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07 Apr 2011
THE WHOLE WORLD seems to have gone crazy about social media: all of your family and friends are on Facebook, your business contacts are all on LinkedIn, and even you have a Twitter account to rival Stephen Fry’s. Not only does everyone seem to be talking about and using these and other social media sites, but the valuations being put on the companies behind these sites are reminiscent of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium.
The ability of these new technologies to transform the way people communicate, build communities, share ideas and engage in commercial and social activities is not in dispute. Look at the way social media is currently facilitating political change in the Middle East and North Africa. In many consumer businesses, particularly those focusing on young people, social media is transforming the way companies build and promote their brands.
Further reading
However, like the dot.com bubble which eventually burst, I believe that many social media sites will never achieve the returns investors and shareholders expect, and that many commercial users of these sites will never gain the benefits they anticipated when they started to invest in and use this technology. A case in point is the use of social media by professional services firms, including accountants, to boost their marketing and business development (BD) activities.
Egged on by an army of communications agencies and consultants, accountancy firms have been encouraged to get their partners and staff trained in and set up on LinkedIn, to set up a Twitter account for the firm, and to open up a Facebook page.
Call me a cynic, but the increased activity around social media has occurred at a time when most practices have been struggling because of the economic climate, and assisting firms with social media has proved a nice little earner for agencies when budgets for other marketing activities have been falling. Personally, I think it has been the classic case of the emperor’s new clothes: tell partners that this new technology– that they don’t really understand – will transform their ability to pull in new work and then get them to invest in it to generate some much-needed income for the agency. But sadly the returns from this social media activity will be low, and I will use the rest of this article to explain why.
To assess whether social media has anything to offer accountancy firms looking to improve their marketing and business development, it is important to understand how this technology might influence buyers at each stage of the new business cycle.
The first rule of effective marketing is to ensure that you do a great job for your existing clients, so that they act as your advocates and recommend you to others. This word-of-mouth recommendation has always been the most important way in which accountants get new business, and was around a long time before ‘modern’ marketing techniques were sanctioned by the various institutes. As satisfied clients are less likely to tell others how good you are – unlike dissatisfied clients who will tell everyone – finding ways to accelerate the process of referral is important. The best way to ensure that this happens is to bring clients and non-clients together at appropriate events – seminars, dinners, discussion forums, etc. – and to facilitate this exchange of recommendation.
Personally, I cannot see how social media adds to this important BD activity. I know LinkedIn allows recommendations to be posted, but am I the only one who finds these very schmaltzy and off-putting? Anyway, there seems to be far too much of “I’ll recommend you if you recommend me” going on!
The second most effective source of new business is relationship building with prospective clients and potential referrers. Now here I will admit that LinkedIn does serve a purpose as a contacts database with a few interesting knobs and whistles.
However, initiating and building relationships with decision-makers who might use your services, or refer you to others, happens through face-to-face personal contact. The key then is to find ways to engineer opportunities to meet such people. This is best achieved through networking or speaking at seminars, conferences and other forums attended by your target audience.
Such relationship initiation and subsequent building does not happen in cyberspace. Using LinkedIn as a tool to research people’s backgrounds is one of its uses, but please do not be tempted to use it to ‘cold call’ people who you are targeting. I recently came across a consultancy that was recommending firms to do just this.
Cold calling never (well, very rarely) works in professional services marketing – meet your target at a function first, try to assess their needs, and then make an approach. They are far more likely to respond in this situation.
Finally, much has been made of social media, particularly Twitter, as a tool to communicate information on issues relevant to your target audience. Now we all recognise the importance of good thought leadership in demonstrating our capability in a particular area, but bombarding people with 140-charater tweets is not the way to do this. Stick to white papers and articles in the trade and business press, both of which have more credibility than tweets or even blogs. People are being bombarded with a blizzard of information these days and tweeting just adds to this. Write less often and in media which will have more impact, and remember to send reprints or PDFs direct to your clients and targets.
Social media is not a panacea for an accountancy firm’s marketing problems. Some sites, like LinkedIn have limited benefits, but believing that you can sit at your desk typing tweets and posts, which no one will read, rather than getting out and about and meeting people face-to-face is the big myth of social media that is currently being peddled in the professional services sector by many who should know better.
And remember, you do not want to be walking about your office like the emperor with the BD equivalent of no clothes on, i.e. without any work.
Kevin Wheeler has been advising accountancy firms on all aspects of marketing and business development for 24 years
Kevin Wheeler and Heather Townsend (below) will be speaking at the Accountancy Age Best Practice conference on 23 June.
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Visitor comments Add your comment
I think your viewpoint may be flawed
I agree with a huge amount of what you say... but also disagree as well with a large amount of what you say. Firstly, I agree with you – there is an army of communications agencies and consultants encouraging partners and staff to use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
This is part of the problem. There are far too many people encouraging accountancy firms to jump on the bandwagon of social media, without really understanding how an accountancy firm works, and the most effective way of winning work (referrals from existing clients). Far too often a firm will invest in twitter, facebook and linkedin – but because they have been encouraged to ‘have a play’ with social media, there is no coherent or joined up strategy between the social media implementation and the firm’s marketing plan and overall strategy for BD and practice growth. Consequently, there is a huge amount of chargeable time being wasted for little or no return on the social media marketing. Social media marketing, to be successful relies on an understanding of the medium, plus must be integrated into the firm’s overall marketing and BD strategy. As well as this, the partners need to have embraced niche marketing & allow their fee earners time to utilise this medium. Far too often too many firms don’t have a strategy for growth or marketing – very often there is a piecemeal approach with different partners doing different things, to only develop their little bit of the practice in isolation. If a firm is looking to use social media to attract more clients from owner managed businesses or SMEs – which is sometimes as in depth as a firm’s marketing strategy gets - then they will struggle to use this medium to grow their practice.
Very often the advice being given to the accountancy firm is flawed. I have seen far too many firms use social media as a broadcast tool, rather than understanding the need for selective engagement.
It’s interesting that you talk about “initiating and building relationships with decision-makers who might use your services, or refer you to others, happens through face-to-face personal contact” Now here we are in complete agreement – for opportunities or referrals to be passed to you, requires a relationship which has been strengthened via face-to-face personal contact. However, and this is the big however, social networking can play a very important part in helping you firstly reach the valuable contact, and secondly warm up the contact so you get more from your face to face time together. 80% of all my new business has come to me from a relationship which initially started on social media. In my forth coming book “The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking: How to Use the Power of Online and Offline Networking for Business Success, I found that there are 5 different levels in a relationship. (see here for more details about these 5 levels - http://j.mp/fFJFD9) The level at which opportunities will start to flow is a level 3, & really a level 4. Social networking can be very valuable in firstly helping you ‘identify’ people you want to meet (level 1) & then start to engage with them (level 2). Social networking can also help to increase the number of touchpoints you have with your contacts between the times when you spend face to face time together, which can keep the relationship warm.
It is interesting that you have decided that blogging and twitter is less credible than articles & white papers in the trade press. I am afraid that I have to disagree with you here. (Plus have you noticed how the majority of the trade press is starting to come out of print?) As a person who has built up market place authority and internationally recognised thought leadership around the area of ‘joined up networking’, this has all happened without the use of any articles in print within relevant trade press, and been built on well written blogs, placed in areas where my audience will read them. In fact I was approached to write ‘The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking’, as a result of this strategy. In addition, my ‘less credible’ blogging and tweeting has meant that I have secured a column in AccountancyAge (starting in the next few weeks), regularly get my articles out to the readers to 250,000 readers via the sift media publications of accountingweb, trainingzone and business zone, and also have a fortnightly/monthly article published by real business. It’s this foundation which I have built off the back of my blogs and tweets, which is now getting me into the national and printed trade press. All without the use of a white paper. I agree with you that any relevant articles should be sent to your clients and potential clients – however, well written blog articles are potentially more valuable than lengthy boring and dry white papers – which are the traditional way which accountancy practices like to demonstrate their expertise. And I will now tell you why.
We agree on the fact that people are being blitzed by information; which means they have more choice about what they read and by whom. Consequently, writers have to try harder to gain & keep someone’s attention. This is why a 500 word well written blog, rather than a long winded boring white paper, is more likely to be read and shared by a client or potential client. These blog articles can still be sent onto clients – but should be shared selectively with the right clients.
I suggest that you don’t understand or ‘get’ the power of twitter, as you talk about it as ‘bombarding’ people with tweets of 140 characters. If you see twitter as a purely as a broadcast channel then you miss the point of twitter. Twitter as a broadcast channel is very ineffective. It is a very powerful engagement tool, and is the reason why I regularly get over a third of all my website traffic – which is normally over 5000+ visits a month. This is a conservative figure, as Twitter has major SEO benefits for my blogs, which gives me greater share of the search engine traffic for my important keywords. Twitter is also the reason why I am selling books via Amazon, 3 months before publish date – something which is almost unheard of.
I look forward to meeting you at the Accountancy Age Conference on the 23rd June where we will probably debate this further!
Posted by: Heather Townsend, 08 Apr 2011 | 11:47
Poppycock!
I get that this is one person's opinion, but please invest in some research before espousing such a binary perspective.
Posted by: Gary Turner, 08 Apr 2011 | 12:14
keep it brief
If there were ever an argument for 140 characters it is the long-winded comment above
Posted by: Anon, 08 Apr 2011 | 12:46
Comms or BD tool
I wonder whether Twiiter, LinkedIn and the likes should be considered more another broadcast medium rather than a pure BD activity. If you followed Kevin's argument its logical conclusions all marcoms activity would be binned. Now that would be a brave consultants' pitch.
Posted by: Matt , 08 Apr 2011 | 13:00
Social Media and Joined Up Networking in Action
I whole heartedly agree with Kevin about the importance of recommendation and referral in professional services. And this is the way that our clients are successfully using social media - to make connections (via LinkedIn and Twitter) to show expertise (via blogging and online white papers) and to make initial contacts that they then take offline as part of a joined up networking strategy.
I know Kevin by reputation and before writing this response wanted to know more. I started by looking up his profile on Linked In (what - no website Kevin?) and by commenting on this article hope to make contact - using social media!
Looking forward to meeting you offline.
Posted by: Mike Fieldhouse, 08 Apr 2011 | 14:42
Social Media For Professionals
Heather you are on target with many of your points. Professionals can use social media effectively if they understand the medium and if they have a purpose behind their involvement. Unfortunately most of those promoting social media are treating it like a silo remote from the business and disconnected from the core function of the business.
As pointed out, social media is not a broadcast medium and if you are not engaging then you have no basis by which to reasonably expect any good return to your business. If you give nothing then you can expect a full return on your lack of interest.
Accountants are in a privileged position with clients and clients expect them to know business and be competent to advise them in a broad sense. Many times this faith is misguided. Clients deserve all their advisors to put some effort into undestanding the current marketplace and to be able to spot good business practices. Whether the firm wishes to be active in social media they owe it to clients to at least be educated into how the new marketplace works and the merits - and pitfalls - and how to manage around these issues.
Most pimping social media tend to focus on the mechanics of starting a page or account. This is the least element of social media.
Social media, while it is new, is as old as the hills. It is about communicating and being where the customers are. If you want to be any use to clients then it behooves professional services practices to know which end is up on this growing and influential marketplace. W
Posted by: Lindy Asimus, 08 Apr 2011 | 15:09
Some People Just Don't Get It.
You talk about how networking and BD events are essential for word of mouth advertising, yet you fail to see that social media is an on-going 24/7/365 BD event.
Social media is not about selling to your customers, it's about engaging them and creating/maintaining relationships with them. In my own business, Websniper Social Media Marketing http://socialmedia.small-business-website-marketing.com I use the tagline "It's all about the relationships" for a reason.
Social media isn't about selling, nor is it about getting visitors to your website. It's about engaging with customers and potential customers where they are, and listening to what they want and need.
The company that shows that it is really listening to its customerbase, is going to get a lot of people talking about it. Companies that refuse to change with their customer's needs will also be talked about, but if they aren't using social media, they won't have a quick way to answer back before their reputation suffers.
When used correctly, social media isn't how many friends or likes you have, it's reaching out to the customer where the customer is, and helping them by listening to them, and solving their problem.
Posted by: Ken Biles, 08 Apr 2011 | 18:49
I also think your viewpoint may be flawed...
Unfortunately there is a tendency for people to jump in with or without the help from a consultant, get blogging, link to twitter, facebook and linkedin with the aim of blasting broadcasts. People quite quickly reach a conclusion as you have, that it is the emperor’s new clothes and that social media for accountants doesn’t work.
Heather is spot on in my view with Social Media being valuable in identifying people to connect with. Whether that then becomes an online or offline conversation is a different matter but I would remind people that there are remote working accountants who sign up clients without ever meeting them at all face to face.
My business is cold calling and telemarketing for accountants. I am not short of customers and demand is increasing. I also know what our ratios are in terms of hours for appointments, conversion rates etc so can be objective about this return on investment.
Not only is traditional cold calling and telemarketing for accountants popular because of the attractive return on investment from a well thought out campaign, it is evolving to incorporate social media as a lead generation method. Conversations and people are identified via social media monitoring tools, connections are made, and where appropriate marketing and sales approaches take place.
Maxxy has been making cold calls from social media discussions since around 2007 (from business forums mostly at that time) so it’s not a new thing. What makes it feel different is the huge increase in online conversations. People will always be drawn to sticking to what is comfortable and so social media or cold calling may not be for everyone but that doesn’t mean it isn’t successful.
You may be interested in this white paper produced by social media examiner this week from a base of 3300 marketers.
http://marketingwhitepapers.s3.amazonaws.com/SocialMediaMarketingReport2011.pdf
Page 16 gives an overview of how people rate benefits of social media marketing with 51% indicating their main benefit is generating qualified leads.
The next page talks about Improved Sales demonstrating it takes time to develop relationships that lead to actual business. The people who achieved the most benefit are self employed and small business owners with 2 or more employees. Another interesting statistic is that 52% of people see lead generation benefits from only 6 hours per week.
So, are all these marketers wrong?
I can only say that based on my experiences of using social media for my own business and on behalf of clients which includes accountants it seems pretty accurate to me. I know what leads we generate from cold calling and social media and I can’t recruit staff quick enough!
Posted by: Maxxy, 08 Apr 2011 | 20:25
To ignore social media is to leave yourself exposed
I am not an accountant or a marketer trying to sell social media. I am a solicitor who uses social media without paying anyone to show me how to do so. There is no need. The tools are free and the only ‘cost’ is your time.
Twitter is not about “bombarding people with 140-character tweets”. If you do that you are sure to fail in your use of social media. To be successful in using social media you must engage with others, build up relationships online and then take these offline with collaboration and referrals. I have met a considerable number more contacts face to face following on from initial connections on social media than I have met through any other means. The initial engagement via social media makes the face to face contact all the easier when it happens and usually much more productive.
Linked to articles by you (on your website or other websites or on blogs) Twitter can be a very powerful tool to bring those articles and your expertise to the attention of others. I can assure you people will read them, are more likely to find them and they will be read more widely if they are available online.
My firm, Inksters Solicitors, have been using Twitter successfully for over two years. We currently operate 11 Twitter streams, soon to be 12. For a small law firm based in Scotland our profile has been raised considerably and we now regularly receive referrals from other professionals in Scotland, England and Ireland that we simply would not have received had it not been for social media. We even on occasion have received referrals from the USA.
For the consequences to Inksters of using Twitter see the various links at: http://www.inksters.com/consequencesoftweeting.aspx
This year we anticipate that we will increase our fee earning staff by 50%. Much of the need for this arises from increased work via our internet based marketing channels of which social media is an integral and important part.
For any professional firm not to be using social media as part of a joined up marketing/networking strategy in 2011 is to expose themselves to a vulnerability that their social media savvy competitors simply will not have.
Posted by: Brian Inkster, 09 Apr 2011 | 16:30
Wake up dinosaurs, the social media comet has hit already
Kevin Wheeler’s great advice in the article that two keys to success for professionals are doing great work for clients and publishing useful white papers (previously echoed by gurus such as David Maister) does not justify the ambivalence to social media in the rest of it.
Readers who take Kevin’s article to mean their firm shouldn’t bother too much with social media will come to rue that attitude.
Certainly healthy scepticism towards excessive claims and cost is important, and as always professions should beware the hubris of people trying to transpose techniques that work very well in consumer markets onto the professions.
However, several points also to consider include:
1. Social media is hugely important for many groups (eg those under 25; people in the technology sector; etc);
2. Many firms and private clients ARE seeking out and short-listing suppliers online, even for large-ish contracts, of which social media is an important part of identifying them(we know this both from our clients' and our own experience of where work comes from);
3. Whether you see it as the future or not, many of your employees, prospects, and clients do ! If you are seen as out of date and unable to serve their aspirations in the modern world some will vote with their feet;
4. Is going to events or spending time on social media is best? Again polemic gets in the way of commonsense – my firm uses social media to get suitable attendees at our events, then we connect on LinkedIn and reinforce the relationship .. it works much better than a pile of unused business cards in a drawer !
Tim Prizeman
Director
www.kelsopr.com
Posted by: Tim Prizeman, www.kelsopr.com, 11 Apr 2011 | 09:25