A Quick Guide to Engaging With Accountants Online
Apr 30, 2012 at 8:40 pm in Social by Alom Rouf
Our agenda is very simple, we want to get more members within the finance industry engaging and networking using Online Social Media tools.
There are now several portals and tools for us to do this, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, amongst other niche networks.
Online Social Media is now at the tip of everyone’s tongues, and it is definitely something we should not overlook as finance professionals.
Most social media experts suggest that the tools are there to “engage” with others to share information, ask questions, provide answers, recommend others etc, the list is exhaustive. Essentially, like any other marketing medium, you use Online Social Media to gain more clients.
We, at AccountantsWorld, thrive on growing a network of engaging accountants.
However, you must remember that as a member of these portals, it is not enough just registering and having a very nice picture and profile page so people can find you, surely you must have a website that does this job already? These portals are tools rather than static pages, they give you the option to be able to “talk” directly with people looking for accountants and other financial services.
But it’s not just about advertising your services online. As an example, there are 14,861 profiles on Twitter with the word ‘accountant’ in their bio who are trying to do the same thing, get more business. (Stats taken from FollowerWonk at 30 April 2012)
The trick is to “engage” and find out what the individual needs rather than you trying to sell your services to them.
There are much more informed social media experts out there that have in-depth information on methods of “engaging”. They are much better informed than we are, that is why they are the experts.
But let’s face it, it is hard to come across members that are ‘looking for an accountant’ or any other financial service for that matter.
However, it may be considered easier if, as an accountant for example, you were to be discussing accounting/finance related topics with other likeminded members, this then gives a potential client the opportunity to engage with you if they are looking for this particular type of service that you are discussing.
What we are trying to do is simply:
a) encourage the, already registered, members to engage more. We certainly cannot do this by ourselves, this is not considered “engaging”, You will need to help by also engaging with like minds and supporting this move.
b) advocate the portals and the benefits of Online Social Media to the non-members to get them to register and start engaging.
We have a working list of methods on how we think engagement will be achieved.
We want to start by looking at the above 14 thousand odd accountants on Twitter who have posted less than 100 tweets. We want to engage with them, not to embarrass them, but to ask them how they plan on using Online Social Media in the future.
Simultaneously, we will ask the members that have posted more than 1,000 tweets and ask them what benefits they have had from using Online Social Media, how they integrated the use of the portals within their working environment etc.
Here is the list of members on Twitter with ‘accountant’ in their bio: http://followerwonk.com/bio/?q=accountant
This is a link to FollowerWonk, you can also search for any other finance related professions.
We are working on more methods of encouraging engagement, but at the moment we would like to start with the above two to see how we progress.
If you would like to add another method of influencing engagement, maybe by searching for finance related members on Facebook and/or LinkedIn, please feel free to comment below.
We, at AccountantsWorld, strongly believe that together we can grow an engaging financial community to be proud members of and essentially grow our own businesses using Online Social Media.
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My brother recommended I may like this blog. He was totally right. This post actually made my day. You can not consider just how much time I had spent for this information! Thank you!
You are very welcome, and thank you for reading, I am glad the information was beneficial to you!
Greetings, do you have a digg page that I may follow? Thanks
Hi Chat Room, our Digg page is http://digg.com/accountantsworld not too much going on there currently, but we will be uploading more and more very soon. Many thanks, Alom
Hi,
A LinkedIn message brought me to this blog. Glad it did; good post, and agree that engaging with your target market is a very important aspect of social media!
Thanks
Thanks Accountants in Brighton,
I am glad you enjoyed reading the article.
Look forward to your connection on AccountantsWorld.
Best regards,
Alom
Marvelous move Alom, this is really a good initiative for people belong to finance industry.
Thanks Rashid, please help by sharing the site to attract more like-minded members of the finance industry! Thanks for your support!
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Interesting ideas… while I don’t agree with everything you commented, I can understand your thought process.
I’am very delighted to welcome me to IFA on LinkedIn and look forward to learning from the Group.
-Charles
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