Maintaining an active social media presence is crucial in establishing your identity and promoting your brand as an accounting firm online, as a part of your inbound marketing strategy. Previously, we talked about how you can utilise the microblogging site Twitter for your accounting firm. Now, we’re going to discuss the most professional and streamlined of the big 4, LinkedIn.
Launched in May 2003, LinkedIn is a business-oriented social media site for managing your professional network. During the first quarter of 2015, it had 364 million members. It hit the 5 million mark in Australia in the last quarter of 2013. Moreover, it is also preferred by a wide margin for professional social media activities.
In line with this, we want to tackle the right LinkedIn strategy for accounting firms and other B2B companies. Here are some tips to start building your company’s professional identity online:
The Basics: Complete Your Profile
To stand out, use your company logo as your primary photo and set up a banner image. (TIP: The standard logo dimensions is 100×60 while the recommended dimensions for a banner image is 646 X 220). Put all the necessary contact details i.e. e-mail address and phone numbers so people will be able to reach out to you.
Make sure not to overlook the Summary section. When users are just looking to browse your company page, you want them to have an idea of who you are and what you do just by reading your summary. Be sure to make it brief, but still compelling by including how you can help your clients and your niche areas.
The About Us section of a LinkedIn Company Page is located way below the home page, but don’t forget to fill this out as well. Be sure to use keywords so that they can easily find your company page when making relevant searches.
Build Influence: Publish Meaningful Posts
LinkedIn can also be your online avenue for company updates. Think of how you can initiate a discussion rather than focusing on advertising your products and services. Publish varying contents so you would not sound monotonous: post deadlines and reminders, share useful tips and tools, and ask questions – just make sure that your posts link to your website. Remember, your social media profiles are instruments to get people to direct to your website.
Unlike Twitter, you don’t need to constantly post updates on LinkedIn as it only displays the top updates by default. Also, we don’t recommend using scheduling tools since you want to appear more “human” to your connections. Just know the best time to post to achieve best engagement rates. According to HubSpot, you will get the most clicks and shares during weekdays and business hours since LinkedIn consists primarily of a B2B audience.
Engage: Discover People in Your Network
93 percent of B2B marketers find LinkedIn most effective for B2B lead generation. However, LinkedIn recommends that you know personally the people you add. To expand your professional network, follow thought leaders, join groups, and participate in discussions related to your business and industry so that you will have common interests with your future prospects.
LinkedIn can also be a good place for recruitment. Make sure to add your careers page to attract talented professionals. In the same way, ask you team members to follow your company page and identify their personal profiles with your company page. This way, they will appear as your employees and their own connections can learn more about your company through them.
LinkedIn is more than an online résumé; it’s a powerful tool to grow your network and your influence as an accounting firm.
The Outsourced Accountant helps accounting firms from all over the world grow their capacity, margins and profits through global outsourcing. Contact us to find out more about how we can help your firm.
