At a recent presentation by someone who knew far more about new/social media than me, he was very firm that Facebook was a better route than LinkedIn.
Q. LinkedIn used to be good for reaching practices' target markets but is FB better now?
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Depends on your service profile I think. If you are an expert in a field then I would say LinkedIn but for general practice stuff I would say FaceBook. Facebook has been good for me for smaller business (one director, side income limited company) and self-assessment. Bread and butter stuff. But for higher fee work I’d say you are better off on LinkedIn.
Facebook can be used to target a number of different client profiles, but only really to offer compliance.
There are lots of different groups that you can join and contribute in so don't think that you are just going to win CIS subbies and a self employed window cleaner.
You're not going to win much tax advisory / audit work on Facebook though, so it depends what services you offer.
The correct answer is probably use both and a few others beside.
The info facebook has on everyone is super powerful and if used correctly can get you good results for general clients. Also people love an offer on Facebook,
Say if you had a fixed price deal for CIS workers some well worded adverts and a small budget would get you good results. If you want higher end than maybe LinkedIn would do better. Sometimes if I see a local business that looks to be doing well I will look up directors and try and get a meeting direct of via a mutual connection which does work well for higher value stuff.
Facebook will get you a good a local following which is always useful within your local community although I appreciate that is not as easy in a big city.
I would say a decent website and some Google Adwords is best to get local general business with quick results.
If you are not sure of it there is some decent social media agencies that will manage it for you for not too much cash.
On the basis that these are not mutually exclusive, why not use both to target potential clients? Micro businesses and personal tax on Facebook and larger stuff on LinkedIn, there should be some cross over as well.
Never had a bean from either, despite having profiles on each. I was fairly active in linked in around a year ago but got no work from it.
Facebook - I have clients who 'like' various posts I put up and, actually, last week I ran my first Facebook advert, specifically targeted at businesses within the local area. Result = nada, despite getting around 8-10 website clicks.
I am not what you would call social media minded, by I've given it a go and gained nothing.
Other practices get great results.
I'm fortunate in that my website ranks at the top of the natural search listings in my area so I get a lot of work from that.
Like most things in business, there are no hard and fast rules. IMO Facebook works better in a B2C environment however you can get lucky and engage with the smaller clients on this channel. I doubt however there are many people logging on to their Facebook accounts to learn about tax returns.
As Glenn points out local advertising can work if you target prospects based on job title, industry, location, and interests however it can be expensive.
I have used LinkedIn as a marketing tool in the past and it worked well but it changed its format recently and I don't like it very much. A lot of people use the in-mail option on LinkedIn so it's become overused and pretty generic. I have gained clients from a mailing on LinkedIn in the past but not so much recently.
Having tried and tested both channels I've now decided not to bother with either except to share the odd interesting article. I use HootSuite to do this which allows me to post the same thing on all the social media channels at the same time.
Like most things in business, there are no hard and fast rules. IMO Facebook works better in a B2C environment however you can get lucky and engage with the smaller clients on this channel. I doubt however there are many people logging on to their Facebook accounts to learn about tax returns.
As Glenn points out local advertising can work if you target prospects based on job title, industry, location, and interests however it can be expensive.
I have used Linkedin as a marketing tool in the past and it worked well but it changed its format recently and I don't like it very much. A lot of people use the in-mail option on Linkedin so it's become overused and pretty generic. I have gained clients from a mailing on Linkedin in the past but not so much recently.
Having tried and tested both channels I've now decided not to bother with either except to share the odd interesting article. I use HootSuite to do this which allows me to post the same thing on all the social media channels at the same time.