You don’t define your brand, your customers do.
By Jody Padar
The Radical CPA
Social media is great for connecting with clients and prospects, but it also makes it easier to get published in the real media and that will give you the collateral for marketing.
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I’ve been quoted in Entrepreneur, Forbes and Inc. That’s priceless! That’s what I call return on attention. I haven’t needed to create big, expensive brochures. I have web links and a printer. That becomes part of my brand and sales package, which helps me land new customers.
What’s that worth to you?
A Word About Branding
Your brand is no longer limited to your geography. You no longer have to be the accountant in your small town. You can now become the number one accountant in the world. That’s good and bad.
The good part now is that you have way more prospects. The not-so-great part is that you will really need to think about the persona of your perfect customer. It now becomes what niche are you going after because with the world being your customer base you have to get very specific. You will no longer take anyone who has a pulse who’s walking in the door.
Many CPAs think about branding as an afterthought. We think about what we do for services without really defining a brand.
Social business has exponentially increased the need for CPAs to have a brand. It’s two parts of a brand: It’s a firm brand, and it’s a personal brand.
As a CPA, you need a brand depending on if you’re actually an owner or you work for someone.
It’s important to have your own social brand, as well as a brand for your firm. When it’s time for you to get a new job, you’ll already be regarded as a thought leader.
More Than A Feeling
Let’s get touchy feely here for a minute. Customers buy feeling.
They have no idea about your technical skill. They know that you have a CPA designation and that’s all they care about. What they want to know and what they’re trying to figure out is
- how do you treat your customers,
- are you listening,
- do you apologize,
- are you transparent, and
- what specialized services can you offer them?
They want to know if they become part of your firm or engage with you, how are they are going to be treated? What does that feel like?
That’s what defines your brand. Your brand is not your logo. People do business with people. They always have. They don’t do business with logos. They don’t do business with brochures. They do business with other people. Your brand is actually the feeling that your customers and the public perceive about your firm, not necessarily about what services you sell.
Whatever you can do to enhance those people-to-people connections using social media is going to give you social business.
Figure out a way to have everyone in your firm connecting with the people in their networks. The more tools, the more information you can get out to your team to do social, the better off you’re going to be. That’s what’s going to have a return on your income level.
And it should go without saying — communications must be on target, professional and engage your audience in an appropriate manner. If you’re a fairly casual brand then it’s okay to be more casual in your social media. It can’t be stuffy. Your brand will be different than my brand.
Know what’s being said about you out in the world. Listen to what your team members are communicating. These are the things that are going to develop and protect your brand.
