Golden Practices Blog

Marketing by Teaching

Since 2005 (for years and years) I've raved about the effectiveness and amazing coolness of sharing your intellectual capital in order to build business. 

It's still one of the most effective and affordable means of marketing out there for professional firms. Today I came upon a recent(ish) post on Mack Collier's blog called "5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Marketing and Start Teaching." Couldn't agree more. 

To take Mack's post a step further, there are a handful of problems or missed considerations I see in execution, or things that I am asked about when professionals want to know how to get started. Here goes:

1. Let go of the fear of sharing. This is a tough one for CPAs and lawyers. You can't get away with semi-sharing. Hinting that you know something doesn't gain you any cred. Gotta demonstrate it. "Giving it away" isn't going to hurt you and the best business developers have always been the most generous ones. I implore you to watch Jason Fried's video at the bottom of Mack Collier's post. Even if you watch only the first 5 minutes...
2. Know who you're teaching. You cannot overthink when it comes to defining your ideal audience. What you share is going to depend on whose interest you want to catch and hold. If you don't know who your buyers and referrers really are or what they care about, you'll miss the mark. I go into how to define your audience deeply in my book. 
3. Engage with others who create content that relates to yours. One of the best ways to build an audience is to interact with others who have similar interests. Engaging is another word for building relationships. Compare this to referral-source marketing. It's critically important.
4. Don't talk down. This ties in to "know who you're teaching." Good teaching involves clarity and simplicity, but this doesn't mean that you should assume that your audience knows nothing at all. Just be really careful to keep the level appropriate to your readers. I see too many firms err on the side of dumbing it down. Better to err on the side of too-high-level content.
5. Jealousy of the "teachers" among colleagues is dumb. Stop it. Rock stars are good for everyone associated with the record label, right? Your company is the label. Your other people are the emerging artists and your rock stars bring attention to you all.
6. Don't be pitchy. You don't see Emeril blatently hawking his cookware on his cooking show. But he might be using it. Subtlety, people. Nuff said. 

Why Social-Media Rock Stars are Good for Your Firm

Partners and associates often worry about marketing “the individual” versus marketing “the firm.”

When a person markets herself (whether online or off) and receives some attention around it, colleagues can become envious. Some may speculate that she’s not a team player, and that she’s more interested in getting her name known than the firm’s.

Others might pick at her with comments like “You spend too much time on your blog, not doing client work.” Just anticipating these sentiments could preclude her from promoting herself, as if she’d be stepping out of bounds.

But marketing in the professions of law or accounting is much more about relationships than about leveraging a corporate-like brand.

People want to buy from people. Not from logos.

Logos and brands aren’t accountable and accessible. People are. Brands are inherently impersonal yet your firm’s value and long-term appeal are based on your people.

Rock Stars and Record Labels

A good way to look at your firm's marketing is to view the firm as a record label and your people as performers ... with some as potential rock stars.

When a label has only one rock star, you could chalk it up to luck in discovering that talent. With two rock stars signed, people start to wonder if it’s more than just luck. Three rock stars and it’s a trend: the label consistently finds and draws talent.

Think Motown.

A record label that has signed multiple stars is more prestigious among its competitors and is more attractive to aspiring stars. There’s something magical about that label; it appears to have a formula for success.

Your firm should want your attorneys or CPAs to become rock stars so they can elevate the firm’s visibility and reputation.

Rock-stars using social media can quickly put their firm on the map. The higher profile of the firm, in turn, raises the profile of all its attorneys or CPAs.

Creating the Connection

With the visibility comes responsibility.

In all his marketing interactions, a lawyer or CPA should associate himself with his firm in appropriate ways. Online, this means naming the firm and linking to the firm’s website within his bios on social sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and blogs.

This doesn’t mean that every profile or photo needs to incorporate the firm’s branding, just that the connection to the firm is consistently reflected on social sites.

And if the person avoids referring to the firm, you might have reason to question his purpose in marketing so independently.

But this isn’t just a social-media problem, it’s an age-old concern. I know of a partner who contributed an article to a local print publication and refrained from naming his firm in his byline. He confessed his intent was to distance himself from the firm—he felt the firm didn’t support his interest in marketing. Whatever his reason, his behavior reflected an underlying problem. The behavior was just the symptom, the root cause was a deeper issue.

In a scenario like this, be careful to address issues like these for what they really are. Don't let fear preclude you from nurturing rock stars. 

Leaving the Label

So there’s this one lingering concern: what if you do support the growth of a rising star, and then she leaves your label?

Your big stars could certainly migrate just as top artists change record companies. This is one reason it’s best to have several rock stars.

It’s true that blogs and social networking sites make it easier than ever for people to build visibility and social capital. And this certainly means they can leave and take this social capital with them. The important thing to remember is that your firm’s stature is already higher for being associated with your stars. That stature stays even when they go.

There’s one way to be particularly proactive about associates or partners possibly leaving that also inspires people to want to create content: establish who will own content like articles and blog posts.

Regardless of the firm’s ability to assert copyright, the wiser approach is a generous spirit of sharing. Agree to let authors use their own articles even after they leave while being clear that the firm can also continue to use the content.

Here’s why you want to share copyright:

When a firm insists on solely owning the content, it creates a disincentive for people (especially non-partners) to contribute their intellectual capital. I’ve seen this completely kill blog efforts, which is a shame because providing content is some of the most valuable marketing you, in a knowledge profession, can do.

Alternately, if the departing attorney or CPA solely owns her content, the firm faces a hassle of scrubbing blogs and websites to remove her content.

Keep it simple and take the high road: agree that the firm and the departing professional can both use it.

When your firm aspires to create, equip, and support as many rock stars as it can, you’ll have far more success than trouble as a result. Encourage your practitioners to create content and participate in social networks to raise both their profiles and the firm’s.

Feature photo courtesy of feiticeira_org on flickr.

Who Are You Talking To?

Got a great question, or set of questions, this morning on a recent post. My answer got so long, I decided it's a post of its own. 

Jim Caruso asked about whether he should start multiple blogs or a single blog since he's thinking about writing for clients/prospects, his peers, and his personal interests. 

Here are my thoughts:

For anything we do/write/etc, always begin with the question "who is the audience?" And if the answer is that there are multiple audiences as you've described, you then have to ask yourself, where do their interests intersect and where do they deviate? 

The key with writing, especially in a blog where you desire loyal readers and subscribers, is to stay relevant to your audience. If the discussion can stay relevant to all your audiences (covering the "intersection" of interests) then by all means, approach writing for all in one place. 

BUT, if one audience will likely be bored, annoyed, or otherwise feel as though the content is not applicable to him or her, then break your blogs up. People, being SO busy and flooded with info, seem to pretty readily unsubscribe from previously interesting things that stop meeting their needs. 

The more specific your content is to any one common-interest group (say, martial arts on the personal side, or family-owned businesses on the work side) the more meaningful your content will be. 

Sometimes just one off-topic post on my part, and I lose a couple subscribers. Other bloggers I know have lost followers by talking a lot about their sports team or elections...veering off from their usual stuff.

Writing for peers in the same place you write for prospects and clients is probably not the best approach. 

A good post on this appeared yesterday by Jordan Furlong on the Stem Legal blog talking about lawyers writing for lawyers versus for others. Jordan wrote that the client cares about what's in the FedEx envelope while lawyers care about how you get to what goes in that envelope.

The occasional post about your personal interests or whatever is great. I've been downright shocked by the warm response to a couple of these that I've shared...like my son's return from Afghanistan (he's a soldier) -- the outpouring from business friends was very moving and that post is among the 10 most "clicked" on my blog.

Pick your audience first. 

Ideally this is based on what your greatest business passion is (because blogs without passion are awful). 

Think, literally, in terms of "common interest groups."

In the event you choose to focus your business blog on your peer group and not the end client, you can still gain a little out of it for marketing, but it's not truly a marketing effort. Certainly some prospective clients may see this writing and think, wow, he knows what he's doing, and you'll earn some credibility for that. But don't necessarily expect them to subscribe to your feed. 

And if you go down the road of a personal blog, assuming the content is publicly appropriate (not airing dirty laundry or constant party pics) go ahead and add the blog to your LinkedIn profile. This shows you are a dynamic person with rich interests. Others who share your interests might ultimately reach out to you on a business level.

Bottom line, think of what you're passionate about (enough to fuel ongoing interest in writing) then think about who the audience for those subjects might be. And then think more broadly about what they do and don't care about. Know your audience well. Stay as true to their needs and interests as possible.

Tell-tale Signs of an Amateurish Blog

 Blogs have been around for a decade so there are a lot of great blogs out there and a well-established community to learn from. 

Lots of newcomers are entering the blogosphere, and ya'll are welcomed with open arms. However, there are some things that newbie (or noob) bloggers do or don't do that a) make their blogs less usable or b) scream "we don't know what we're doing!" 

So to spare newish bloggers some embarrassment, I've compiled this list of signs that they may lack appropriate participation in the blog community:

•    Comments are disabled (in my opinion, this disqualifies it from being a true blog)

•    No outbound links in the posts

•    No blogroll in the sidebar

•    No indication of who the author is or about the author link/page

•    Too many or duplicative category names, or no categories set up (10-15 is good number)

•    Underlining of text that isn’t a link

•    Walls of text with no subheadings and paragraph breaks

•    Corporate speak, or text that seems "sanitized" by the PR department

•    Approved comments that are obvious spam

•    Calling their blog post a “blog” instead of a "post" (e.g. “in the blog that I wrote yesterday”)

•    White text on a black background – this is not readable! It hurts the eye.

•    Using Blogger.com but not removing the Blogger logo at the top of the professional firm’s blog

•    Ending posts with “For more information call or email me” or similar pitch. They won’t. That’s not how blogs work.

When I asked Twitter and Facebook friends what they believe signals that a blog is amateur, these friends answered with their thoughts:

•   "Infrequent updates" suggested by three people: Ginger Lewis (@Ginger_Lewis), Andrew Rose (@NadenLean), and Jason Blumer (@JasonMBlumer)

•   "Internal focus versus external focus" from Ed Kless (@edkless)

•   "Relying on memes instead of creating original content" wrote Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

•   "Minutia—quantity over quality can help develop the blogging habit but writing about minute details of life without going deeper screams amateur" also from Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

•   "No clear relationship/brand beyond the blog, itself" submitted by Langston Richardson (@matsnl)

•   "There is no RSS feed" from Ginger Lewis (@Ginger_Lewis)

•   "Typos" and when "links are broken" sent by Susan Gorham (@susangorham)

•   "Consistently poor grammar and spelling" contributed by Debra Helwig (@dhelwig) who elaborates: “If you can't take the time to proofread, or have someone check you, how can I believe you'll be careful when you do work for ME?”

and an especially important one:

•   "Asking to swap links—gotta earn that" submitted by Robin Wheeler (@poppymom)

This list is from my upcoming book, Social Media Strategies for Professionals and their Firms.

APPENDED: July 28

Just to be crystal clear, while the first list is my list of traits of amateur blogs, the second list are traits submitted by the persons credited with contributing the trait. These were suggested publicly (Facebook and Twitter) with notice of my intent to publish them.  I am not suggesting they are guilty of the trait shown. Thanks!

Setting Up a Blog (for Professionals)

I gave a presentation yesterday (hosted by Association for Accounting Marketing, but open to all) on Blogging 101, but it wasn't about "what" a blog is or "why" to have one...it was about "how" to go about setting one up, particularly in a professional firm. 

We covered topic selection, traits that make a successful author, the process in making strategic and technical set-up decisions, and a bit about content and promotion. Here are the documents I shared for the teleseminar. (I was excited that the slide deck was selected by Slideshare's editors as their featured presentation today in the How-To and DIY category!)

If you missed the session, you might still enjoy the handouts, and think about attending the second part on Aug 10 (details below).

Blogging: The Practical Matters

Anatomy of a Blog Post

New Blog Development Process

NEXT SESSION

The next session (Blogging 202) will cover expanding a blog's visibility and readership, monitoring online mentions and learning from your traffic data, finding blog content inspiration, and the process a blog author can expect to go through as he or she goes from noob to seasoned.

It will be held on Aug 10 (also free) and you can register at: http://bit.ly/GoldenBlogs202 You need not be a member of the association to sign up, but you will be prompted to set up an account. 

Should Your Blog "Live" on Your Firm's Domain or a Unique Blog Domain?

I gave a How-To Start Blogging session yesterday (deck & handouts in my next post) and received this question afterward:

Q: 

Do you recommend hosting your blog on your firm website or linking from your site to [external] blog sites such as blogger/wordpress?

A:

It really is fine to do either. There are some strongly polarized opinions on separate versus apart, though, and I try to keep an open mind to both sides of the argument. 

A WordPress site (or MovableType) that is self-hosted can usually be hosted on the same server with your standard website. As long as the host can accommodate MySQL databases (GoDaddy, for instance, can). 

When you self-host, you have the option of hosting the blog on its own domain (www.yourblog.com) or as a subset of your firm's url (www.yourfirm.com/blog or www.blog.yourfirm.com). Even if you choose the subset, you can buy a domain (www.yourblog.com) and point it to your firm.com blog url. 

The key difference will be the URL for your individual blog posts. As an aside, blog post URLs, just like your website URLs, are better for you when they contain the words in the title of the posts (versus a numeric string)--this can usually be designated in the blog set-up screens. 

Some considerations in making your choice are: 

Is your firm's URL already long? 

If so, you might benefit from picking a short blog domain and hosting at that domain so that you don't lengthen an already long URL by naming your blog in it (e.g. www.blogname.reallylongfirmurl.com/blog-post-url-that-is-the-same-as-the-title-of-the-post) <--you could cut out the "reallylongfirmurl" part. 

Associating your firm's URL with the content of your blog. 

If the blog post URLs are "housed" on your firm's regular website URL (either via actual hosting, or via "domain mapping" through a hosted solution's set-up preferences) then you have the obvious advantage of all the SEO (search engine optimization) juice of every blog post word ON your own web domain. This is a clear benefit. 

Creating lots of external links to your regular website.

Alternately, a benefit of your blog being hosted on a domain EXTERNAL to your site is that every single post made to your blog creates a unique "web page" and, in doing so, if your firm name is a link that appears at least once on every page, this creates a TON of inbound links to your firm's website that also benefit your firm's standing in the rankings. Neither approach is "bad" and both have advantages. 

If you host it externally and "pipe in" feeds of recent or most relevant blog posts to your regular site, you can benefit from both.

Comments from others about pros and cons are welcome!

A Book for Professionals on Social Media

 I'm (gladly) in the final weeks of completing the manuscript for "Social Media Strategies for Professionals and their Firms: The Guide to Establishing Credibility & Accelerating Relationships." This is exhausting exhilarating because of the amount of sheer THINKING I've been forced able to do. 

I will be posting various bits and pieces from the book over the next couple months (it will be released in September, 2010) and inviting comments and critique while the book is still in the edit phase (or anytime, actually).

It's written primarily for legal, accounting and other financial advisory professionals. But other B2B professionals including consultants will, hopefully, also gain from it.

In order to serve as both a quick-start reference and a detailed strategic marketing planning resource, the book is organized into four key sections:

1. WHAT - provides the foundational information professionals need: definitions, rules of engagement, policy considerations, managing the unavoidable intersection of business and personal, an overview of "today's" most relevant tools, and a comparison of the tools.
2. WHY - answers questions about the purpose and value to professionals in using social media including: keys behind goal setting, establishing parameters for ROI, evolution of on-line reputation development and humanizing your marketing, and essentials for positioning yourself to be found by the "right" people.
3. HOW - discusses approaches to individual and firm-level social media strategies and delves into how-tos for the establishing yourself with tools that fall into the two big buckets of social media: networking and content-sharing.
4. TIPS - delivers just what you'd think: best practices, etiquette, cross-promoting, and even how to retire gracefully from your social media initiatives if you find they don't suit you.

I would LOVE and WELCOME your thoughts and suggestions about the structure and whether you think there is something important that I should include and may not have mentioned. 

Oh, and while I've been working on this, I've created a little timeline of the emergence of social media technologies (and behaviors) relative to the availability and evolution of the Internet. 

Seeing it like this was both impressive and (a little) scary for me as it relates to what we humans are capable of in such a small period of time. Wondering if you will have a similar reaction?

I can't help but think of a tweet I saw yesterday from Rebecca Ryan: "People will organize themselves; technology just helps them. -Ben Self, Blue State Digital"

Social Media Timeline

View more presentations from Michelle Golden.

If you use this graphic elsewhere, I just ask that please do so with attribution and a link or trackback here or to slideshare. Also, if you see any errors, please do let me know. Most of the dates came from Wikipedia.

Blog Post Fodder

Had a blast doing a webinar today for Moore Stephens North America about blogging for lead generation purposes. My presentation is on Slideshare.

Blogging for Lead Generation

And I promised attendees I'd follow up with this post about where to get posting ideas. 

It is geared for marketers who are supporting their firm's blogging efforts, but bloggers can do these things, directly, too!

• Search Twitter and search Google regularly for articles/news in your topic areas using keywords and phrases (experiment and adjust them to refine your results for greatest relevance)
• Subscribe to above searches in Google Reader so you can just check your Google Reader daily for new blog fodder!
• Subscribe to ALL related industry blogs (in Google Reader) and e-newsletters
• Comb through "sent items" in your email to find past emails you can sanitize (or have someone help you sanitize) as great "one Q at a time" postings. Add a sentence or two of context at the front and voila! Instant blog post.
• Feature clients, referral sources and PROSPECTS (like Scott Heintzelman of Exuberant Accountant does) by posting about neat stuff they are doing
• Seek out guest blog authors - people who are experts in your blog's industry focus area are best. Most willing might be experts who don't have their own blog or who are new to blogging and are seeking to build an audience.
• If you're a firm marketer, interview practitioners and draft some posts for them (but if they sit on them too long, stop doing this…don’t let them take more than 24-48 hours to turn a post around...this represents it's too low of a priority for them) 
• Suggest an editorial calendar, but allow for flexibility as spontaneous posts (as inspired) work best

Most importantly, if you're targeting business clientele, aim content at a very HIGH level for your intended audience. 

If you blog on business topics, don't be tempted to write "down" to a basic level or your posts are likely to seem too "101" to the executive level people you are targeting. Even if (especially if!!) it's a little over their heads, it will showcase your knowledge. Writing down or posting content that's too simplistic (e.g. new tax mileage rates when you are trying to showcase your consulting brilliance) makes you seem out of touch with your audience's real needs, and perhaps even condescending. 

Keep it high-level and this will differentiate your firm!

Oscars Results Reflect Today's Marketing Climate - Content Reigns

 Some interesting backstage comments followed the Oscars on ABC News/Entertainment made by Kathryn Bigelow (Best Director for Hurt Locker) on the quality of the 2010 Oscar nominees. She said, 

"This has been a really extraordinary year for content, and content-driven material that is diverse and complex."

I was really moved when I read this. 

It's a reflection of what's garnering the most attention, and exactly mirrors what's happening on-line. What draws is content. 

Sure Avatar is beautiful. Very beautiful, indeed. Far surpassing any movie ever made. But let's be real. The story line is a re-do. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen the flick by naming the 80s movie the story parallels, but you'll know when you watch it. 

Funny when you think about it because, despite pretty redesigns, most current law and accounting firm website content is nearly IDENTICAL to the stuff the firms said about themselves in their first websites, circa 1995. 

And, THAT text came from where? Yes. Straight from the blah-blah, we-we-we, all-about us, fluffy brochures the firms used since.... when? The 80s. 

Just sayin'...

That approach is done. And those sites are so dead they don't even stink anymore! 

Today's web is ALL about content-driven material that is diverse and complex. 

I do see some firms venturing into web content with very watered down, Info-101-type content that wouldn't teach my 16 year-old anything, much less be a worthwhile resource for the C-Suite exec it is supposedly targeted to. 

No no no. Content should never be dumbed down. Please. Punch it UP. Aim high. 

If your audience doesn't get it because it's over their heads, they won't think LESS of you, they'll think MORE of you. This is far safer than dumbing down the content so much that it comes across as insulting or condescending. Be very careful of that.

Get out there. Show your intellect. Show your depth. MOVE people. Give them something to applaud. Stand out!

So, back to the Oscars for the lesson... Pretty is pretty. Popular is popular. But content wins. 

Photo: AP

Social Media Risk Tolerance Quiz for Firms

I'm working on some risk assessment tools for firms to use to determine the level of rigidity (or lack thereof) needed in their own social media policies--and firms' likelihood, or not, of success in using social media tools to their full potential.

And I wholeheartedly believe that, while some potential risks exist (liability, etc), such policies are primarily anchored to the level of trust within an organization.

I like to keep things simple so I created a 3 question "Quiz" for firms to assess the strictness of their policies governing, well, everything--but particularly: Communication, Internet and Email Use, and Social Media Use.

Here's the quiz:

1. How important is autonomy among your firm’s values and current practices? (scale 1-5, 5 highest)
2. How important is innovation among your firm’s values and current practices? (scale 1-5, 5 highest)
3. To what degree does your culture demonstrate trust in, and respect of, employee judgment? (scale 1-5, 5 highest)

Results:

Add to determine your total score.

Score of 11-15 = SM usage can flourish in your firm because trust inspires people. A brief, mellow policy will be more than adequate and you won’t have to worry about hampering people’s enthusiasm with rigid, unfriendly policies. (samples: Baker & Daniels Mayo Clinic and Headset Bros )

Score of 6-10 = SM usage may be less than it could otherwise be. A tendency toward carefully worded, somewhat detailed policies convey the firm is wary or skeptical and somewhat concerned about being embarrassed by employees.(sample: Jaffe template Harvard Law and Microsoft)

Score of 1-5 = SM doesn’t fit well with your current culture. Very specific, restrictive policies probably suit your firm best. Look closely at the underlying reasons for your concerns and try to understand the root cause so you can work on building a more knowledge-worker-friendly environment. (I choose not to embarrass any orgs by listing them here, but these tend to exceed 2 pages, and include everything but the kitchen sink)

I invite your thoughts...

PS - hat tip to Social Media Governance for their excellent compilation of sample policies and to Ron Baker for his response to my questions on the subject which helped contribute to the direction of this brief quiz

FAQ Pages for Accountants or Lawyers?

FAQs--the sort found on software or product sites--might not be the most effective approach for marketing a service firm, but what can we learn from them?

If most firms set about to add a general FAQ page today, without thinking it through, it would end up being more like a QWWYWA (Questions We Wish You Would Ask) page. This would be where the firm would regurgitate its brochure and proposal "all about us" language yet again.

But it's proven. That doesn't work.

LESSON ONE: PURPOSE

You don't sell a product that has finite function, limitations, or usage. The FAQ was first created for that. You sell knowledge. So what should your FAQ contain? Be certain of your purpose before you build it. See below.

LESSON TWO: TRANSPARENCY

If your FAQ is going to cover "why buy from us" or "how to buy from us" then be transparent about it. Some ideas about that...

I love how transparent the CEO of Zappos was yesterday in his email to employees about the Amazon / Zappos deal. A great letter, BTW, I commend Tony Hsieh on every aspect of it.

About 1/2 way down the letter begins a "Q&A" section, and 3/4 of the way down is this:

Q: I'm a business/financial reporter. Can you talk like a banker and use fancy-sounding language that we can print in a business publication? (where they used their canned marketing jargon)

And below that is Q: Can you talk like a lawyer now? (where they obviously put that requisite legal stuff)

If an accounting or law firm were to throw in some self-serving info in a FAQ, I would hope they would do it with this sort of transparency (and humor).

LESSON THREE: CONTENT

Who is an FAQ gonna help sell?

• Traditional FAQs are probably not going to close a $10K+ accounting/audit service or big piece of litigation to the C-suite.
• Bookkeeping or basic tax work, sure, but last time I checked, firms over $3-4 million in revenues aren't interested in doing more of either of those services.
• Bankruptcy, estate administration, or estate planning for an individual, perhaps.

For complex issues, some accountants and many lawyers have GREAT FAQ pages, and they are usually called blogs. If you really want an FAQ page, use a blog approach even for a static website.

Make an FAQ topic specific. Not an FAQ "about the firm" but about "estate planning" or "trusts" or "probate." Break a complex issue down into pieces and tackle each piece separately.

A blog is a better tool to accommodate this content style, though.

These professions are so complex that a good FAQ page is a discussion of meaningful issues--a fluid discussion because issues are fluid.

Here is a blog by a small but powerhouse firm who does public company audits aptly titled "Gray Matters." Does it get more complex than SEC compliance? This is meaningful, useful advice, and theoretical concepts (and not always towing the party line!) that keep CEOs, CFOs, and board members reading, and it substantiates the firm's level of knowledge. Big 4 folks subscribe to the blog, too. It's that good.

LESSON FOUR: EFFECTIVENESS

When your competitors read you, and media reads you, you know you are on the right track. When clients or prospects comment on how helpful the site was, or they actually contact you because of it, you are doing it right (assuming these are your goals).

If you are a professional service / knowledge firm, then my recommendation is to skip the all-about-us FAQ and give people evidence of your knowledge. Blog being your tool, or not.

Just, please, don't recycle your brochure language anymore, no one cares about it. Instead, answer questions real people have about real issues.

Show WHAT you know, don't just say you "know a lot of stuff." How, after all, does that make you any different from the person in the office across town?

100 Accounting Practice Blogs!

Having just updated the Accounting Blog List again (seems like every week or two) I am delighted to report that we have just crossed the 3-digit count threshold.

The 100th blog has now been entered on the list!

To qualify in the count, a blog must be authored by a licensed and currently in practice accounting practitioner (CPA, CA, etc) or public accounting firm (group authored is okay).

If you have a blog and are not on this list, please drop me a note!

Our Fave Website Design Yet!

Today is a great day! We are super excited to launch our newest site & blog. Rowling Dold & Associates is a firm of CPA types who are primarily financial/wealth advisors.

A really cool thing about RDA is how they let us pretty much run with our ideas and designs. This is pretty rare and we savored every minute of it.

The other really cool thing about RDA's website development is the theme.

Sheryl Rowling, RDA's managing partner, took a long, well-deserved trip to Europe last year with her business partner Cheryll Lurtz right after launching their product Total Rebalance Expert (a very cool rebalancing software for advisors who use Schwab Portfolio Center) at the big Schwab conference in Atlanta.

Sheryl & Cheryll included us in their email photo-journal of their trip: almost daily recaps of their escapades with a couple select photos of the day. The photos were exceptional and we (the recipients) lived vicariously through them for a few weeks as they gallivanted across Europe.

When we started on their web design, we hadn't thought about using those photos but when conversation turned to imagery, their goals were: artful, professional, and more scenic than stock people. A San Diego based firm, our thoughts naturally turned to ocean-related scenery.

Then we remembered the photos.

Big believers in personalizing a website to the degree that you get a feel for the personalities comprising a firm, we wanted visitors to have a feel for Sheryl's trip the way we did. 

So we wanted it to be really obvious that these were home-grown photos. Each photo links back to a photo credits page.

Hope visitors enjoy looking as much as we enjoyed building. This one was a joy!

Sheryl, Lisa and team, thank you for letting us help you with this fun project!

And congrats on having what I think might be the first Financial Services blog by a CPA!

CPA Bloggers of Note!

Boy, have things changed.

A year ago in June, we had about 35 practice blogs by accountants on our Accounting Blog List. Now, there are 95. January 1 there were 65. There is some now some momentum.

30 were built and launched during "busy season" which is amazing enough because back when I entered accounting marketing in the early 90s, CPAs took a marketing hiatus for the first four months of each year. Not so anymore.

Still only 22 "industry sector" blogs so if you are mulling over starting one, the playing field is very wide open for you to own your space.

This isn't about numbers, though, it's about results. I've mentioned some blogger success stories before but a couple exciting new ones have come to be known recently.

Scott Heintzelman, The Exuberant Accountant

Scott launched his blog a year ago. He learned about the potential for CPAs in this interesting medium a year earlier when he attended a meeting of IGAF Worldwide, his firm's international association where I happened to be speaking. Scott was fired up!

I remember talking to him at dinner and I could almost see the wheels spinning: "I've got to do this...how can I make this happen..." (He's in a bigger firm, McKonly Asbury, where I imagine he was thinking that not all his partners would likely be on board with this wacky concept). But his firm acquiesced and his terrific marketing director Jim Rodgers, helped him breathe life into the blog, aptly named if you know Scott!

Corresponding with him when he first started it, Scott had some questions about approaches to his post writing and other normal concerns (am I doing this right? are people really gonna subscribe to my blog?).  Some early blog comments from friends and strangers served to encourage him on his journey. It wasn't long before Scott was invited to join the AccountingWEB Bloggers Crew.

It's a year later. Scott emailed me a week or so ago about the first (known) 100% blog-driven referral he received. Here's what he said:

I had never met this gentlemen prior to our meeting, but his quote to me at breakfast was that he felt like he knew me and what I stood for because of the blog. The power of the blog is that it allows me to leverage my time and “ping” many folks at one time (it expands my reach). They in turn get to develop like and trust with me (and our firm), without me being present.

And, as beautiful luck would have it, Scott's blog--along with a few other great accounting blogs including another firm I mentioned in the prior success story link above, Mercer & Hole--were just picked up in Entrepreneur in a story "Accounting Blogs" by Peter Renton.

Paul Neiffer, Farm CPA Today

Another blogger of note is Paul Neiffer. Paul contacted us (through this blog, in fact) late in 2008 and officially went live with his blog in Feb 2009. He had a nice little backlog of posts when he launched and has been going to town on it since then.

Paul grew up in a farm business and gets his own tractor time each year still though he doesn't have a farm in Washington where he practices accounting. This CPA completely got it that his posts needn't (actually shouldn't) all be about debits and credits. You will get to know Paul's genuinely helpful, thoughtful personality in a handful of posts.

Because his blog is sector specific, his audience will appreciate and find relevant anything that farmers care about. This makes for a much more interesting read and Paul is proving to be a natural at delivering great content in a friendly way.

After just 3-4 months, and as a direct result of blogging, Paul has been sought out to write the tax chapter of a farming book and he is developing an alliance with a farm organization that he merely admired from afar when we first spoke.

I'm so proud of both of these guys as well as Mercer & Hole's SME blog team, Tom Selling of The Accounting Onion, Key Bell of Don't Mess With Taxes, and the folks at The Accounting Coach, too, for their great work with their blogs which are leading them to wonderful successes.

Fodder for Convincing Social Media Skeptics

Marketers! Listen up!

How to Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics & Luddites - Tips, Resources & Advice

If you've got an interest in rolling out some social media strategies in your firm, but don't have your senior management on board with you quite yet, the above article is the one-stop shop "make your case" fodder that you need to help you win over your skeptics.

Are you a step further in your implementation? Or just wanting to be sure you head off the "Don'ts" before you "do" one?

From the same great folks at Interactive Insights Group is the Superlist of What NOT to Do in Social Media.

Neither of these are weak little blurbs on the subject. Both are meaty and packed with excellent examples and insights. They will take you awhile to pour through and digest.

Dentist is Shining Professional Service Blog Example

A detour today... I used Google to help me learn why my 6 y/o has a white spot on her first grown-up tooth that is just beginning to emerge. The second result in Google for "white spots on teeth" was EXACTLY what I was hoping to find. And exemplifies why I recommend that professionals blog.

Dr Dean Brandon, a pediatric dentist in Huntsville, Alabama, has an outstanding blog www.cyberdentist.blogspot.com.

Dr. Brandon's "white spots" post was informative. He seems knowledgeable and because he shared, makes me think he cares--I wish he were in St Louis! But my point in blogging about him is to extract (no pun intended) some lessons from him.

A testament to the quality of his blog, the page I wanted came up VERY high in Google search results.

Interestingly, Dr. Brandon's post on white spots, written in 2006, has elicited 82 comments to date--though many of these are Dr. Brandon's replies to reader questions. After skimming the comments, I am absolutely certain he cares because he has personally responded to people, especially in the early years of his blog.

Accountants, lawyers, and other professionals might look at this and assert the following:

1. If I got 40 comments on a post, I wouldn't have time to answer everybody!
2. I'm not sure I want to, or should, give away all that "free advice"!
3. How does this blog help his local practice when readers are all over the world?? I'm in [insert city] like he's in Huntsville, so why should I care about a question from a reader in Toledo?

Fair enough. My thoughts below.

Comment volume. My first reassurance is to suggest that you aren't likely to get the same level of inquiry as he does. Frankly, his readers are mommies and daddies worried about their kids and people don't tend to obsess about their accounting or legal issues the way they do about their kids' medical needs or appearance!

Second, by reading a bit deeper on his blog, I learned that Dr. Brandon has subsequently expressed an inability to personally respond to all comments. In October, 2007, he posted this graph of his readership growth wrote: 

By the way, many people ask questions of me. I have been generally happy to give my opinion, but have also tried to get across that I cannot give dental advice that is specific to any one patient (see disclaimer). Over the past few months I have gotten very busy and cannot devote too much time to answering questions. Therefore, I will be posting most of your comments, but will not likely be able to answer any questions.

So, like him, you can manage expectations about how you will behave with readers.

Especically when you start out with a blog, it is just smart, as well as common courtesy, to reply to readers who read you and are moved enough about your content to post a comment. But, yes, at some point, it might become unmanageable. When you hit that point, as our good Dr. did, just say so! People will understand.

By the way, in Dec, 2008, Dr. Brandon added a comment to this Blog Stat post that his stats have again doubled those shown above. This is in light of the fact that he only made SIX postings in 2008!

(NOTE: This few postings in a year isn't optimal, but his blog was so well established since its launch in Sep. 2005, when there was little other similar content out there, that he could pull it off. It's a little tougher to "stand out in the crowd" if you're just starting now. But it is NOT too late.)

Free advice. Yeah, this is a tough one. But it boils down to common sense.

I think there are two kinds of professional service providers when it comes to marketing: those who share information liberally and realize it more than pays for itself, and those who feel the need to bill every minute they help someone.

In my years in marketing accountants and lawyers, I have seen that the former approach is much more fruitful, long-term. Look at the greatest rainmakers you know, and you too may observe that they probably follow the "share liberally" policy when it comes to helping people out, whether the recipient of the help will ever become a client or not. 

This is how to develop a reputation as a caring, helpful person. <--what most people want in their professional service providers!  And it is also how people witness, first hand, and are reassured, that you are a "pro" at what you do. 

If you are worried about liability in advice provided, don't. That is what disclaimers are for. See Dr. Brandon's excellent disclaimer and look at the legal lingo of other blogs for ideas on how to CYA.

Local practice, global readership. I'll share a few rhetorical questions to address this concern.

As a local practitioner in [insert your city], does it enhance your credibility at all to be viewed as a national or international expert?

If you spoke to a national audience of peers, or wrote for a national journal or  professional association publication, would that be something you would include on your biography?

Did you notice that as Dr. Brandon's blog stats soared, that his time to blog rapidly diminished?

And did you notice that among the six posts he made in 2008, two were about significant expansion--major equipment and the construction of a major new facility?

I rest my case.

Summary. I do want to say that, IMHO, a large part of Dr. Brandon's success is due to the excellent quality of his posts AND his participation in his readers' experience through comments. If you scroll down his right-hand sidebar, you'll see his entire list of posts. Note the following three points:

• The posts are about things that patients care about.

• Titles are short and pointed.

• And the content of each post is very thorough, a result of which is the high odds that he uses phrases that will come up in searches like mine.

Congrats Dr. Brandon and, if you read this, thanks for answering my questions about my daughter's spot!

Two New Accounting Blogs Launch: Marks 10th and 11th Niche Blogs

Hooray for (another!) Texas firm, Rylander, Clay & Opitz, LLP who are launching TWO blogs with fantastic team participation and a nice backlog of starting posts. 

Mission: Accountable is for tax exempt organizations serving Ft. Worth and surrounding communities, and Fueling the Business is for Texas oil and gas producers and service providers.

These will be good ones, for sure. Both blogs feature multiple authors including partners AND accounting professionals of varying levels.

Veteran accounting blogger and the newest partner at RCO, Becky DaVee was the founder of another accounting blog, TheMinistryBlog.com, launched two years ago at her former firm. On joining RCO a couple months ago, she encouraged the firm to launch these blogs because she experienced, first hand, how well blogs work in support of successful niche marketing efforts.

We, at Golden Marketing, were honored to be part of the strategy, training and creation of these blogs for RCO! And we want to note that both blog's banners feature photographs taken by one of RCO's auditors, Rocky Miller.

There are now 65 accounting firm blogs that we are aware of. And only 11 are niche focused! Playing field is still VERY wide open...

How to Build a Better Blog

Recently published by Law.com is an article by C.C. Holland that I contributed to, along with a few other blog experts and practitioners.

Though directed at attorneys, the info in the article is just as valid for CPAs and other professionals who are interested in doing great blogs.

How to Build a Better Law Blog

Don't have a blog and wondering what you'd even blog about?

From the article, this is what John Mesirow, who writes Legal Juice (which is a VERY cool looking blog reminding me yet again mine needs a serious make-over), says about that.

"Over the years I had a file of interesting cases, bizarre statutes, anything law-related that was funny, weird or crazy, and I had the idea to start a blog," says Mesirow.

Although the blog's main purpose is marketing (it's cross-linked to his firm's Web site and has helped boost traffic), he stays true to the mission of the content: "If I think it's funny, entertaining or interesting I put it up there.

Also in the article, another reference to the fact there are over 2,000 law blogs out there and, according to our Accounting Blog List, a paltry showing of 60ish accounting blogs...this number having about doubled since last May (the beginning of the 2008 accounting marketing season).

Don't expect too many accounting blogs to sprout between January and April, but I bet next summer we'll see a significant up-tick in accountant blog numbers.

Building Blog Readership

Q. How might I bring the contents of my blog to a wider audience?

A. Blog discovery and readership is very organic and, like most marketing, there isn't a single, guaranteed formula, but I can share some general tips and ideas. The best things you can do to promote your blog are:

1 - Write original stuff that your desired audience will get and stay interested in:

• Write in bite-sized pieces for greatest appeal to a very busy reader
• Post with adequate frequency to be recognized as someone who is dedicated to maintaining his blog
• Share your opinions, don’t be too “safe” lest it be dull or predictable—remember, people are drawn to new, exciting ideas
• Be authentic and relaxed in your writing—it’s not a journal article, it’s a blog post—and show personality

2 - Read and interact with other blogs:

• Participate in the on-line communities of people who are discussing issues related to your topics and your audience

• Post comments (not pitchy, though!) on other blogs

• Pick up other blog posts (with attribution, of course) adding your own ideas and expanding the conversation—be sure to use trackbacks to the original posts

• Link liberally to other resources and writings  (this is called "link love" - give lots)

• View your blog visitor stats to see what sites referred them and follow those sites

• Practice good blog etiquette by acknowledging and thanking commenters, and those who link to you.

3 - Promote your blog presence throughout all your business communications: email sig, in your articles, newsletters, mailings, etc

And be sure you are having fun. If you aren't enjoying the practice of blogging, stop. Nothing worse than a dispassionate blogger!

Happy blogging...

Accounting Association is Blogging

A new blog has emerged by the Exec Director/President of IGAF Worldwide, Kevin Mead, and it's called the Connected Accountant.

Kevin's an interesting fellow. In addition to beign a Certified Association Exec (CAE), he is a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certifed Information Systems Auditor (CISA). He has a bachelor's degree in economics and master's in audit. He previously worked for the Institute of Internal Auditors.

Even more interestingly, Kevin now lives and works out of Atlanta but from Ireland and England, he also lived in South Africa and Maine. Quite the interesting accent! And (little known fun fact) he also does stand-up comedy (he's going to kill me for writing that).

Anyway, Kevin's awesome and his blog is sure to be, too. Hope you'll join me in welcoming Kevin to the blogosphere and encourage him in his new role as a blogger.