September Leadership Forum
Vol. 3 No. 9, September 2011
The Leadership Forum is a panel of the most prominent thought leaders in the profession. Each month we ask them to respond to a question dealing with CPA firm management and leadership.
This month's question is: What are the true opportunities of social media for CPA firms today? Do you see any difference in attitude towards social media by partners v. staff?
Consultants and Other Prominent Observers
| Marc Rosenberg | The Rosenberg Associates | www.rosenbergassoc.com [email protected] |
| The opportunities for marketing, recruiting and networking are very attractive with social media, especially as email becomes passe due to spam and Smartphones. The big problem today is that busy, successful partners (underscore "successful") simply make more money doing other things with their time (bringing in business, managing a million dollar plus client base, nurturing staff, managing the firm) than spending huge blocks of time on social media. It's kind of like when word processing PC programs first came out in the 80s -- executives in all industries had their secretaries type their documents instead of doing it themselves because the software was not efficient. But slowly, this changed, mainly because word processing became so user friendly and executives found it easier to type their own documents than dictate it to someone else. As it becomes less time consuming to use social media and more people become executives (partners) who grew up using social media, things will change. For now, though, I think partners are well served if they can have marketing and other personnel do the social media on behalf of partners and their firms. | ||
| Rick Telberg | CPA Trendlines | www.cpatrendlines.com [email protected] |
| Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are only the tip of the iceberg. Social media means something much bigger... something everyone, including accountants, are only beginning to understand. Entire social systems are being re-ordered by instant broadcast communications. Marketing is changing with the data mining available. The way people play and work together has already changed forever, tantamount to the introduction of the telephone or email. The opportunities lie in staying relevant while other firms don't. In this, there is no reason for a difference in the attitudes of partners or staff. The choice is only: do I continue to evolve as a person and as a professional, or do get passed by those that are? | ||
| August Aquila | Aquila Global Advisor Group, LLC | www.aquilaadvisors.com [email protected] |
| ...Some of the larger firms have a full time person in charge of the firm's blog, training people on LinkedIn, etc. The younger associates are ahead of partners...More | ||
| Angie Grissom | The Rainmaker Consulting Group | www.therainmakeracademy.com [email protected] |
| CPA firms have some great opportunities with social media especially as it relates to maintaining a presence with clients and referral sources...More | ||
| Patrick Pruett | The Alliance of Professional Associations and Enterprise Network Worldwide | http://enterprisenetworkworldwide.com [email protected] |
| ...Social media sites should be viewed as a subtle communications tool that accountants can use to get in touch and stay in tune with the marketplace that contains existing and potential clients...More | ||
| Lisa Tierney | TIERNEY Coaching & Consulting | www.TIERNEYCoaching-Consulting.com [email protected] |
| ...stay connected, in front of their computer --- and reach 200% more people in the same amount of time --- while saving money and supporting a clean environment (gas)...More | ||
| Jennifer Wilson | ConvergenceCoaching LLC | www.convergencecoaching.com [email protected] |
| ...The velocity of the mediums and the depth of their business intelligence are unlike anything we've seen before and they will change the way we communicate with each other and our clients, the way we develop business, and the way we recruit -- to name a few...More | ||
Firm Leaders
| Bob Knight | Lane Gorman Trubitt, PLLC | |
| We presently see the most opportunities for social media to be with our campus recruiting efforts. For B2B transactions, having social media is like a having a brochure or Webpage. All players are expected to have these, but these are not critical in the buying process. Staff is more involved in and used to social media in their lives versus partners. | ||