I just read Rick Telberg's Five Things CPAs Need to Know About Social Media and, as ususal, he is right on point. His fifth “thing” is, “Social media marketing needs to be driven by objectives, not tactics.” In other words, it all starts with strategy.
Why are you getting into social media?
Social media can be a powerful tool to accelerate your firm's (or organization's) strategy.
Consider these questions:
- Is it to enhance your marketing (Download Marketing Strategy 2.0)?
- Is it to position you and your organization as thought leaders?
- Is it for recruitment and retention of young professionals?
- Is it to develop a niche market?
- Is it for communication with your customers, prospects and team members?
- Is it to keep on top of rapid changes in the profession and environment?
- How will you use social media tools to accelerate your strategy?
One of our favorite tools is to create a map of our strategy. Using Mindjet's Mindmanager CPA edition, we can start with a template that we can use to “map” our strategy and capture resources. See the attached map and click on the branches to see how this tool can help you organize and manage a social media strategy for your organization.
The other advice is what we call “reverse mentoring,” and Rick has it at No. 2: Institute upward mentoring to implement your social media strategy. This was exactly the case at my session on social media at the CCH User Conference a few weeks ago, where a young 20-something told about her work as the leader of her firm's complete social media strategy. See a copy of my presentation here. She completely captivated the audience with her knowledge.
Still need help? We created a teleconference coaching program to help CPAs jump-start the development and implementation of their social media strategy. Seven hands-on sessions for you and your team to dive in fast — click here for more information and contact Pam Devine (mailto:pam@macpa.org) for pricing and questions.
The Mindjet CPA edition has 25 templates to help you manage processes, create plans and organize complexity (internal audit, implementing XBRL, etc.) into easy to communicate “maps.” You can receieve a discount of 10 percent by using the code “MACPA” when ordering. We worked with Mindjet to create the templates and MACPA does receive a small commission on sales.
Look for our upcoming webcast, CPAs and Social Media: Passing Fad or Valuable Tool? on Dec. 10, from noon to 1:40 p.m. EST, or come see our two-hour session on social media live at the MACPA's Technology Conference on Dec. 7 at the Sheraton Columbia Hotel. Click here to register.
Tell us how you link your strategy to social media?