Below is an excerpt from the article:

“When I work with tax and accounting professionals, they are constantly asking me to explain what social media is, what it can do for their practice, and most importantly, how to determine ROI. I’m not surprised. After all, accountants are logical, numbers-oriented people, so it makes perfect sense for them to want to talk about what kind of return they expect to get through their investment in time spent doing social networking.”

This is a great read for those seeking to understand how social media can bring additional marketing value to their firm and overall SEO efforts.

Click here to read the entire article.

“Getting noticed” is what SEO is all about. A still-new technology, SEO increases the likelihood your company will be more easily noticed. Anyone searching for information in Google or any other search engine will find you based on words embedded in your Web site. Once SEO is a part of your online efforts, reports generated through an Internet Service Provider provide practical information you can use to find out who clicked through your site.

While most marketing professionals find SEO appealing, many have reservations about how to sell the strategy to management. Altering or changing long-standing marketing activities can be difficult, especially in the middle of a recession. Finding the most effective way to present new ideas to firm partners is imperative, especially if your firm is a “slow mover.”

Positioning SEO as a viable marketing strategy has a very positive and meaningful impact on your firm’s marketing efforts – often immediately and at little or no cost. Here are five reasons why SEO works.

• SEO Provides Access to “Warmer” Leads. Inbound marketing techniques such as SEO allow your firm to connect with more qualified opportunities. When a company contacts you through the Web site, it is usually ready to make a decision to buy. The company already identified its internal need, researched potential solutions to the problem and identified specific providers. When a prospect comes to your firm in this fashion, it reduces the amount of time spent educating the prospect, communicating the firm’s value proposition and lead-time in pursuing the prospect.
• SEO Maximizes Partners Chargeable Hours. Due to the reduced amount of time spent pursuing opportunities, the time invested by a firm’s partners is also reduced. Whether a firm has a business development/marketing function, there is less time spent on site visits, prospect meetings and conference calls to move the prospect through the sales cycle. With SEO, partners are able to insert themselves into the sales process in a time efficient way – selling the opportunity in a much shorter time period than leads identified through traditional marketing techniques. The process leads to additional time for partners to focus on chargeable work.
• SEO Expands Your Marketing Footprint. SEO allows firms to attract opportunities outside of their geographical footprint. While there are a number of services firms offer that can be performed in markets across the country, the marketing dilemma focuses on resource allocation. For example, does it make sense to invest marketing dollars in cities where the firm has little brand awareness? Of course not. However, SEO allows your firm to promote itself in other markets without incurring additional costs. Would your firm be interested in serving clients in other markets if the opportunity presented itself? Through focused SEO, your firm can find these opportunities.
• SEO Creates a Larger Pipeline. Optimizing your Web site to attract new opportunities will help your firm create a large pipeline of opportunities. Consider how your firm attracts prospects currently: Do you send out mailings? Newsletters? Many firms invest time and effort into traditional outbound marketing techniques, such as direct mail, e-mail and lead-generation telemarketing. With an optimized Web site, however, you have a sales tool that works to find new opportunities on a 24/7 basis.
• SEO Adds Value to Marketing Activities. Most marketing departments in firms are expected to develop, lead and manage non-revenue producing programs. Ad design, proposal development, collateral material development and pursuit planning, while valuable, do not produce any firm revenues. SEO changes the paradigm and turns marketing into a lead generation source. If properly implemented, SEO can transform marketing beyond an internal services function and position it as a revenue generator for the firm.

There are many other ways SEO and inbound marketing techniques help drive practice growth. However, these five are used successfully in selling partners on short- and long-term benefits. CPAs and accountants are not marketing professionals, but they can understand the value associated with a planned process. Focus on meaningful benefits, such as less time in the sales process, more time to address client needs and ability of the firm to attract a larger number of prospects.

The article is centered around a question and answer session between Mr. Tom Hood, MACPA CEO and the magazine. Topics such as the value of such activiity, how to measure return and what type of strategy the Association is using are all discussed and addressed.

An excerpt from the article is listed below:

JofA: What are some of the risks CPAs might face using social networking for business purposes, and what strategies can be used to mitigate the risks?

So the strategy should be: How can I engage that criticism and respond to it in a respectful way that says that I’m listening? If you can actually do that, the research says that you’re going to win customer loyalty.

I recommend reviewing this article if you are just starting out or thinking about how/why your firm CPA firm should invest the resources in this type of marketing. It provides good ideas and simple start up strategies to get your firm thinking and moving in the right direction.

Click here for a copy of the full article.

In the August 2009 edition of Accounting Today there is an interesting article on this topic entitled, CPAs Embrace Twitter. The article focuses on various CPA and accounting firms, CPA Societies and other organizations that are using Twitter. What makes this article worth the read is each organization discusses the value of the micro blogging tool and how it is helping grow their practice.

How is your firm using/contemplating Twitter to enhance your marketing efforts?

Click here to read the article.

It is a straightforward strategy that seems easy enough, but is it? How are you going to manage all the responsibilites of your position while finding additional time to spend on network development? In the past, network development focueed on being active in community organizations, associations and other groups. This required time outside of the office meeting people, establishing and nurturing relationships and building trust. Only once trsut was established would the contact share the details about professional issues, challenges and opportunities. This was a very time intensive process that had to be repeated over and over again with every contact. The task of building and maintaining a professional network took a lot of energy and required a high level of hands on care.

The emergence of social media has transformed the way the network development process occurs. While you will always have to spend time going out and meeting new people at events and other programs, there has been a change in the way relationships are developed. Social media programs have created a process where interactions occur in real time and the entire process of relationship development can be quickly increased. These changes are good news for young accountants as these tools will allow them to develop relationships and create connections in ways their predeccessory could not have imagined just ten years ago.

Click here for the rest of the article which can be found at the Accounting Tomorrow website. Please note this article was written by Brian Swanson of Flashpoint Marketing.