Employee Social Media Training

Employee Social Media Training
*Insert firm logo/name here Employee Social Media Training An Overview of Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media Platforms The accompanying slides can be used to provide a brief overview of use of a firm’s social media policy and the most commonly used platforms and their uses. Please modify as needed to fit your firm’s specific objectives.

An Overview: What is the Value of Social Media?
Credibility through sharing industry knowledge Brand Awareness and Recognition Channel for Immediate Communication Lead Generation Social media is a term often used today interchangeably with online communication. However, social media is more than random posting to Facebook or sending a tweet. Social media is employing channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and a firm’s blog to develop brand awareness and credibility to ultimately contribute to measurable business if utilized correctly.

An Overview: Engaging with Social Media: Why It’s Important.
It is mutually beneficial for the firm and for you as an employee with the firm. Becoming involved helps you stay up-to-date on industry news and events. Offers opportunities to share news and events of personal pages with your network. Engagement is the key factor in utilizing social media. Those firms and individuals that schedule time to engage with others through social media and continually improve their knowledge on the various platforms will reap the most benefits. To be a recognized presence on social media, it is vital to not only be involved in the discussions that relate to your industry but to be seen as an important voice, one that others wish to follow.

Social Media Goals: Outlining Your Strategy
Identify how social media efforts will relate to and enhance broader business development and marketing goals of the firm. Determine how you will measure your social media success. Identify current social media usage including the use of personal accounts. Social media goals should integrate into your short-term and long-term business goals. Since time is a valuable asset, time dedicated to social media interaction should drive engagement with others to ultimately drive new business to your firm. Thus, setting forth measurable, attainable goals for the usage of social media accounts for your firm and staff are critical to successful implementation and achievement of positive results.

Social Media Goals: Who Will Implement?
Identify “champions” to manage your social media accounts. It is important to know who is managing the firm’s social media accounts. Allocating time to contribute to the firm’s blog and promoting yourself as a brand on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can contribute to lead generation. Thus, it is vital to identify person(s) with the necessary time and technical abilities to monitor and maintain social media accounts. Additionally, the identified “champions” should be capable of delegating tasks to other firm members (for example, content creation for articles and posts) and monitoring progress towards completion.

Social Media Firm Policy
Potential Risks Damage to a firm’s brand Improper use by employees Network security threats It is important to always talk to legal counsel when outlining a social media policy, as its usage may have legal ramifications related to employee usage or reliance on the information by outside parties of the firm. If possible, utilization of a human resources professional is also advised when drafting a policy, to ensure all employees properly acknowledge what is deemed appropriate behavior related to social media usage on behalf of the firm.

Communicating Your Policy Liability disclaimers General communications/behavior Internet & policies Specific social media tool policies The majority of “social media” concerns are adequately handled under firm policies that may already exist and can be appended, as needed. Basic legal disclaimers on your blogs, websites or firm sponsored social media accounts may include: Non-specific advice: “This information is of a general nature, not intended to be specific professional advice, seek the opinion of a professional to advise you in your unique situation” IRS Circular 230 Disclosure Your firm’s general privacy policy Individual versus firm views: “Authors’ opinions are their own and do not represent the view of the company.” Third party content: “The firm is not responsible for the accuracy or appropriateness of third-party comments or articles, including those of guest authors and editorial contributions.” Specific to blogs, print newsletters, or other forums where comments or “letters to the editor” are allowed: “Comments, letters, and other submissions are moderated, and may be edited or withheld at the sole discretion of the firm.”

Employee Rules for Social Media Engagement Be professional and courteous at all times Do not disparage other firms or individuals Acknowledge others’ viewpoints While an employee represents their firm around the clock, it is important to think twice before posting questionable material including abusive language, provocative images or any information that could compromise the firm or its clients and contacts. To that end, private company or client information is of course prohibited. Employees are encouraged to share posts from company platforms and blogs that they have contributed to individually. Topics should be chosen from reliable resources such as Accounting Today, Accounting Web, the AICPA blog, as well as the firm’s blog. Employees are encouraged to share any firm successes including awards or media mentions. The Accounting Web recommends that firms have their employees include a “Personal Views” disclaimer if they are worried about outlandish views.

A Final Note In addition to the “rules”, remember to encourage employees to use social media In addition to adopting policies for its usage, make sure to also encourage employees to participate in social media. Any policies should outline the firm’s goals and policies/best practices, but should not be so restrictive as to discourage use by staff members. Social media is, after all, driven by individual engagement and striking the correct balance for staff usage will ensure better results as they relate to marketing and business development for your firm.

LinkedIn Why Is LinkedIn a Valuable Channel? Brand Recognition
Business Opportunities Thought Leadership LinkedIn is a professional network designed to help others grow their business and to showcase personal brand and thought leadership. LinkedIn reports over 364 million users— 45% of which are considered decision makers. For making business connections, LinkedIn is generally considered the premier social media platform.

LinkedIn The Importance of Personal Profiles
Do you have a professional headline that talks about personal value proposition or how you solve challenges? Does your biography showcase your talents? Crafting an in depth biography: Does your bio thoroughly explain and differentiate yourself professionally? Note that LinkedIn offers many categories to supplement your “Experience” section (which lists out your work history) including: -Skills & Endorsements, Education, Groups, Volunteering Experience, Honors & Awards Supporting your Bio: Do you have attachments and files to backup your description? In other words, do you have additional support for your noted expertise? Adding Credibility: Can colleagues or fellow board members provide a recommendation for you? Building Your Brand: What organizations have you been involved with? What skills differentiate you from others in your profession? What certifications have you achieved? These are all considerations for creating a LinkedIn profile that will promote your achievements and encourage others to connect.

LinkedIn Thought-Leadership Published Posts
Determining an industry specific niche. Determining frequency: weekly, bi-weekly or monthly Sharing Industry-Related Content Valuable industry publications and news resources Allocating time to reading industry trends Sharing frequency What industry, specific niche will others in your network find valuable in reading? Are you able to put in time to writing weekly, bi-weekly or monthly? As with all social media content strategies, creating an editorial content calendar will supplement other breaking news items to keep your LinkedIn posts fresh. Focusing on those areas where you and your firm wish to promote your expertise is an easy way to focus your research for content. More of than not, content will come to you through your own research, whether through articles or other media published by standard setting bodies, professional organizations, or industry groups. Simply inventory what blogs, industry publications or news resources you and fellow staff members already subscribe to in order stay on top of industry trends. Along the lines of the editorial calendar, those charged with maintaining the social media account may want to allocate time to reading industry trends and related posts. If you have a team dedicated to a specific industry or service niche, you can also look into platform management tools such as Hootsuite, to make knowledge sharing and collaboration easier.

LinkedIn Building Your Network Connecting with people you know
Connecting with new people Groups How do you plan to engage with LinkedIn Groups? Sharing industry-related articles, asking a question for input, and responding to articles that other have posted are all ideal ways to join conversations on LinkedIn, with individual connections and within a group setting. The best way to engage others is to provide input that is considered useful---if you are an accounting professional, your input that showcases technical expertise or advice will encourage others to further network with you. Casual discussions are also appropriate, taking into account social media etiquette as previously discussed.

Facebook Why is Facebook a valuable platform?
More personal in nature than LinkedIn Ideally, focused on the individual or company Facebook can be used for personal and professional networking and is valuable in building personal brand and firm brands. While both are designed to share industry and firm updates as well as real-time images, personal and company pages are setup differently. An individual may only set up one account per Facebook’s terms. However, a company may have a Facebook page. To use one’s individual Facebook account for business is a tricky proposition. Since you will no doubt invite family and friends to become “friends”, it may be burdensome to separate the various audiences you wish to reach at any given time. If using this for business purposes, it is best to create a separate company page. This is also true for sole proprietors, in order to separate your personal information with that related to your work.

Facebook Benefits of a Personal Facebook Page:
A place to display professional and personal accomplishments. Allows personal friends to become aware of your professional services. Boosts personal credibility. A personal Facebook page is a great place to showcase one’s individual talents. Whereas a company page may display information about the firm and its various employees, a personal page may be strictly personal in nature. In other words, only friends and family may be invited to join your audience. In fact, there may be little or no mention of your professional role on the account. For sole proprietors, an account linked to your business is the preferred method of separating your business and personal accounts. Whereas you may be comfortable sharing some personal information with clients and others related to your business life, it is a best practice to separate the two by maintaining a personal account and a business account.

Facebook: Company Facebook Page
Benefits of a Company Facebook Page Brand Recognition Credibility Constant communication to the public Up-to-date information on the firm news and events A Company Facebook Page can be utilized to advertise your firm and its services. You can invite those Facebook users you wish to be among your audience, promote your firm through posts and advertisements and track activity through various tools within the platform. A Company page is a great way to not only engage external parties but also your employees. You can share their individual accomplishments and interests, as well as promote internal events.

Facebook Knowledge Sharing
How can you communicate your wealth of knowledge for the industry with you Facebook network? Share blogs and current events pertaining to the industry Answer questions for friends For a business, your Facebook goals should follow those outlined in your overall marketing strategy. If you are attempting to promote your brand, the information that you share on Facebook should showcase your expertise and the technical skills of others in your firm. Cross-utilizing other content delivered by the firm, such as articles, presentations, and whitepapers is an easy way to engage your Facebook audience without additional time spent developing materials.

Facebook Staying Connected
Communication is accessible in a variety of channels today. While sending an , text message, or picking up the phone to call may be at the forefront, messaging through Facebook is another convenient approach. Use Facebook Messenger to make immediate introductions in a casual way. Do you feel comfortable opening up this channel of communication to other colleagues? While sending an , text message, or picking up the phone to call may be at the forefront, messaging through Facebook is another convenient approach. Similar to LinkedIn, inviting someone to join you on Facebook may involve business connections. Generally, Facebook is more personal in nature (hence the moniker “friend”) and may be a platform you are more selective in inviting only the most trusted business counterparts to network.

Facebook Privacy Settings
Facebook allows you to group friends any way you choose. Meaning, you may group colleagues by firm, board members by association, and family members by family. Facebook allows you to choose what is displayed on your Facebook wall and what is not. Ask yourself: “If I create a Facebook page that is set to the strictest privacy setting, will I lose benefits of sharing and building relationships? Would you prefer having friends and family see posts pertaining to family and personal accomplishments, while your colleagues see posts related strictly work related? Are you worried that others will post inappropriate content to your wall? Facebook allows you to control who sees your posts and what audience receives each post. It is a useful task to research the various privacy settings and key features before you integrate Facebook into your social media strategy.

What time can you allot to being engaged with the firm’s Facebook Page? If you can commit five minutes, engage with the posts by sharing, liking and commenting on posts. As with all of the social media platforms discussed, engagement with your audience is the only way to derive benefit from their usage. If you can schedule routine time to monitor, maintain and engage with your Facebook audience, you will improve your chances of driving measurable results. Alternately, a Facebook page with no recent posts is counter-productive to your marketing strategies.

What Other Ways Can I Get Engaged with a Low Commitment? Assist the marketing team and social media manager by passing along firm updates, networking events, images of firm events, and real-time images at networking events for the social media team to share with the community. Facebook serves as a great social media channel to let the outside world know what your firm is doing. Beyond reporting events, Facebook is also an increasingly popular tool for scheduling firm events, allowing you to invite guests from your existing Facebook “Friends” (or by uploading new contacts individually or from a list) and then share images, videos and text updates about the event---even as it is happening.

Twitter Why Is Twitter a Valuable Channel for Professional Service Firms? Immediate interactions with prospects Brand awareness Knowledge sharing Serves as a place to share and showcase awards Can revamp a company’s culture “CPA of the Month” Twitter is best described as an “information social network” comprised of 140 character messages made to deliver news and thoughts in a precise and timely matter. With 304 million monthly active Twitter accounts, firms have turned to this channel to deliver news pertaining to their firm and interact with media writers and prospects.

Twitter Why Is Twitter a Valuable Channel for Professional Service Firms? Lead Generation Knowledge sharing Brand recognition A place to interact with prospects Interact with others in the accounting profession Twitter can be utilized in multiple ways for a firm. It is a great channel for connecting not only with existing customers but also those decision makers that lead to new business opportunities. Beyond marketing and business development efforts, Twitter is a great communication tool to engage your customers and potentially receive valuable feedback on your services. Twitter also allows you to gauge your competition through comments/feedback posted by their followers, which may provide you with additional opportunities.

Twitter Building Credibility with the Public as a CPA
Sharing original content and having conversations Getting Involved with Twitter Chats Making Use of Hashtags Network with your profession: #AICPA or #CPA Communicating with your Target Market: #SmallBiz Those charged with maintaining the firm’s Twitter account should also determine the amount of time that can be designated to engagement and outline a schedule. Can you allocate 20 minutes one time a week communicating with others in the #AICPA, #CPA Twitter stream? Can you share contact on a scheduled basis? These are questions to undertake before creating a social media account. You may also use hashtags (“#”) specifically for business owners or other industries you are working to target. A hashtag is best described as flagging tweets that have a common topic. You can use the Twitter search box to find such topics. For instance, if you type #Tax, you will get a list of tweets all related to the term “tax”. Tweets that utilize the hashtag do not necessarily have to contain the keyword of “tax”, thus providing a useful search method for topics of interest to you.

Blogging Why Do Professional Service Providers Blog? Brand Recognition
Demonstrating expertise Can address timely topics A less formal platform and can include writer’s perspective/opinion. Serves as an additional content for social media. Establishes credibility. Blogging is an effective way for the firm to share their views, knowledge on industry, specific niche topics readers in other industries or may read. A blog is generally 300 to 500 words and often includes the writer’s perspective and opinion. A blog allows you to meet these goals and more. Additionally, it drives additional traffic to your website and, done correctly, provides search engines (like Google or Bing) with more material related to your firm, allowing your website to be found more easily by people searching online than it would be otherwise.

Blogging Identifying Interests What is your specific industry-niche?
What are you passionate about that you would like to educate others on? Accounting firms and the CPAs and consultants in them need to have a substantial online presence to: Increase marketplace awareness of your firm and your CPAs Establish your authority and expertise on a particular subject or in a particular industry Provide sufficient information to support your firm as the right choice for a prospective client or referral source, regardless of what stage they may be in the sales pipeline Remain competitive with other CPAs who blog or are otherwise visible in the media Thus, it is advisable to focus on those industry niches or services that your firm has expertise in and add social media to your array of marketing tools.

Blogging Frequency How much time are you able to allocate to blogging?
Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly The amount of time dedicated to creating content for the blog should be determined at the onset. A great tool for determining the frequency of blog posts is an editorial calendar that sets forth the due dates for new content and the dates such content will be posted to the firm’s blog. Thus, a formal process will be in place to ensure the blog is routinely refreshed with new content.

Social Media Best Practices
Channel Selection How much time are you willing to dedicate? Are you comfortable blending personal and professional worlds? Do you want to create original content? Utilizing different social media channels may be useful to reaching the right audience. Employees should “listen” and keep track with what clients or vendors are posting online. On Twitter, compiling a private list of clients and vendors and engaging whenever possible is recommended. On LinkedIn, we recommend connecting with clients and vendors and support the information that they share. While an employee may want to connect with a client on LinkedIn or Twitter, they may not want to connect through Facebook, it is important for the employee to decide and consider the various privacy options Facebook offers.

Etiquette: Act Online as You Would in Person Be nice Be knowledgeable Share and give credit Be professional Remember: Even if you delete it, the internet remembers As mentioned previously, social media policies should be specific regarding etiquette when posting or sharing information online in connection with the firm. Since most social media platforms focus on individual usage, all staff and related parties utilizing the firm’s social media accounts should be aware that questionable content or behavior will not be tolerated. It is important to make these policies clear to avoid any misunderstanding as to what content or behavior is deemed unacceptable. The ramifications of improper behavior on social media accounts utilized by a firm can be devastating to business.

Where Can You Find the Content to Share? Your Firm’s social networks Industry publications Mainstream news Your connections: Reading what your connections are sharing Distributing great content cannot be stressed enough. In order to facilitate discussions of interest to external parties on social networks, it is important to have quality content, in addition to joining relevant conversations, that promotes you and your firm’s specific talents and expertise. Information is easily found in today’s digital age. As discussed, often you can comment on existing information or share information you have received on social media channels to continue the conversations with other interested parties. Industry publications and news outlets, as well as industry organizations, provide a ready supply of engaging articles and other media to begin discussions with the audience you wish to reach.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish to recognize and thank the contributors to this Employee Social Media Training presentation tool. They are as follows: Stacy Hanas Jessica Levin Additionally, many thanks go to Nytisha Vinson and Natasha Schamberger of the AICPA for their assistance in developing the final content. Distributing great content cannot be stressed enough. In order to facilitate discussions of interest to external parties on social networks, it is important to have quality content, in addition to joining relevant conversations, that promotes you and your firm’s specific talents and expertise. Information is easily found in today’s digital age. As discussed, often you can comment on existing information or share information you have received on social media channels to continue the conversations with other interested parties. Industry publications and news outlets, as well as industry organizations, provide a ready supply of engaging articles and other media to begin discussions with the audience you wish to reach.

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