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Social media marketing can be overwhelming, especially for small businesses, and accounting firms.

Not only is social media confusing, but it's also constantly changing. What worked yesterday may not work today. There are so many platforms to choose from, and it's hard to know where to start.

In this post, I'll share a simplified social media strategy that you can begin using with your CPA firm Today!

Start with a Pillar Piece of Content

Where I will typically start is with a content pillar. I’ve talked about content pillars before and it really is a great place to start when building your social media plan. Social media and marketing guru, Gary Vaynerchuk, has talked about the importance of creating a content pillar for quite some time now.

What is a content pillar?

A content pillar is a high-quality, long form piece of content that you create and publish on your website and other long form channels such as YouTube. This piece of content should be original, interesting, and valuable to your audience. A content pillar is typically a blog, video series, or podcast that you publish on a regular basis.

The goal of a content pillar is to provide readers or viewers with in-depth information on a specific topic. When you create a content pillar, you're either writing a long form article, recording a podcast, or publishing a video. Then taking that long form piece of content and breaking it down into what we call, "micro-content" that utilizes and leverages the long form content that you created, to share posts on social media.

When it comes to social media, it's important to post original content that's relevant to your audience. This content should be valuable and interesting, and it should help to establish you as an authority in your field, and build trust with your audience.

Importance of Social Media for CPA Firms

Social media is important because it allows you to connect with your clients in a more personal way, and more often than once or twice a year during tax season or a year end review. Through social media, CPA firms can share valuable content, connect with potential clients, and build relationships with current clients.

Sharing valuable content, such as tax tips or small business advice, on social media also provides you with an opportunity to showcase your expertise, knowledge in the accounting and financial planning world, and tastefully position your services and solutions in a way that isn't over the top salesey.

If you're looking for ways to use social media to grow your CPA firm, one of the best ways to ensure that you stay on top of your social media is by creating a social media calendar.

What is a social media calendar?

Set up a Social Media Calendar

A social media calendar will help you stay organized, and it will ensure that all of your posts are timely and relevant. You can use this calendar to plan out your content, schedule posts ahead of time, and track your results.

To set up a social media calendar, you'll need to first decide which platforms you want to use. There are many platforms to choose from, but some of the most popular ones include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

If you don't have any social media accounts at the moment my recommendation would be to focus on one first. LinkedIn is a great platform for accounting firms as it's the most "B2B" friendly platform. When someone logs onto LinkedIn, they're in a business mindset and will be more receptive to consuming and interacting with content that is relative to their work or business.

Once you've decided which platforms you want to use, you'll need to create a schedule for your posts. This schedule should include the type of content you're going to post, as well as the frequency of your posts. You may also want to include when you're going to be active on social media.

Let's map out a simple content calendar that you can use for your firm!

Once you get into a rhythm of posting consistently you'll want to begin tracking your results. This can be done by measuring the number of engagements (likes, shares, comments, etc.) your posts receive, as well as the number of leads or sales that are generated from social media. The simplest way to do this is by using a social media scheduling tool such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Later. They track the performance of your posts, measure the number of followers, and some will actually automatically send you a report each month.

This helps you determine which content is working best and how to adjust your social media strategy so that you can tweak your content to improve your results further.

Create Content that Engages Your Audience

So what sort of content should you create for your social media accounts?

When creating content for social media, it's important to think about how you can engage your audience and the best way to do so is by using engaging visuals.

Images, videos, and infographics are a great way to capture your audience's attention, and help to convey your message in a more interesting and engaging way. Try to use images that are relevant to your topic, and make sure that they are high quality. Images that are blurry or irrelevant to your content can severely devalue the interest level that your audience may have in your content.

We live in a three second world, and if you're not able to capture someone's attention in three seconds or less as they scroll through social media, you're not going to get any engagement on your posts.

Social media can be a great way to connect with your audience and clients, and grow your CPA firm. However, staying on top of all of the different social media platforms can be difficult. A social media calendar is a great way to stay organized and ensure that all of your social media posts are timely and relevant. You can use this calendar to plan out your content, schedule posts ahead of time, and track your results.

To create a social media calendar, you'll need to first decide which platforms you want to use. As I mentioned I would ensure that LinkedIn is one of your selected platforms, and then think about whether it makes sense for you to be posting on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, or even TikTok.

Once you've decided which platforms you want to use, you'll need to create a schedule for your posts. This schedule should include the type of content you're going to post, as well as the frequency of your posts. You may also want to include when you're going to be active on social media.
The final step is to track your results by measuring the number of engagements (likes, shares, comments) your posts receive as well as the number leads or sales generated from social media

Wrap Up

If you're looking to go deeper and take the next steps in using social media to grow your firm, download the Ultimate CPA Marketing playbook at Marketmycpafirm.com and take the first step in taking your firm's marketing to the next level!

Thanks for reading!

I'll see you next time.

About the Author

Bryton Udy is the Founder and CMO of atHeart Creative, and host of the Accountant Marketing Mentor YouTube Channel. Dedicated to helping accountants simplify their marketing and communications so they can grow their accounting, bookkeeping, and financial planning businesses, he is passionate about harnessing creative marketing to support the independent accountant.

Overwhelmed with Social Media Marketing? Here is a simple plan to help you out!