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LinkedIn offers an opportunity to connect with over 199 million users in the United States and more than 900 million worldwide. But in a crowd that big, how does one accountant or one firm stand out?
The survey of buyers indicated that the top two criteria they use when evaluating an accounting firm are subject matter expertise and relevant experience. Fortunately, LinkedIn provides a variety of features that allow you to demonstrate both of these to potential clients. There's a place on every profile page for project examples, client testimonials, references and case studies. Once you've got those in place, it's time to consider these three strategies to get your profile noticed by potential clients and referral connections.
1. Research and develop contacts with target clients
One of the first things you can do to create and leverage connections is identify the businesses that you would like to engage and find out how closely connected you are to key individuals there. You can learn about significant developments at these potential clients by clicking "Follow" on the LinkedIn page of the business, giving you helpful information about developments that might represent opportunities to sell your services.
At the person-to-person level, the platform will tell you who at the target business is already a shared connection, or if anyone is a friend of a friend who might be able to support a more personal introduction. LinkedIn will tell you who might have career milestones that you can relate to at a personal level, such as shared alma maters or charitable activities. All of these profile characteristics can be used to craft a more personalized connection invitation when you reach out to those who meet the profile of the potential clients you want to target.
2. Find the groups that matter to your clients (and your peers)
While it's important to build your network with those one-to-one connection requests, visibility in relevant groups can help many potential clients and referral sources find you. You can find groups that may be helpful by using the Search function on the platform, but you can also start by looking at some of your existing connections to see if there are any groups that many of them follow. Once you identify some groups for consideration, do some additional research. Take time to read through some of the discussions and make sure they're substantive and helpful, not just a dumping ground for online offers.
When you're ready, start jumping in with helpful comments. Keep the tone similar to the type of conversation you would have at a networking event. You don't want to come across as too promotional or salesy in this forum. As you get more comfortable, start initiating discussions and posting relevant questions to the group. If you're linking to other content to start a discussion or as part of an answer, try to use links that are a mix of your own content as well as other relevant items from the web. As a rule of thumb, try to limit links to your own content to one out of every four or five links you share.
Accountants can benefit from using two different strategies when it comes to group participation. Some groups may be focused on more direct-to-business discussions, where your demonstrated knowledge on a particular issue or ability to answer a question could develop relationships that engage new clients.
Other groups may be targeted at other accountants and focused on more technical discussions of new laws, regulations and court cases. Distinguishing yourself as a thought leader in these venues can make you a trusted referral source for other accountants who want to recommend their clients to a specialist on a particular issue. Also, these groups can provide helpful insights when a client has an unusual situation that you haven't encountered before.
3. Take advantage of targeted advertising opportunities
As I noted above, LinkedIn is the social media platform that over 85% of professional services purchasers use regularly in their work, and it's the only one that's showing increased usage over the last two years. If your marketing budget includes social media purchases, LinkedIn should be the first site you consider.
All of those profile details that users provide when they join the site make it easy to get your message to those most likely to buy. You can target demographics based on geography, job title or even specific company. If your group search has identified certain particularly relevant concentrations of potential clients, you can run ads in that area to supplement the value of your active participation. The platform supports a variety of formats, including text-based, banner and even multimedia advertisements like SlideShare and video presentations.
The numbers make the case
Few other social media platforms are as frequently used by the business community as LinkedIn. It's where your peers and your clients are actively sharing information that you can use to build your business. By joining in, connecting intelligently and participating in the discussion with those who match your target client profile, you can reach more potential buyers through LinkedIn than any other channel.
