hertfordshire this week.

Dispensing with PowerPoint, Clark organised her presentation around a sequence of automated tweets that appeared on the screen beside her.

“I’ll talk about some of the things I’ve done - maybe you can do them in your firm,” she said. “I’ll also ask what’s preventing accountants from entering that world.”

Elaine's 5 online hates

1. People who shout, “Buy me!”

2. People who hide their tweets - defeats the whole point

3. One-way dialogue - Have a conversation instead

4. Badly presented blogs - Trying to read on a screen is hard. Keep language and presentation simple.

5. Rudeness, unfounded criticism, negativity - If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face, don’t say it online.

For a finale, Clark shared her five social networking pet hates (see box right). “For reasons of time, I’ve limited them to five, otherwise we’d be here all day,” she said.

From the audience’s responses it was clear that few accountants are willing to embrace social sites such as Twitter  and LinkedIn as whole-heartedly as Clark. She responded by explaining her reasons for doing it in simple, logical terms.

“For me social media is a tool that allows you to interact with people. What you’re doing is networking with people, but on a much larger scale; it gives you access to a much wider audience.
 
”People need to lift this mystique. They’re just tools. In the same way when email first arrived, there might have been one email account for the whole practice. Partners were very reluctant for any communication to go outside of the firm without their approval - some of that may still be around. “

Clark trained with KPMG and noted how it took partners a long time to realise that staff weren’t going to say inappropriate things in email. “We were out on client sites. If we were going to do something inappropriate, we’d have done it there,” Clark argued. “Just as firms have an email policy, they should have a social media policy and ensure people understand what it means.”

Her philosophy for social networking is equally succinct. “Understand what you’re using it for. Start out small and then flex it.”

As chief executive of Cheapaccounting, Clark is now focusing on business growth and has two main objectives that she thinks can be best achieved by social networking. The first objective is to attract  potential clients and then retain them; the second is to attract accountants, bookkeepers and payroll experts to join her expanding franchise operation.

“I don’t do any offline marketing,” Clark said, but told delegates that that’s what suited her operation, warning them not to be bamboozled into throwing away traditional techniques just because she did. “It’s horses for courses and all about working out what works for you.”

Clark explained how she uses a combination of blog posts and activity on professional networking sites such as UK Business Forums and AccountingWEB to build up contacts and credibility. Having made these connections, she uses the different platforms to put forward ideas and brings them together in her Twitter stream to mount targeted campaigns.

For example, in a recent blog entitled, Why are you a sole trader? she explained what the tax benefits of incorporation were in language that appealed to her target audience. “I don’t do fancy accountant speak,” she said.

Tweets for the blog were picked up by some of her 1,800 Twitter followers, and from those who were interested enough to read the article, she picked up 20 new clients - none of whom were on her existing contact lists. “I just put it out there,” Clark said.

While she is a member of both LinkedIn and Facebook, they don’t fit as well with her marketing objectives.

“I don’t have the time to devote to Facebook for work, but I can see that before long, this is where my new clients and accountants are likely to be. But if you haven’t got time, don’t do it badly,” she advised.

The time issue is a real concern, and it may be expedient to appoint a specific person to update your firm’s Twitter feed and monitor what people were saying about you. But make sure they are well briefed on the purpose of the activity and you want them to say on the firm’s behalf.

When one audience member suggested leaving it to the marketing department, she replied: “No! If you have a marketing person answering a question on accounts, you’d have a disaster on your hands.”

Within accountancy, Elaine Clark has used her personality and online presence to build Cheapaccounting into a fast-growing brand in a very similar fashion to Duane Jackson and his KashFlow online accounting software.

She added that patience and persistence are two of the key ingredients to her success.

Social media relies on the same principles as face to face networking, she reiterated. “When I go to a networking meeting, I go around every person in the room and take the time to understand them. I don’t tend to follow people with thousands and thousands of followers - it’s like walking into a football stadium and trying to talk to everyone in the stand.”

Taking the time to relate to other social media users was important, rather than just selling to them. “And I have a chat, because that’s what you do when you go into a room,” she added. “People like to get to know you. I try to let my personality come through.

“You can’t do something to this extent unless you enjoy it. I like interacting with people. On Twitter I had these imaginary friends, now I’m meeting them in real life.”

For the next week or so, you can see what happened at Elaine’s talk by clicking the Twitter hashtag #cch2011a.

Replies (11)

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By Elaine Clark
26th May 2011 09:46

Thank you very much for coming to the session and this write up John. I really appreciate it. Here’s hoping that my 5th pet hate does not make an appearance.

Right – I off back to twitter!

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
26th May 2011 10:22

Great to meet you in real life, too!

Thanks Elaine, it was a very enjoyable and quotable session that I enjoyed tweeting at the time.

Thanks to the live feed, I also picked up the final quote that I have just added to the article. It's good to be able to relate to the person as well as their online presence.

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Mark Lee headshot 2023
By Mark Lee
26th May 2011 11:04

Great approach Elaine

Reading this report on your talk I agree with all you've said.  John's title for the piece on the other hand.....   ;-)

In my own articles and talks about social media I share much the same advice.  The only real difference I think is that perhaps I am more accepting of accountants' reluctance to engage with social networking and media.

Well done. Looking forward to sharing a platform with you at the ICAEW event on The Business Beneifts of Social Media in July.

Mark

http://twitter.com/BookMarkLee

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By alan.falcondale
26th May 2011 11:13

Twitter for all

Massive potential in Twitter - unfortunately most of the hype and professing of the advantages are....on twitter.

Glad to see this article breaking into the heady world of accountants.

Thanks...off to follow Elaine on twitter now.

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By taxhelpukcom
26th May 2011 11:13

Great points

Yes, this is very much something that accountants should be looking at.

I recently presented to 85+ chartered accountants, talking about how to use Social Networking in their business - many of them hadn't considered it, or had the wrong idea about what it was.

FYI, I'm known as 'the twittering taxman!'

 

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By rquaye
26th May 2011 12:05

Why accountants should be a-Twitter

This is quite interesting, as I have just finished reading a blog by an Americam CPA and Forensic Accountant advocating that Accountants and other professionals should quit twitter. Although many comments did not agree with her there were some who supported her, it therefore encouraging to see another side by Elaine. This should that we must do our homework before stepping into the world of social media. The blog link is below.

 

http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2011/05/18/why-im-quitting-twitter-and-you-should-too/

 

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By carnmores
26th May 2011 12:13

its still no no no from me

given the 5 pet hates i really should activate my account and start being negative. the scatter gun approach  that we should use all new media is ridiculous and most sensible accountants know this. finding the time to get the content right , building up the number of users and interacting with them is impossible and frankly not worth it. the people bigging up twitter and the like are people whose business model is almost entirely online which for the vast majority of accountants business is not the case , to think otherwise is 'cloudy' thinking.

there is no doubt that some accountant somewhere will claim tha it has changed their life ,business and the universe, well it might do for one person but for the moment the gainsayers have it!

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By Elaine Clark
27th May 2011 12:11

To add a bit of a plug for my next event .....

(Hope Accounting won’t mind!)

I’ll be one of five speakers at “Business Benefits of Social Media” on 12 July – location Chartered Accountants' Hall, London, EC2R 6EA

It’s a pack agenda – full details can be found here ...

http://www.icaew.com/en/events/2011/july/business-benefits-of-social-med...

It really would be good to see you on the day and hopefully I can meet some more of my “imaginary friends”!

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By michellecarvill
30th May 2011 08:55

Capturing the conversations

 Well done Elaine. As a marketing consultant, with a heritage in professional services marketing, I've worked with a number of accountancy practices over the years. I currently work with one practice that have heeded advice and are totally embracing social media channels within their marketing activity. I can confirm that it is generating direct new business. We're capturing targeted conversations as they are happening. Someone has a need and we're able to react (usually within minutes). Yes, it's time consuming to watch conversations - but connecting is then so very simple. These channels are far reaching and immediate. If you use them strategically - considering key marketing principles such as segmentation and targeting - then they can be very effective. For those practices that have dabbled by setting up a Twitter account, but not really knowing what to do with it and then switch off and say 'it's not for me' - that's more to do with application - than the tools themselves.  If you know what you're doing, they're powerful.  

For more information and advice about how to use social media - visit http://www.carvillcreative.co.uk - lots of practical guides and ideas in my blog.  

 

 

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By Growth partners
07th Jun 2011 21:38

Totally agree

Its obvious to me that we should all be embracing social media as much as we can, or certainly enough to have a decent awareness of it and use it to compliment other more traditional forms of marketing.

We should also talk about tools that make tweeting easier and that actually help us wade through the millions (billions!?) of not so relevant content that's undoubtedly out there. Who wants to know what Fred in Atlanta has had for his breakfast?

One such tool I've found greatly helpful is www.marketmesuite.com, which takes things several steps further and enables you to type in keywords and then displays tweets by people who have mentioned those keywords. This enables you to type in 'tax headache' or something similar, and it will return you a list of tweets that mention that phrase. It cuts down the workload massively for you and you can choose to engage only with those people. You can reply directly with 'I see you're having a headache with your taxes. Share the problem and we'll see if we can fix it...'

What's also really useful is that you can define a geographic reach by inputting a radius of 10 miles from your location, or 25 miles, 50, 100... you get the picture. Then you wont get to see Fred's tax headaches in Atlanta!

Ive used this successfully in my own social media activities for www.mybusinessfd.com and have discovered new clients through it. If I can do it then so can you.

Chris Chapman

www.mybusinessfd.com

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By rainyu
31st Oct 2013 04:45

Hmm!

Thanks for this post. just passing by. Twitter now a days used for advertising or promoting one's business and every ones wants to be followed and like's by many not only in twitter but also to other social media site's. That's why many of us wants to know
 

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