An Introduction To Social Media: A Beginner's Guide

An introduction to social media
A beginner’s guide
BUSINESS WITH CONFIDENCE icaew.com/itfac

Copyright © ICAEW 2016
All rights reserved. If you want to reproduce or redistribute any of the material in this publication,
you should first get ICAEW’s permission in writing. ICAEW will not be liable for any reliance you
place on the information in this publication. You should seek independent advice.
ISBN 978-1-78363-670-9
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Basic considerations 3
2.1 To encourage or discourage? 3
2.2 Personal and professional 3
2.3 General benefits and risks 4
2.4 Privacy and security 4
2.5 The legal perspective 4
2.6 Monitoring usage 5
2.7 Dealing with negative comments and feedback 5
2.8 The international angle 6
3. The key social media platforms and optimum usage 7

3.1 LinkedIn for networks and leadership 7
3.2 Twitter for content, curation and listening 9
3.3 Facebook for building a community 12
3.4 Blogging 13
3.5 YouTube 14
3.6 Podcasting 15
4. Building a social media strategy 16

4.1 Individual thought leaders versus strong brands 16
4.2 Capabilities 17
4.3 Competitor analysis 17
4.4 Understanding the market 18
4.5 Trending versus building 19
4.6 Understanding clients and their perceptions 19
4.7 Setting social media objectives 19
4.8 Monitoring social 21
5. Practical usage 23
5.1 Tools and technologies 23
5.2 Collaborating internally 24
5.3 Collaborating externally 25
5.4 Listening on social media 25
5.5 Adjusting course 25
5.6 Legal implications 26
5.7 Getting the right social media training 26
6. Expanding social media 27
7. Conclusions 28
7.1 Connections 28
7.2 Conversation 28
7.3 Content 28
8. The next steps 29
Appendices:
Appendix 1: Case studies 31
Appendix 2: Glossary 35
Appendix 3: Platform listing 38
Appendix 4: Digital tools 39
An introduction to social media 1

1 Introduction
Knowing how to build appropriate strategies around the key social platforms and implement
and monitor them, can provide small and medium-sized firms with a highly cost-effective way of
communicating, developing business, undertaking vital research, keeping up to date with the latest
developments in their field and creating value for their clients.
The past few years have seen social media mature as a means of communication. From the early days
of experimentation and tentative investment by businesses, the primary platforms of social media have
evolved, which means that most businesses today will have experimented with using social media,
meaning that the process of moving forward is as much about reflection as it is about learning from
others. Whether you have social media experience from personal or business use, it is worth thinking
about how it works for you now: what engages you, and where are the opportunities.
This introductory guide will help you to decide whether to embrace social media or not, discuss how to
distribute social media usage effectively across personal and business use, while taking account of the
risks and benefits associated with it. We will introduce in detail the main platforms – LinkedIn, Twitter,
Facebook, blogging, YouTube and podcasting – and give advice on how to set up and use profiles
effectively. We will also cover the nuts and bolts of adopting social media, advice on how to use social
media platforms on desktop and mobile and getting the right software, including descriptions of a
number of apps that can be used to help manage social media more effectively.
You will also learn how to build a social media strategy, discussing elements such as thought leadership
and brand positioning, before going on to ideas for scoping your own capability to use social media
compared to that of your competitors and the market you operate in and how to decide on the
directions you may wish to go with social media. We will also touch on emerging trends and how to
integrate them into your services.
In that respect, this guide is a complementary framework. Use it to get new ideas and ways to
formalise your venture into social media; but also make sure that what you read here fits with your own
perceptions. Social media works differently for everyone – this guide will help you understand how it
might work best for you.
2 An introduction to social media

2 Basic considerations
2.1 To encourage or discourage?

Social media has blurred the line between personal and professional sphere like almost no other
development in the last decade. From overuse of Facebook at work to brand damage on Twitter,
businesses have many concerns about how much to throw themselves into social media and how much
to encourage usage amongst staff.
Through the course of this guide we will help you to answer that question for your own organisation;
bringing it back to a combination of strategy, trust, policies and general organisational culture. But it is
fair to say that social media is not going away.
More specifically – from a business perspective – social media is becoming the primary means of
sharing information about businesses. There is a conversation going on about pretty much every
business operating today; not being actively part of it doesn’t stop it happening. So, our starting point
becomes less about creating something new on social media, and much more about joining in.
Having said that, many businesses will have justifiable reasons for approaching social media with caution,
so we will consider some of these issues in this section in order to help you better navigate the decisions.
2.2 Personal and professional

Returning to this blur between personal and professional, it is clear that one of the major challenges
for your business when considering your way forward with social media, is whether to approach it as
a business or as individuals. Most people are familiar with big brands on social media; and traditional
marketing methods may lead you to want everything to be about your company, but it is worth
stopping for a moment and considering how things really work in business.
People do business with people and approaching social media from this angle inevitably provides the
most effective way forward. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t create a presence and activity for your
brand, but simply that the personal element is vital. Some platforms lend themselves better to this than
others, but overall it is the human element that really drives social media.
The relationship between brand and social media is an important one, and in working through your
strategic objectives (see 4.7 Setting social media objectives), you will gain a better understanding of
how to position personal, SME and corporate brands through your social media usage. Most of this will
be dictated by needs such as local focus versus national reputation, or whether you are working in a
particular niche, but good social media usage is dependent on at least a reasonable understanding of
the appropriate strategy for you.
In reading through this guide you will get a better picture of how the personal and professional
balance might work for you and your business, and how this fits within a wider understanding of
brand and strategy. For now it is vital to recognise the importance of not making everything about
your generic brand, and instead to focus on the more diverse possibilities of bringing the human
element to social media.

2.3 General benefits and risks
Social media does carry risks, but these can certainly be outweighed by the benefits. There is always a
certain degree of trust required in making more of social media, but many of the concerns businesses
have in adopting their usage tend to be unwarranted.
We will cover this a little more from a legal perspective later but here it is worth stating that social
media shouldn’t be considered in isolation from other communication methods. They may well provide
more opportunities for things to go wrong, but they are not the special case we may be led to believe.
Hopefully this guide will help you assess the specific benefits for your business. You may already have
a view on the benefits from your previous social media activity, in which case you can compare your
experiences with what is presented here.
2.4 Privacy and security

One of the concerns many people have about social media usage is connected with the sharing of
personal or generally sensitive information. In this regard many of us are in uncharted territory: we
have previously not had the platforms and tools to easily share our information so widely.
A common perspective on this is to consider social media – no matter which platform we are talking
about – the same as making any kind of public announcement. In other words, don’t share anything
you would prefer to keep private, wherever that might be. As much as we think we might be sharing
with just one person or a select group, the reality is that we can never be sure who is privy to our
updates and observations.
From an organisational perspective it is important to make sure that general policies around
communications and sensitive information are appropriate for social media usage. However, as
mentioned in the previous section, social media is, in most circumstances, not a particularly special
case, and existing policies will generally be sufficient.
Further information on the policy issues can be found in the IT Faculty helpsheet Developing a social
media policy.
2.5 The legal perspective

We have made a few mentions of the need to consider social media within existing legal frameworks
for communications; however, it is worth flagging up here the specifics of law covering financial
services.
As with many professional services sectors, accountancy is governed by a set of legal rules around what
can and can’t be said in general communications. When drafting your social media policy, training staff
and considering your own usage, it is important to consider these rules, bearing in mind that whether
you believe yourself to be using social media personally or professionally, many of them will apply equally.
It is outside the scope of this guide to go into the specifics of law for financial services, but the
appendices will point you towards the most relevant documents.

2.6 Monitoring usage
Social media gives businesses which want to monitor the activity of staff an advantage, since most
of their activity is open for others to view. However, you should tread carefully here; just because it is
possible to monitor social media doesn’t mean that you should.
You may feel that you want to allow social media usage at work, for your own benefit, but you might
feel the need to monitor how much time your staff is spending using the various platforms. This basic
type of monitoring – time management – highlights a tricky issue: businesses are increasingly finding
themselves stuck between wanting to embrace the human aspect of social media, and keeping control.
It is too much of a broad subject to cover in this guide, but it is also very much related to the culture of
each company.
This basic time management consideration, along with general monitoring of what staff are saying,
is inextricable from the strategy you want to pursue. But it is also not as much of a concern as
businesses sometimes imagine. Beyond the scare stories of social media usage you will generally find
that incorporating it into the workplace is not that difficult. However, if you start from a position of
needing to monitor everything, you may work against the possibilities that social media offers. So, as
we mentioned earlier, tread carefully here.
2.7 Dealing with negative comments and feedback

One of the key differences we perceive between social media and other forms of marketing
communication, for example, is that social media provides instant feedback. This point of differentiation
means that we potentially become aware of criticism where before it may not have been visible.
The immediate reaction to this can be to back away from social media usage as dealing with negativity
can be difficult. However, it is important to see this access to real opinions as an opportunity. Whereas
prior to social media the negative comments of clients, potential clients and onlookers may have gone
unnoticed, now we are much better placed to engage with them.
As difficult as it may seem, being able to engage with the negative views of your business offers some
previously unavailable possibilities, from client research to new business development – there are many
examples of how social media has been used to turn negative commenters into loyal customers.
In general, it is important not to let the possibility of negative feedback put you off social media usage.
A willingness to engage with everyone, whatever they have to say, can be a powerful tool in developing
your business. There are, of course, caveats, which we will discuss below.
Firstly, if you are willing to engage with the dissenters, it is important to remain professional: as much
as it can be beneficial to enter into a dialogue, it is even more important not to allow this dialogue to
descend into an unpleasant argument.
Secondly, you need to be able to recognise when someone is just starting an argument for the sake of
it. Some people may have justifiable concerns and reasons to say negative things about your company.
Others may be what social media users refer to as ‘trolls’: those who post negative, inflammatory
comments just to cause conflict online.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of this section, a willingness to engage in dialogue can be
a powerful thing. Just because traditional broadcast promotion didn’t previously offer feedback, this
doesn’t mean that people had only positive feedback about your business. Use the opportunity to
convert negativity into something beneficial and you will learn to fully embrace the vast amount of
possibilities of social media.
Finally, criticism or complaints on social media are inevitably more time sensitive. You should ensure
that you are able to follow up quickly in the case of such feedback. For the individual this is a case of
incorporating social media usage effectively into your workflow, so that you are at least checking it
on a regular basis. For the company, where a number of different people are managing the various
social media accounts, it is vital that you have systems in place to ensure that posts are seen and receive
a response.
2.8 The international angle

The relationship between internet platforms and physical borders can be complex. On the one hand,
use of the web and social media can help you communicate to a far wider global audience than
perhaps you are used to. The flip side of this is the potential to waste energy on audiences that may
never be relevant to your business. Many companies will also be aware of legal and brand reasons for
not straying into other territories.
Many people who are new to social media usage certainly consider it a way of reaching a wider
audience, whether that be a good or a bad thing. And while this may be true – social media is by
default global – this can also be a distraction.
You should, therefore, consider social media first and foremost as a way of enhancing local connections.
As much as one of the more powerful ways to start with social media is to connect with people you
already know, one of the best ways to approach it geographically is to focus on your local area(s).
Good research, connection building and usage locally will help you to develop valuable relationships.
Obviously you can expand from there, but the local connections will commonly provide a solid base.
As for legal and brand implications, it is always worth doing some research around potential conflicts;
however, a gradual expansion rather than a sudden urge to span the globe will enable you to approach
this sensibly and manageably.

The key social media platforms
3 and optimum usage
3.1 LinkedIn for networks and leadership

LinkedIn is often the first platform we think of when it comes to business use on social media. But even
LinkedIn is much more about the individual than companies. While there is a place for companies on
LinkedIn, it is not its primary purpose. In this section we will quickly run through some of the basic uses
before going on to talk about how to get the most from this platform.
Setting up a profile
First, you need to create a profile. Many of you will most likely have already done that, but it is worth
stating here that, unlike many of the other platforms discussed in this guide, LinkedIn profiles are a
major part of what the platform is about. Whereas Twitter and Facebook are largely about conversation
and the social ‘stream’, LinkedIn drives much of its activity back to enhancing profiles. And the real
power of LinkedIn starts to emerge when you have a comprehensive, vibrant and up-to-date profile.
A well-curated profile will help sell yourself and your business to potential new business opportunities,
clients and employers.
For this reason it is worth spending more time getting this element right than just about anything else;
at least for the period of initial usage. Time spent here will really help you to get the most from the
platform. LinkedIn will guide you through this process.
Connecting with people

Once you are happy with your profile you will want to start finding people to connect with. LinkedIn
makes it easy to connect your email account, or upload contacts exported from email software like
Outlook, and use this information to find people you already know.
Bear in mind that LinkedIn will also try and invite people who are not using the platform. This could be
annoying for those who have chosen not to sign up, so make sure you want to proceed with inviting
these people as you go through the process.
Once you’ve invited the people you already know, you might find that you’ve got a stack of business
cards to add. LinkedIn makes it easy to search for these people and connect with them too. One thing
to watch for is the standard messages that LinkedIn offers to send with the contact requests. Wherever
possible you should aim to replace it with something more personal.
Beyond these manual connections you will discover many different opportunities to connect with
people. These range from suggestions LinkedIn makes, based on a number of factors, such as what you
‘like’ or groups you may follow, to requests from people who have found you and want to connect. You
will know when people have looked at your profile on LinkedIn because you will be notified. Bear in
mind that this happens when you look at other people’s profiles too.
Adding your company

If you are not the first person in your company to join LinkedIn, you will probably find your company is
already listed. It is then a simple of matter of adding yourself as a member of staff.
If your company is not already on LinkedIn then you can set up a company profile. While it is time

consuming, it is worth doing as it will increase your company’s visibility. LinkedIn offers a whole range
of opportunities to add details about your company, such as the products and services it offers and
multimedia content.
Producing content
Once you have profiles for yourself and your company, you have multiple ways to share updates for
both. As with many other platforms there is the option of writing short status updates and sharing
links. But LinkedIn also offers a reasonably new option of writing posts. Similar to blog posts these are a
good way to share more in-depth thoughts and ideas. At the time of writing these posts provide good
engagement, making them worthwhile for when you have something useful to say that’s too long for a
status update.
Groups
One of the more targeted ways of sharing and engaging with content on LinkedIn is through groups.
There are groups for almost every industry and niche sector on the platform. Many users of LinkedIn
actively participate in groups to respond to queries in their field, post their own questions, or just
monitor activity around certain topics.
It is also easy to start your own group if you feel that your specific area of interest is not represented
currently. However, it can be time-consuming to build a community around a topic, and branded
groups may not prove to be very popular. In most cases there will be greater benefit in joining an
existing group with an active community.
Engagement
There are many ways to engage with people on LinkedIn, with some of the methods mentioned above.
However, LinkedIn will regularly provide the scope to comment on relevant activity from people you
are connected with.
This variety of engagement opportunities is a key element of LinkedIn: as with all social media, the
primary purpose of these opportunities is to maintain an ongoing conversation with your network,
and subsequently remain visible. I will come back to this significant point later but it is important to
mention here that success on LinkedIn, as with everything else, depends on building a high-quality
network and participating in that network in a useful way – continuous broadcasting of marketing
messages won’t help you to have the right conversations with people. Think about what you have to
say that is of genuine interest to people.
Active targeting
Beyond the day-to-day network building and content sharing, LinkedIn offers powerful tools for actively
targeting sectors, businesses and individuals. Firstly, the platform has a very useful advanced search
function that allows you to find people based on a wide range of criteria, from industry to what level of
connection they are (‘1st’ means you are connected to them, ‘2nd’ means that they are connected to
someone you are connected to etc,).

Once you find someone you can see how well you are connected: if they’re a 2nd connection you
will be shown who you know that knows them and can ask for an introduction if necessary. This kind
of active networking can be very useful; a good mental model for LinkedIn is networking in person. If
you attend events where lots of potential clients gather, you will seek to build your network through
introductions or finding people directly, and you will obviously want to have conversations where you
discover mutual interests.
If you apply this mental model to social media more generally then it will help you to make better use
of it. Often, what causes individuals and companies to fail at social media is the transference of the
publicity mindset to the platforms. While you want to be noticed, in the offline world you wouldn’t go
around just telling people about your business. Getting this level of conversation right can be difficult
for newcomers, but keeping in mind how this already happens in person will help you considerably.
LinkedIn’s Slideshare
One of LinkedIn’s acquisitions is the online presentation hosting service Slideshare. If you regularly
present at conferences or other events you can use Slideshare to upload and share your slides. This is
a good example of incorporating social media into your workflow: where you are already producing
content you have the opportunity to share that content with a wider audience and with minimum
effort.
3.2 Twitter for content, curation and listening

Twitter has recently celebrated its tenth birthday. Over those ten years it has grown steadily but it
can still be misunderstood by businesses. Unlike LinkedIn, Twitter has never set out to be a business
platform. However, this has changed over the years as it has sought to establish a more robust business
model and is now used by many companies to promote their businesses, but at the heart of Twitter is
still a focus on how individuals engage with each other.
The open-ended nature of Twitter can seem daunting. Platforms like LinkedIn make it very clear what
they are about, but Twitter deliberately provides much greater freedom around purpose and usage.
For this reason Twitter is used for everything from conversations around football to customer service
channels and promoting new products – it is a diverse community.
As with all social media usage, there needs to be a base level of professionalism and it is important for
you to understand what that level is for your business. For example, this may be different for a local
SME compared to a national corporation. However, many companies would benefit from a greater level
of personality in the way they communicate, and this will work in more circumstances than you might
expect.
From my own perspective I would highly recommend that you approach Twitter from two angles.
Firstly, get an account for your company: people still follow brands and they will expect companies to be
on Twitter. They may also use your company account as a trusted source of information in their sector.
And secondly, and in my opinion more importantly, set yourself up with a personal Twitter account.
You may find using this difficult at first, but the following steps might help.

1. Find people to follow
2. Listen
3. Respond
4. Tweet when you have something to say
These steps may seem obvious, but one of the main reasons why people don’t use Twitter is that they
are worried they have nothing to say. This is never true but it does highlight the fear Twitter presents
through its open-ended nature. To overcome this you should encourage people to prioritise finding
people and listening over tweeting, but we will go into a little more detail on this below.
Find people
As with LinkedIn, and indeed most platforms, Twitter makes it easy to find people you already know
by connecting it with your email account. And beyond this there are many different ways to find
interesting accounts to follow: Twitter provides a search functionality that allows you to search by a
whole range of criteria, using both what people tweet about and what is in their profiles. You can
easily see who people in your industry are following and you can click on ‘hashtags’ to find people by
particular themes, events and interests. More on this later.
Listen
Listening is crucial on Twitter, especially if you are new to the platform. Take time to explore the
conversations, follow links and generally immerse yourself in the activity. The openness of Twitter makes
it easy to follow threads of conversations, and shared themes. Once you have spent some time doing
this you will feel ready to move on to the next stage.
Respond
Responding on Twitter is easy: once you have seen a tweet that interests you, just click on the reply
button or on the tweet itself to open up the reply dialogue box. Write your reply but remember that
each tweet has a limit of 140 characters.
There are a lot of conventions and techniques for Twitter, but general conversations are the core
activity. If someone has set their account to private and you don’t follow them, you will be unable to
have a conversation with them or even see their tweets.
This capability is almost unique to Twitter and it is hard to overstate the importance of it. By making it
possible to respond to almost anyone on the platform, Twitter provides the opportunity to engage in all
sorts of conversations that wouldn’t have been conceivable before. And so, to consider Twitter as a just
a means of broadcasting messages about your business is to miss the huge potential on offer.
Once you’ve set up your profile, listened and started responding to people you will get a feel for how
the platform works. If you’ve approached it the right way you will start to talk to interesting people and
your follower numbers will grow. As mentioned before, the size of this following is nowhere near as
important as the quality, so gaining new followers based on interesting conversations is by far the best
way to grow an audience. Once you have some sort of audience it will become more effective to move
on to the next stage.

Tweet something
‘What should I say?’ This is the question most commonly asked after, ‘How often should I tweet?’ It is
impossible for anyone else to tell you how you should go about this. You may read guides and advice
about how to optimise Twitter, and there are ways to go about being more successful, but telling other
people how to use Twitter is like telling other people how to raise children: it is different for everyone
and at some point you have to stop reading about it and actually do it.
Having said that there are some basic concepts that may work for you. Firstly, try not to sound forced.
Many tweets appear to have come about because the person tweeting felt the need to say something
relevant. This is apparent: either because the tweet is an awkward attempt to sell or because the
individual is trying very hard to sound human.
Retweets and likes

Beyond the basic conventions of tweeting and responding on Twitter there are a couple of other
activities that are important to mention here. Retweets and ‘likes’ are ways of interacting with other
people’s tweets without writing a reply.
Twitter provides a retweet button on every tweet that reshares that tweet with your own followers. In
other words, people who follow you will see the tweet of someone else that you have retweeted. And,
of course, this applies to your own tweets: if someone likes what you have to say they may share it with
their own followers. And this is one of the ways in which other Twitter users can discover you.
Likes are not shared with other users but they do acknowledge that you are interested in what someone
has to say. Some people also use likes as a means of bookmarking tweets they want to go back to.
Either way, likes are one of the simplest ways to have an interaction with what someone else is saying.
Hashtags
We mentioned earlier that some social media platforms such as Twitter (as well as Instagram) uses
something called a hashtag. For new users this can be a source of confusion so let’s clarify what
these are really about. Hashtags provide a powerful means of discovery and an anchor for certain
conversations, so it is worth spending a little time understanding them.
At their most basic level hashtags provide a way for you to find people tweeting about the same topic.
As an example let’s look at the hashtag #accounting, which people who tweet about accounting will
sometimes add to their tweets. To use a hashtag there’s nothing more complicated to do than simply
write out #accounting or whatever hashtag you want to use. The important thing is that Twitter
recognises the # symbol as the start of the hashtag, and turns the whole hashtag into a link that you
can click on to find other people using the same hashtag.
Using something like #accounting in your tweets means that you want other people to discover what
you are saying on that topic. Many people with a particular interest will have ongoing searches for
particular topics (I will talk more about searching a bit later) and use these searches to find new people
to follow, or retweet.

3.3 Facebook for building a community
The personal approach
Everything on Facebook works through a personal account. For many people new to the platform
this can be a sticking point, but for elements such as pages, which we will cover in the following
sub-section, there is a clear distinction between your personal Facebook account and the page.
People who like your page won’t have to know who manages it unless you want them to.
Before you skip the rest of this section, perhaps thinking that Facebook has no role to play in your
business, it is important to understand the way things are changing as a result of social media. Earlier
we described how the key to getting the most out of Twitter was generally to be more personal. In
that context Facebook provides the most personal social media platform. So, when we consider how
business really works, how we really gain new clients, then it is possible to see how Facebook might
play a role in this.
That’s not to say that you should connect with all your contacts, business or professional, through
Facebook. But keep in mind how your friends and acquaintances provide points of connection between
what you are and what is of interest to others. This can be a powerful tool as long as you draw the line
in the right place.
The sharing of the more human elements of work can be a great way to connect with new people
through Facebook. Think about how sharing details about your work might keep your friends up-to-
date with what you are doing. We often get carried away with the need to build large networks and
overlook the importance of the people closest to us, the people who are most likely to recommend us
to others.
Facebook pages
Pages are the primary means of presenting a business on Facebook and they are free for anyone to
set up. Facebook pages are well designed—and primarily intended for—businesses, which is both a
good and a bad thing. It is good because it means that much of the functionality will work well for a
company, but the flipside of this is that Facebook is awash with pages for every imaginable business,
and so getting noticed through a page can be difficult. On top of this, Facebook is increasingly
favouring the visibility of businesses that pay them to advertise.
You should, therefore, bear in mind that making a success of Facebook pages needs work, and should
fit with your strategy—but more about strategy later. For now, create a Facebook page, share it with
your friends, and make sure that it contains up-to-date information about your business. Regardless of
how you intend to use Facebook pages, this exercise will help you to understand some of the strengths
and weaknesses of the platform, and provide some company presence, however limited at this stage.
Beyond this, within the context of how much time and effort you decide to dedicate to Facebook
pages, you should consider them as primarily a means of building a community around your brand. It
is entirely possible to just share updates about your business through a page, but the real benefit comes
in building a community. We will cover this aspect further in a case study contained in Appendix 1, but
think about how you can encourage conversation around the topics that matter to your current and
potential customers.

This idea of encouraging conversation on Facebook pages might seem impossible at first. Many
business owners, as much as they want to promote their work, might struggle to see how they can
encourage ongoing conversations around it. Some creativity is required here, but creativity on social
media is one of the real opportunities.
Facebook groups
Facebook groups have become a new contender for the best use of Facebook for a business. Whereas
they were initially intended for people to get-together around common interests, or even just for family
events, they’ve proved to be incredibly useful for building community around business interests. As
with LinkedIn groups, the first thing to do is a general search on Facebook to see what groups already
exist. Many of these will be open to join.
It will always be easier to take part in someone else’s established group, but if you feel that the topic
you are particularly interested in isn’t yet catered for then set up a group and see how you get on. With
the sheer quantity of groups on Facebook, catering for a niche interest is always going to be the best
approach, but consider what might work for you.
3.4 Blogging
So far we have looked at specific, branded platforms, mainly because these are what most social media
users are familiar with. But there is another, in some ways more important, aspect of the social web and
that is blogging.
Blogging is one of the earliest social uses of the web. We may perceive blogging as primarily content
sharing, but the commenting feature of blogs is fundamental to the way they work. In fact, the
ability to build conversation around longer-form articles is such a key part of the web that every other
platform, from LinkedIn to Medium is attempting to make it their own.
Blogging is a famously open and democratic activity. Anyone can create a blog on one of a bewildering
array of platforms, but it is also possible to create and completely own the platform you blog on. This
means that you are never at the mercy of another company’s terms and conditions or functionality.
The positive aspect of this is complete control. The drawback, of course, is that you are going to be
entirely responsible for getting discovered and maintaining your site.
It is worth exploring the blogging landscape – some of the major tools are listed in Appendix 4. The
largest blogging platform in the world is WordPress, which also provides the technology behind more
websites than anything else.
WordPress provides two ways of getting a blog online:
• through its hosted platform, wordpress.com; and
• through the free, downloadable software provided from wordpress.org.
Both of these provide a way to create a blog for free. With wordpress.com you don’t have to do any
more than register an account; with wordpress.org you will need to sort out hosting and do quite a bit
more work yourself. But you will have complete ownership of your blog.

Beyond the technical aspect, blogging is pretty straightforward. You should blog if the natural medium
for sharing your work is long-form articles. For accountants this may well be the case. Potential clients
will often be keen to know about many of the aspects of accountancy in detail and blogging is a great
way to share this. Used alongside LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for sharing what you write, blogging
can be a valuable way of establishing yourself as an influential voice in your industry.
Of course, as with Twitter, if you have to force blog posts just for the sake of saying something you
will find it pretty useless. But if you make blogging a part of your work, share what you can about the
details of what you do, then you will start to build a subscriber base. Part of that community-building is
predicated on commenting so it is worth exploring this in more detail here.
Commenting
Blogging works well for sharing articles and driving traffic back to your website, but having an engaged
community of commenters is far more useful in establishing your credentials. It is one thing to be able
to share your thoughts, but genuinely engaging with people around those thoughts is even better.
This works the other way too, and this is actually how the blogging ecosystem operates. As well as
writing your own posts and replying to comments on them, you should actively seek out other people’s
blog posts on relevant topics and comment on those. Each comment on someone else’s site will link
back to your own, and in this way you can build a series of connections between your own blog and
others. This ongoing conversation helps to surface your content and bring people back to your own
online presence.
3.5 YouTube
We often find it easier to use the written word on social media, and indeed, many industries such as
accounting, might seem to lend themselves more naturally to written content. However, video has
become increasingly popular, it can provide a way of sharing what you do that works better for certain
aspects and it provides an opportunity for genuine creativity.
This last aspect should not be overlooked. One of the ways to stand out and build an entirely new
audience on social media is to do things differently. There are few businesses that cannot find
something they do that works well as video. The key, as with all social media, is to understand how
your content might help people.
One simple example in the accountancy arena is demonstrating the use of accountancy software.
For example, if you have clients that are interested in a specific online accounting package, you can
demonstrate on video how to get the most out of it. Don’t put together one long video on all of it;
instead think about how you can share short insights and build these into a video series.
Importantly, consider how what you do fits with the medium. If you have something to say but the visual
element is unimportant, then use the written word or consider podcasting, as discussed below. But if
what you want to share has some integral visual element, then perhaps video will be the way to go.
YouTube offers a whole range of customisation options to make it suitable for business, but the most
important one is the ability to create a branded channel. As with other platforms, you can create both
original content and curate other people’s, but you should aim to create original content.

Once you have that content, YouTube works in a similar way to other platforms: you share your content
and then build a discussion around it. It should be emphasised how important this discussion is, on all
platforms. Visibility, building audiences, establishing your credentials are all dependent on the way you
manage discussions. Always build enough time and resources into developing them.
3.6 Podcasting
The last content type to discuss here is podcasting. Over the past few years podcasting has surged in
popularity. It fits well with the way people go about their days and can be an engrossing medium to
work with. As with other platforms, some of the options are listed in Appendix 4, but two of the more
popular outlets for podcasts are SoundCloud and iTunes.
All you need to record an audio podcast is a smartphone. There are many free and paid-for apps that
help you create audio productions (for example, Bossjock) and the quality is good enough for most
applications. Of course, you can also spend a lot of money on microphones and dedicated recording
equipment if you are looking for enhanced quality.
Podcasts can vary in length from a few minutes to a couple of hours or longer, with typical lengths
around 10 to 20 minutes. Good podcasts tend to feature two or more people in discussion. This is
generally more engaging and easier to do; it is difficult to talk about something for any length of time
on your own.
Beyond that, the key is to experiment. If you feel like your work fits well with a podcast, if there is
something that works well as a discussion, then give podcasting a go. It is a popular medium with its own
strengths, and it may well become something you enjoy doing on a regular basis. As discussed later in
this guide, harnessing the things that you enjoy and can easily do, are critical to social media success.

Building a social media
4 strategy
4.1 Individual thought leaders versus strong brands

One of the key questions business users ask when looking to make the most out of the various social
media platforms is the difference between business and individual use. In many cases the difference
is clear, such as in setting up a profile on LinkedIn where individual profiles come first and company
profiles are added as appropriate.
However, on platforms such as Twitter the distinction is not so clear, so it is worth revisiting this as a
strategic issue.
As a starting point, users should apply a personal approach to social media usage, since the platforms
are typically designed around that, that they are easier to use that way, and you will get further quicker
by approaching them from that perspective.
However, for many businesses the focus on the personal proves to be a sticking point. The real issue
tends to come from how most businesses perceive that they market themselves.
Many people in companies believe that marketing is a separate function from their core business. While
marketing is not what social media is entirely about, the building of a community around your work is
going to be one of the primary uses. Consequently, to make the most of that use we have to rethink
what marketing is.
In reality, everything you do in business is marketing. The quality of the work, the way you approach it,
the conversations you have with people, the way you are perceived personally. This is all marketing. So,
when people say they are too busy to use social media and that they have a marketing person to take
care of this, you should consider challenging this view.
Ask people how much time they spend taking contacts out to lunch, attending networking events,
giving talks, reading about things relevant to their work, and answering enquiries. Or ask how much
time they spend briefing their marketing team. It turns out that those things take up a significant
amount of time, most of it unbillable hours.
So, it would be advisable to rethink the marketing function from being an activity that is separate to
your work to something that is in fact integral. Furthermore, think about how amplifying that work can
be done easily through social media. We will consider how to integrate social media into your workflow
later in this guide, but for now think about how much easier it is for everyone in a company to do this
personally rather than try and do it centrally as a brand.
There are caveats here, particularly with regard to turnover of staff, so bear in mind how you approach
this from a contractual and brand perspective. People will leave and in many cases might take their
contacts with them, but in reality this is no different from any other contacts they might acquire
through their work. What matters is being sensible about what to try and control and what to allow for
the greater benefit of the business. This may, of course, also factor into recruitment decisions.
What the individual versus brand element comes down to is how to maximise all the possibilities of
personal usage with a relevant and manageable brand presence. It relies on trust, but also simple
guidelines on how to connect individuals to the business. In many cases this comes down to the
way you present your company on LinkedIn, or how you include the company in people’s Twitter

biographies (if that is appropriate), but above all it is about recognising how individuals already drive
the business.
4.2 Capabilities
In devising a strategy for social media it is important to consider exactly what you are capable of, both
as an individual and as a business. For example, one common question is ‘how often should I tweet?’
The answer to this question, on all the different social media platforms, largely comes down to what
you are capable of doing.
In the previous sub-section we discussed the possibility of rethinking marketing in your business.
Rather than see social media as extra work on top of an already busy workload you should seize the
opportunities to integrate it into ongoing work and amplify what you are doing.
In many cases it comes down to simply adding in some degree of coordination: sitting down together
regularly and discussing how to align social media activity where appropriate. In fact a simple way to
get started is to encourage everyone in the company to share what they’re doing on social media and
gradually iterate from there.
In the first instance this may just be about providing material for social media profiles or encouraging
people on LinkedIn to identify as part of the company, but as you progress you might be encouraging
people to write blog posts or record short videos. Rather than planning a major launch onto social
media it is almost always preferable to start small, learn and build from there. But most importantly be
aware of your capabilities. If you overload people at the start you might not gain the support you need
from your employees to reach your goal.
4.3 Competitor analysis

A relatively easy way into developing a social media strategy is to look at your competitors’ usage. Even
though the level of activity on social media won’t tell you how successful competitors are at converting
conversations into clients, you will see just how engaged they are online.
Much of the work in developing a competitor analysis is a matter of simple quantification across the
various platforms: pick ten competing businesses in your marketplace and make a note of how many
followers, page likes and subscribers they have.
Numbers like this, however, won’t tell you how successful competitors are with their social media
activity. As important as it may seem to get large numbers of followers, that potential audience size has
less of a relationship with meaningful success than you might imagine.
The easiest way to look at this is to consider three loosely connected metrics: audience, engagement
and conversions. These are useful from a competitor analysis perspective, but also as a framing
reference for your own social media strategy. We will cover these in more detail below.

Audience
Businesses spend a lot of time and effort, and money, to grow their social media audiences; it is even
possible to buy followers. Of course, the larger the potential audience for your work the better, but
‘potential’ is the operating word here. The nature of social media means that many other factors,
beyond the amount of followers, will affect the success of your social media strategy. After all, it should
be fairly obvious that one interested individual working in one of your target markets is better than
thousands of people who are not at all related to your target market.
So, audience numbers are a metric, they do tell you something about how hard your competitors are
working to build a following; however, they don’t necessarily tell you how successful their strategy is in
achieving any other goals.
Engagement
Engagement is a far more powerful indicator of your success. It can be harder to quantify but it
can reveal a lot. One of the simple ways to assess engagement is through looking at the number
of retweets, likes and replies on Twitter, or the number of likes and comments on Facebook. Every
platform has its own visible manifestation of how much people are engaging with what is being
published; explore this for your competitors and yourself to assess the value of the activity.
Conversions
Finally, the most important thing – and the one people often don’t pay as much attention to as they
should – is how all of this activity is converting into actual sales, new clients and the growth of a
competitor’s business.
Many businesses approaching social media for the first time believe that success is measured through
how much activity is happening on social media. However, this is clearly the wrong thing to be looking
at. As discussed above, audience size and level of engagement can be useful metrics, but it is actually
what that activity translates to that matters.
This can be very difficult to assess for competitors, but some solid research should highlight areas
where competitors are being particularly successful. Relating that to the audience and engagement
metrics will give you some idea of how other people in your market are operating. This knowledge
ultimately provides a context for your own activity: you may decide there are gaps or things you can
learn from. Either way it is a valuable exercise.
4.4 Understanding the market

How well do you understand the market you operate in? This doesn’t relate to competitors or clients as
much as the general nature of the industry you are working in. We have talked about how to search and
explore various platforms already, so a good starting point here is to discover what content is already being
shared in your market, assess the relative maturity of social media and identify market opportunities.
As you can imagine, the usage of social media among marketing people themselves is very mature
now, which is useful for finding tips and resources to apply to your own business. But how developed is
accountancy in its use of social media? Take some time to explore this and you will have a much better

idea of where your own activity can fit in or stand out, and it will also highlight where you can find
useful content to share yourself.
4.5 Trending versus building

Many people who set out to use social media for the first time are thinking about how to ‘trend’, in
other words create content that gets shared widely, quickly. There is very often a campaign mind-set
in social media: we often obsess over how to make the biggest splash in the shortest time. The reality
is that ongoing, successful social media usage doesn’t work that way. Yes, you will want to produce
content that gets shared by others, but it is a longer term objective to do this well.
Instead of thinking about how to make an instant splash, consider how to build networks, develop
conversations and make creative, relevant content. These foundations will help you build your presence
in a more sustainable way, avoiding cycles of short-term investment that cannot be maintained.
4.6 Understanding clients and their perceptions

Getting to know the people you work with now is vital in developing a better long-term strategy. Once
you’ve been through the basics of signing up to a few platforms and connecting with people you will
be able to see what interests them more easily. If you want to take a more formal approach you could
engage in some customer research to uncover what types of content were most useful to them.
Working in this way, with a clear sense of who your audience is, will help you develop better
conversations, and more easily identify other people to connect with. Social media provides rich data
around people’s interests but it is worth factoring this research in from the start when developing your
approach to social media.
4.7 Setting social media objectives

So far in this guide we have talked about how to make basic use of the key platforms, how to assess the
context in which you operate, and how to better understand the needs of your current and potential
clients with regard to social media. In this section we will consider some simple questions that should
form the backbone of your social media strategy, and help you to get started quickly.
Why
Why would you use social media? We have already discussed many of the possibilities social media
offers, but it is worth taking a moment to be clear on why they are important for your business. Many
businesses get by without any real investment in social media, and there is every chance they won’t go
out of business tomorrow. Nevertheless, it is a fact that social media usage continues to grow, and that
it is making further inroads into our lives.
This guide isn’t intended to persuade you that you should re-direct all of your marketing investment
into social media, but it demonstrates that it is easy to get started, that there are many different ways
to go about it, and that it is very easy to judge how successful your activities are. Taking these factors
into account: the ubiquity of social media and its relatively low cost of entry, should suggest that even a
modest investment in this area can be worthwhile.

Deciding whether to bother or not is one element, but the ‘why’ question needs to go deeper. At the
outset of developing a social media strategy it is important to be more specific about why you want to
get involved. This more specific understanding could be along the lines of developing a larger pool of
potential clients, establishing yourselves as thought-leaders in the industry, or using social media to stay
on top of developments in your particular field. As mentioned earlier, it is not just about marketing:
social media can be incredibly useful for staying on top of the latest developments.
When we talk about social media for marketing purposes, however, there are a couple of concepts that
you may regularly hear about: content marketing and inbound marketing. Content marketing covers
the production of content (such as blog posts and guides) that directly help your current and potential
clients. Inbound marketing covers the wider approach of using everything from social media to search
engine optimisation to bring people to you. What both terms suggest is that recent developments in
marketing are less about broadcasting messages to people and much more about providing something
of value, whether that be help or conversation, with the intention of driving new business your way.
Social media are full of buzzwords and these can be a distraction from some fairly simple principles:
connect, listen, be conversational and have something useful to say. But understanding why you
want to use social media is a fundamental step. So don’t be overly ambitious, and ideally make
it quantifiable. This will provide you with some measure of success and help you to justify further
investment.
How
How will you go about achieving the ‘why’? Will it be a case of developing content, building networks,
curating other people’s content, or simply having an active presence? Consider how you will go about
your social objectives, bearing in mind that these need to be linked firmly to your capabilities. When
we talk about the ‘how’ we also need to consider if this will be possible. Do you have the time and
resources to do what you want, or do you need to rethink what is possible?
This is also a good place to talk about other, less organic, ways of achieving your objectives. For
example, Facebook likes and Twitter followers can be bought, and many people will consider this a
quick route to building an online presence. However, as has been made clear throughout this guide,
the personal, authentic and conversational approach to social media is far better if you want to
maximise the potential for sustainable growth.
What social media come down to far more than audience size is levels of engagement; and to get this
engagement it is important to be connected with people that actually care about what you have to
say. So, while ostensibly large audiences may seem attractive, their purchase is almost always a waste
of money. Social media is far more about organic growth than rapid expansion and campaigns; one
engaged follower is better than 10,000 people who are not.
What
What type of content will you share? Again, don’t be over-ambitious here. If it is simply a case of
updates and links to other people’s articles, that is fine to start with. However, if there is something you
think you can produce, whether it be blog posts or videos, then sketch it out.

Later in this guide we talk about how to more easily incorporate social media into your workflow.
Understanding the practicalities will help you to shape what is possible. For example, if it is easy to do
a podcast because you have a regular meeting which could be partly recorded then this will answer the
question here.
Where
Looking back at the various platforms and their purpose, think about how the combination of what
you can produce and why you are producing it help to shape your understanding of the most effective
platform(s) to use. Start small, preferably with one, primary platform from which you can build.
Remember that some platforms are best used together, such as blogging and Twitter, so factor that
into your thinking.
A hugely important issue in answering the ‘why’ question is understanding where your clients are. In
broadly-relevant industries such as accountancy this isn’t such an important question as in those more
niche industries, but it still matters. In an earlier section we talked about gaining a better knowledge of
your customers. Knowing where they use social media and why they use it will help you to plan better
for your own activity.
Who
Finally, who is going to be responsible for this activity? As already mentioned, social media works best
when it is used in a more personal way, and so making just one person in a company responsible isn’t
necessarily going to be effective. That doesn’t mean that different people can’t have different roles, or
be more responsible for certain areas of activity.
Think about how to allocate this according to the strengths of your team. Divide up blogging
responsibilities, or engage the more visual members of your team in multimedia production. Some
people will be better at speaking into a microphone, or at least enjoy it more, while others love to
write. Harness the skills, enthusiasm and flair of the different members of your company and you will
get far more out of using social media.
4.8 Monitoring social

The mistake most organisations make with social media is also the biggest criticism they have before
they start. They sometimes see social media usage as frivolous or having no return, but this is simply
a matter of failing to monitor progress. If we go back to the earlier question of why you would want
to use social media, this should provide you with the basis to judge your relative success. If you set
quantifiable goals, such as generating new leads, it is entirely possible to monitor the success and trace
it back to a particular activity.
In fact, there are some great tools for monitoring. Aside from applying the basic framework of audience
size, level of engagement and conversions that were set out in 4.3 Competitor analysis, it is also worth
employing tools like Google Analytics to see exactly how much of your activity is driving traffic to your
website.

These tools can be very sophisticated but as with many other element of using social media, it is best
to keep things simple at the start. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the data you can gather and be clear
about what metrics best enable you to judge whether you are achieving your overall purpose.

5 Practical usage
This section covers the main points you need to know about using social media on a day-to-day basis.
Initial use of social media can be overwhelming so there are some ideas here for incorporating them
more effectively into how you work.
5.1 Tools and technologies

Hardware
Firstly, every platform discussed in this guide can be easily accessed on the web from a desktop or
laptop. However, in order to make the most of your social media usage, it is essential to consider the
best option for your own specific requirements. Social media is increasingly accessed through mobile
devices and those devices are generally better equipped for the purpose, especially if you are going to
use photo, video or audio in your content.
Having the right mobile devices can make a huge difference to how easily you are able to incorporate
social media into your workflow. Time out of the office, on transport, or just waiting around can be put
to effective use in catching up on what people are talking about and developing conversations.
Software
As mentioned above, it is entirely possible to access most social media through a standard web browser
on a desktop or laptop. However, it is likely that as you develop a better understanding and need for
social media, you will want to think about how to make improved use of the software available.
On mobile devices this generally comes down to apps. For Facebook there is only one option for
personal use, a dedicated app for managing pages, an app for messaging and an app for groups.
LinkedIn offers one central app for the platform. Twitter is somewhat different, with many third party
app developers providing their own ways of using the platform. YouTube offers one single app again,
whereas podcasting is possible through a whole range of different platforms.
Where there is a real choice available, such as with Twitter or podcasting, it is generally better to start
with the most popular, and usually free, options. Twitter provides its own app, which is good enough
for most purposes, but as you define specific needs you may want to move on to more specialised
alternatives.
Some specific apps are listed in the appendices, though this list is by no means comprehensive.
What is more important to discuss here is the range of apps available to help you better manage social
media. These apps can bring real improvements to your workflow and cut down the amount of time
you spend using the various platforms. Again a more comprehensive list is provided in the appendices
but some of the more interesting examples (from a personal perspective) are described below.
Buffer
Buffer provides a means of sharing content across a number of social networks, while also allowing
you to stagger the posting of that content, meaning that if you regularly catch up with reading in the
morning you can send all the links you want to share to Buffer and have them posted across a longer
period of time and across a number of platforms, instead of at the same time in the same place.

Pocket
It is quite common to come across articles that you would like to read but don’t immediately have time
for. Pocket makes it easy to save those articles for later. It works across mobile and desktop devices and
integrates well with platforms like Twitter, so that it only takes one click to save content. Both Pocket
and Buffer work across multiple platforms and devices, but they can also be shared with others, so that
you can centrally manage the saving and sharing of content.
Social workflow
One of the most powerful ways to become more effective with social media is to spend some time
planning how social media will fit better with your existing workflows. In many cases this is simply
about how to ‘work out loud’. In other words, how can you share things you are working on as part of
the process? If, for example, you have to write a response to a change in accounting rules, how much
harder would it be to turn some of that content into a blog post?
It takes some time and practice to become efficient at this, but it is worth persevering with. For
accountants, there are milestones in the year, such as new budgets and new tax years that invite
comments. These provide obvious markers for when you should be creating content to share.
Annual events are important, but you also need to start becoming aware of the weekly, if not daily,
cycles. Regular staff meetings can be a good place to spend a few minutes talking about content you
could be producing, but workflow is also about using the quieter times to catch up on things. It is also
important to apply some discipline here. It can be too easy to let social media infiltrate all your work;
some separation is required. Spending a few minutes in the morning to catch up on reading, and line
things up to share can be useful. Similarly, finding some set times throughout the day to keep up with
things is better than being ‘always on’. If it helps, turn off notifications on mobile devices, so that they
don’t become a distraction.
Overall, the effort in incorporating social media effectively into your workflow will really pay off. Making
the most of work you are already doing, fitting with daily and weekly cycles, and setting time aside to
avoid ongoing intrusion can all help.
5.2 Collaborating internally

Many of the social media platforms and tools we have talked about can be used by teams as well
as individuals, but they also vary enormously. Apps like Buffer can be great for getting a team to
collaborate on sharing content, and Facebook pages are designed for multiple managers, but it can
also be difficult to coordinate some of the more conversational tools such as Twitter.
A sensible approach is to start with a basic setup and identify the weaknesses as you go along. Many
companies launch straight into large-scale social media management platforms like Hootsuite, but
the learning curve on these can be so steep as to put people off using them. In smaller organisations
it is often the case that allowing a few people access to the company Twitter account, and managing
content through Buffer is enough to start with.

Finally, collaborating internally is more than just selecting platforms. Much of the content you produce
will require a number of people to be involved. It is worth taking the time to work out how these
processes will happen before you get started.
5.3 Collaborating externally

This may seem like a less obvious approach to social media, but there are many opportunities to work
with external people on social media activity. Simple examples include writing guest blog posts for
other people’s blogs, or encouraging them to write something on yours. However, there are other
useful examples too, such as the regular Twitter chats that take place between people interested in the
same topic. It is worth seeking these out.
You may also be interested in running a group on LinkedIn with other people in similar industries, or
where there is a crossover between industries on a particular topic, such as with lawyers and forensic
accountancy.
The open nature of social media can make these collaborations worthwhile. Although this guide has
discussed competitors, there is as much to be gained, if not more, from understanding who your
collaborators might be.
5.4 Listening on social media

Social media listening is a very useful approach to generating value from the various platforms. There
are many tools for listening to what is going on, and some of these are listed in the appendices, but it
is worth pointing out that many of the most basic apps for accessing social media platforms have some
means of saving searches and keeping up-to-date with specific mentions.
It is also possible to get very sophisticated with this, using paid-for platforms that mine all sorts of social
media data, but before embarking on any of this, as with everything else, it is important to know what
you are listening for and what you are going to do with what you find. Simple examples might include
listening out for keywords relevant to your particular market, but you may also want to identify certain
trends, or use geographical searches to see what is going on in your area.
5.5 Adjusting course

Iteration is vital in social media. We have already discussed the importance of measuring what you do,
but what you learn from this needs to be put into action. In the early days of using social media it is
good to experiment, but like all experiments the results need to be observed and the findings acted
upon.
Some of these changes can be substantial, like moving from one platform to another, but they can also
be tweaks. The advantage of the rich data that social media provides is its ability to assess the relative
effectiveness of everything you do. This can lead to adjustments in such things as the times of day
you use social media, or how many links you share. Keep testing and learning and make sure that you
include time for this in your regular meetings.

5.6 Legal implications
We will not spend too much time discussing the legal implications for one very good reason: most of
the concerns that businesses have about social media are unfounded. That is because social media is
not a completely new area with a different set of legal requirements. The use of social media is almost
always covered by the existing legal frameworks of the business.
For example, concerns about the sharing of sensitive information should already be catered for.
Social media may provide new channels for breaching these conditions but they don’t need special
consideration, unless the existing policies are not robust in the first place.
Some of the more difficult areas, such as what happens if there is a dispute with a member of staff who
also has access to the company social media accounts, need to be thought through, but they are no
different in reality from what to do with people who have keys to the business premises. The important
thing is to not treat social media usage as a special case, and instead make sure that your company
policies make sense across all the likely scenarios.
For more detailed guidance in this area see the IT Faculty publication Social media and the law.
5.7 Getting the right social media training

Social media training can be tricky. It can be difficult to take on board large amounts of new
information, much of it technical, and then be able to go away and apply it. A coaching approach is
often the preferred option: finding someone who can work with you from your current abilities and
help you to progress over time, all within a strategic framework.
Always remember that the platforms and tools are secondary to purpose and people. If you know why
you want to use social media and are approaching it in a human way, you will find it easier to identify
the gaps in your knowledge and be able to find a trainer who helps you with a real need. Setting out to
learn all the technology first is likely to leave you overwhelmed rather than empowered.

6 Expanding social media
Having introduced the idea of social media as being for more than just marketing, much of this guide
has necessarily covered audience-building and generating leads as primary topics. For many businesses
these marketing activities will be the driving force behind their adoption of social media.
We have alluded to the powerful possibilities of using social media for research and identifying industry
trends, as well as how it offers new opportunities to collaborate. In fact, there are a number of different
ways social media can be employed, many of them having nothing to do with marketing in the
traditional sense.
It is also worth pushing things further, and considering how this ongoing dialogue around content and
the building of networks can be used to provide support to some of the functions of your business. For
example, many major brands are successfully using Twitter for basic customer service, or in some cases
they are incorporating purchases into their social media platforms.
As new technologies increase, so does the range of what is possible with social media. Soon we will
start to see conversational platforms play a more central role in core business, such as new apps
that use messaging platforms like WhatsApp to do business rather than just provide a means of
conversation.
Additionally, new chat platforms like Slack provide the ability to create bots that automate responses
to people. It is not difficult to imagine using some of these things to provide simple answers around
accountancy rules in the near future. In fact the technology is available now.
The point is to use the same research possibilities of social media in order to keep up with where
things are going. For example, developments such as artificial intelligence are already making inroads
into industries and are not a distant dream. If you had the option of providing direct advice to clients
automatically and through social media, how would you use this to benefit your business? And who is
likely to do this first in your industry?

7 Conclusions
This guide has focused on a range of topics you need to consider in order to make the most of social
media. Further information on some of the specifics, along with a number of case studies illustrating
the practicalities of implementing social media successfully, can be found in the appendices.
In summary, the following points are of particular importance.
7.1 Connections
The first step in practically using social media will be to connect with all the people you already
know. Beyond that you will be looking to ensure that you connect with new contacts and find new
connections through the many different methods outlined in this guide. Building good connections
is vital, but quality is the more important aspect. Avoid the temptation to connect with everyone and
instead consider how the connections you make will help you to achieve your goals.
7.2 Conversation
Social media is not about broadcasting messages. They can be used that way, but the real purpose of
social media is to help develop conversations between people. This doesn’t mean social media is not for
business: far from it. But what it does mean is that in order to successfully use social media you should
rethink how you really get new business, on a personal level, and build social media around that.
7.3 Content
What you say is fundamentally important. One of the easiest ways to frame this is to consider how
the content you share on social media will help people. Instead of positioning messages about your
business, you should be thinking about how you can provide content that people will want to share
with others. Create shareable, useful content and you will find it much easier to derive value from social
media.
Beyond these ideas, we have emphasised the importance of starting small, working together,
incorporating social media into your workflow and monitoring how well you are progressing. If you set
out with realistic ambitions and a genuine interest in making social media work for you, then there is a
far greater chance it will pay off.

8 The next steps
Ten steps to getting started
1
Set up a LinkedIn profile and fill out your skills and experience.
2
Connect your email account or upload your contact list to find people you already know on
LinkedIn.
3
Like and comment on relevant posts from other people on LinkedIn.
4
Register a Twitter account and make sure you add a photo and short biography.
5
Connect your email account or upload your contact list to find people you already know on
Twitter.
6
Dip into the stream on Twitter when you have a few minutes and learn how people use it.
7
Create a personal Facebook account.
8
Create a Facebook page for your business and invite friends to Like it.
9
Get a free blog on wordpress.com and write a couple of posts.
10 Subscribe to any YouTube channels you find useful.

Ten steps to getting to the next level
1
Join relevant groups on LinkedIn and respond to interesting posts or questions in your field of
expertise.
2
Add your company on LinkedIn, along with details about your services.
3
Use LinkedIn searches to find other people you know.
4
Engage with conversations on Twitter by liking, retweeting and responding to interesting
tweets.
5
Share relevant links you have found and post tweets about your own areas of interest.
6
Get to grips with hashtags and use them in your tweets where relevant, or just to find new
people to follow.
7
Experiment with multimedia by recording a podcast or making a ‘how-to’ video, even if you
don’t post it.
8
Find apps for your smartphone and computer to make social media easier and more efficient.
9
Use a competitor analysis to understand how other people are using social media.
10 Start to develop a strategic use of social media by understanding which channels might work
best for you.

Appendix 1: Case studies
Pillow May
Pillow May Chartered Accountants and Consultancy Services (pillowmay.co.uk) was established in 2009
and now employs six staff, with additional support as required. Based in rural Wiltshire it focuses on
a number of sectors: primarily owner-managed growing businesses, rural businesses, contractors and
professions. It is particularly well known for its cloud accounting software expertise.
Social media usage spans most of the key channels, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a blog
on the company website. Social media usage is led by the company’s director Jessica Pillow, and
Suzanne Tollervey the marketing manager, although everyone is involved in generating content.
According to Jessica the company started out a few years ago with a social media strategy but recent
growth has been more organic. She is now happy with the general activity, stating that the company
doesn’t feel any need to make major changes in how they operate on social media.
Through consistent usage the company has been able to increase its client base and stay ahead of
developments in its specialist areas. Access to the latest information on cloud software developments
through Twitter and Facebook pages has been particularly beneficial.
Of all the social media channels Twitter has been the most successful. Jessica has adopted a relaxed,
authentic style that balances more personal, conversational updates with tweets focused on the
business and its specialisms. This professional content on Twitter is mirrored across other channels,
employing a mix of targeted, sector-specific articles, general accountancy information and non-
accountancy material of interest to clients’ businesses.
Jessica claims to spend no more than half an hour a day on social media, so it hasn’t been particularly
intrusive into her work. Other members of the team are not as active on Twitter but their use of
Facebook has allowed Pillow May to maintain a good community on its Facebook page.
LinkedIn has also been useful to Jessica personally, although she admits that she has struggled slightly
to master some of the etiquette around who to accept or reject as connections. Another LinkedIn issue
for her has been the poor usability of its app. Using social media on mobile devices has proved vital and
the more usable Twitter app has inevitably played some part in her greater exploitation of the platform.
Suzanne writes a regular blog, with input provided by everyone, and this forms an important pillar
of their content marketing activity. New posts are shared across social media and get compiled into a
monthly newsletter. Jessica still finds email to be a valuable marketing tool and this way of structuring
recent content into newsletters and linking back to the website provides a useful component in the
company’s digital marketing.
With regard to specialist tools, the only major software Pillow May uses beyond the standard platform
apps is Hootsuite. This allows the company to provide more consistent updates despite some of the
staff not being in the office every day, and it also offers the possibility to schedule content ahead of
major milestones in the accountancy calendar.
As for the future, Jessica doesn’t feel the need to radically change what the company is doing, although
she is aware of a possible need to explore the use of multimedia, such as video or podcasting, when
they have time and feel that it will add something specific to their activity.

Accountancy firm
The local office of a large accountancy firm was keen to use social media, and saw the benefits, but was
unsure of how its clients were using the various platforms.
It was decided that the preferred solution for its needs was some sort of collaborative development
of social media, in other words learning how to use social media alongside its current and potential
clients. This approach had the benefit of an open, human approach. While the company was keen
to be seen as experienced and professional in its core work, it was also happy to be seen as a relative
beginner in using social media.
This level of transparency can be hugely beneficial in social media, and the opportunity to learn
alongside the company provides an attractive proposition for company outsiders. More importantly, by
learning and exploring social media together, the company was able to best assess how social media
usage could benefit clients on an ongoing basis.
The collaborative project took place over a number of breakfast workshops. Local business people were
invited into the accountancy firm for coffee, breakfast and a focused session on how to get the most
from social media. The focus was specifically on LinkedIn and Twitter and was primarily centred on the
individuals in the organisations, an approach that is discussed throughout the guide.
At the end of the project the company had made a great number more connections, both on LinkedIn
and Twitter. More importantly the work had enabled everyone involved to find a more natural voice for
using the various platforms.
Lifestyle brand
At the more brand-heavy end of the spectrum an international lifestyle brand was looking at the
creation of a stand-alone ‘social brand’. The company sourced fair trade, sustainable products from
around the world, and sold these through various outlets internationally. The social media project
involved setting up a dedicated auxiliary brand across a blog, Twitter, Facebook pages and Pinterest (a
social photo sharing website) to build a community around their products and ethos.
This approach makes complete sense in the marketplace they inhabit. The stories behind their products
and the travel aspect of their work means that they have some great points of connection with their
audience. This storytelling has enabled them to build a Facebook following of over 6,000 people from
scratch. This is helped enormously by high-quality photography.
Building a community of this size provides the brand with a platform for other activities, such as
competitions, and they’ve embraced this opportunity. However, the most important point about this
community-building is that they have worked hard to maintain a conversation about their customers as
much as about themselves. They regularly invite customers to highlight their own stories through the
social platform.

Mark Lee
Mark Lee (bookmarklee.co.uk) is a professional speaker, mentor, facilitator, author, blogger and
‘debunker’. It is obvious from the activity across his various channels that he is investing heavily in his
personal brand. This works well in the context of his portfolio of offers, some of which may not seem
cohesive (magic and accountancy).
The way in which Mark has developed his brand clearly works well for his approach and various
interests, and he bolsters this brand positioning with reputational content such as testimonials and
credentials.
Mark has also worked hard on using content to promote his work. Much of this has a reasonably long
shelf life and utility, which means that he can repurpose it over time (some of this content is even
for sale as e-books). He is also using a mailing list signup on his homepage as a way of capturing the
details of people looking to download his guides. This is good practice as long as it doesn’t get in the
way of people accessing content.
Mark uses a number of different social media channels, specifically Twitter, Google+, YouTube and
LinkedIn. However, the Google+ usage is likely to reduce over time as this platform is no longer being
fully supported by Google. The other channels make good sense for his approach.
All of the platforms used seem to be reasonably well employed, but the most noticeable element of
Mark’s strategy is the way he uses all the available space to create calls-to-action. Social media usage
can help you to build a real interest in your brand and services, but it is important to remember that for
most businesses, encouraging people to get in touch and buy from you is the fundamental aim.
Elaine Clark
Elaine Clark (cheapaccounting.co.uk) has built a strong brand around an accessible and transparent
portfolio of accountancy services, including prices displayed on the homepage of her site. She also
identifies with a niche of specific client types such as IT contractors and freelancers. This clarity of
purpose is useful in standing out: it helps to attract people who may find accountancy services opaque,
and offers a clear point of differentiation.
The clear brand provides a solid base for her social media activities. Elaine uses Twitter well, engaging
regularly in conversation, retweeting people and commenting on others’ tweets. Her Facebook usage
isn’t as strong as that on Twitter but she updates regularly and her audience is expected to grow steadily.
It is apparent that Elaine’s social media activity is designed to grow her networks and drive traffic
to the website. She provides some regular content in the form of blog posts but these are more for
information than creating discussion opportunities.
Elaine provides a good example of a clear, almost singular, focus. However, she might benefit from
developing more content around her niche. Attracting people to your website is important, but it is
also important to give people a reason to spend time there. There is also no obvious link to her LinkedIn
profile but that isn’t an issue in itself: as mentioned in this guide, LinkedIn relies heavily on the quality of
your network and it doesn’t generally make sense to drive all website visitors to your LinkedIn profile.

Conclusions
Appropriateness
The approach taken in all the case studies is very different. What works for a lifestyle brand almost
certainly won’t work the same way for an accountancy firm. However, this is where the real
opportunities lie. By understanding your business, its people, customers, competitors and the market
you operate in, you can create an approach to social media that fits perfectly with your needs.
It is good to know what other people are doing (hence the section on developing a competitor
analysis) but replicating others’ approaches won’t enable you to get the best out of social media. Take
the information in the guide, examine where you are and where you want to get to, and let this inform
the development of an appropriate social media strategy.
Most importantly, consider what works best for your brand. Each of the examples included in this guide
used brand positioning in a different way, from creating a social brand specifically to working hard on
developing a personal brand. Brand can be a tricky thing for many businesses, extending way beyond
visual identities. The case studies and information contained in this guide will help you to think through
how you want to build your brand through social media.
Community
Community is essential in social media. All the examples here focused heavily on building communities
in an appropriate way for each business, whether that be through a conversational style on Twitter, or
a well-curated Facebook page. However, community should be a part of all social media activity, even
if it is just about connecting with people on LinkedIn. Avoid the temptation to connect with as many
people as possible and instead think about how you will build a community of people that you know
and care about.
As much as it may seem useful to have thousands of people reading your posts, the reality of this is
somewhat different. For a start, most people who themselves are connected to thousands of people will
almost never see your posts, and they are even less likely to interact with you.
Remember also that you are not just using social media to broadcast messages to people. The
communities you build are powerful advocates for your business and a rich resource for research. The
more effort you put into building quality connections the better.

Appendix 2: Glossary
Artificial intelligence (AI)

Many companies are starting to incorporate AI into the way they work, powering everything from
Amazon Echo to Slack Bots. We will see much more of this as people start to make social media less
about screens and more about conversation. Most people are familiar with simple AI uses such as Siri
on iPhones, but these spoken interfaces will begin to appear everywhere, and gradually become more
of a feature of the way everyone uses social media.
Blogging
Blogging is short for ‘weblogging’ and started out as a simple way to put content online. As it has
grown, blogging has become as much about commenting as the original content itself, and developing
a good community around your blog is essential if you want to make the most of it.
Bookmarking
Many of us are already suffering from an overload of information due to social media. One of the ways
to mitigate this is to use a bookmarking service of some sort (such as Pocket and Pinboard). By saving
links for later it is easy to stay on top of social media usage, building a rich resource of content for your
own information or to share with others later.
Broadcasting
This term refers to the transfer of traditional promotional techniques to social media. In other words,
it is about communicating one-way messages to large numbers of people. It is entirely possible to use
social media this way but it also misses the point of two way conversation.
Commenting
Commenting refers primarily to the act of responding to people’s blog posts but it also covers leaving
comments on Facebook posts. Commenting is a key element of using social media, helping to build
community, develop conversations and improve the visibility of what you write.
Curation
Curation in the context of social media is the pulling together and sharing of other people’s material.
It is a good way to establish your brand without having to produce all the content. While the over-
sharing of links should be discouraged, it is certainly worthwhile to select good quality content and
share it alongside your own posts and conversations.
Followers
Your followers generally refers to the people who follow you on Twitter, but other platforms, such
as LinkedIn, allow following as an alternative to a mutual connection. One of the main differences
between the ways in which different social media platforms work is how they handle connections. For
example, on Facebook, you will need to mutually agree with someone else in order to become friends.
On Twitter, however, you are free to follow anyone you like, as long as their account isn’t private and
they haven’t blocked you (prevented you from interacting with them).
Hashtags
Hashtags are words or combinations of letters and numbers that follow the hash (#) symbol. They
started out on Twitter as a way of identifying a common topic (such as #accounting) for the purpose of
making it easy to click and see every post and account talking about the same topic. Hashtags are very

good for conferences and other events where outsiders can follow the conversation through clicking on
the hashtags everyone is using. Hashtags moved on from Twitter to be adopted by many other social
media platforms, such as Facebook.
Likes
Likes are the simplest form of interaction with a piece of content. They were made popular by
Facebook, where ‘liking’ a post or page also allows your friends to see it, but are also used on LinkedIn
and Twitter. Each platform handles ‘likes’ differently, but in the basic form they signal to someone that
you appreciate what they have written.
Podcasting
Podcasting refers to producing recorded content, generally audio, and releasing it through channels
that people can subscribe to. One of the simplest ways to do this is to record a conversation on a
smartphone and upload it to a free service such as SoundCloud, from where it can be listened to online
or downloaded. You can also register your podcast episodes through Apple’s iTunes and allow people
to subscribe using their Apple devices.
Profile
A profile refers to the basic information about you on various social media platforms. While Twitter only
allows you to write a short biography and upload a couple of photos, other platforms, such as LinkedIn
provide the space to add very detailed information.
Retweets
Retweets are re-shares of other people’s tweets. By retweeting you show everyone that follows you on
Twitter the original tweet by someone else. Naturally if you produce content that other people retweet
then you increase the audience for your posts.
Streams
Most social media platforms refer to the endless timeline of content as streams. However, each
platform handles streams differently. While Twitter posts everything in chronological order (apart from
conversations, which are presented in a more readable form, out of the original order) other platforms,
such as Facebook, re-order content according to popularity and various proprietary algorithms.
Threading
Threading refers to the practice of keeping conversations together on social media. On posts where
many people have left comments, some referring to the original post, some replying to other
commenters, threaded comments become essential in sense-making.
Trending
Trends are popular topics on social media, often highlighted and promoted by the platforms
themselves. Trending topics often see a snowball effect, where the visibility leads to even greater levels
of interaction. Most often, however, trends come about through important news items or even popular
television programmes.
Tweeting
Tweeting refers to the practice of writing updates (tweets) on Twitter.

Video blogging
Video blogging has become a multi-million pound industry in its own right in recent years, with many
of the most popular video bloggers becoming celebrities. However, it is relatively easy for anyone
to create a channel on YouTube and post videos regularly. Many people prefer to watch videos than
to read, and it is this preference that has driven the rise of video on the web. Interestingly, although
there are many videos produced as high-quality mini-films, the simple act of talking to camera is still
remarkably popular, as are simple how-to videos.

Appendix 3: Platform Listing
Facebook
(facebook.com/)
LinkedIn
(linkedin.com/)
Pinterest
(uk.pinterest.com/)
Slack
(https://slack.com/)
SoundCloud
(soundcloud.com)
Twitter
(twitter.com/)
WordPress
(wordpress.com/ for hosted or wordpress.org/ to host yourself)
YouTube
(youtube.com)

Appendix 4: Digital tools
There are many alternative tools for different devices, so we have included below a range of the options
available to give a flavour of the features and capabilities offered.
Bossjock (bossjockstudio.com)
Bossjock is a very useful audio recording tool for iPhones and iPads. It makes recording podcasts easy,
while also providing some great audio manipulation and mixing tools.
Buffer (buffer.com)
Buffer makes it easy to manage the sharing of links by posting at set times of the day instead of all at
once. This is particularly useful if you spend some time once or twice a day reading through things you
have saved.
Google Analytics (analytics.google.com)

Google Analytics is a very sophisticated analytics platform that allows you to monitor visitors to your
website and other platforms, with the aim of assessing the success of various activities. As discussed in
the guide, it is important to know whether the work you are putting into social media is achieving your
strategic objectives, and Google Analytics is one of the more effective ways of doing this.
Hootsuite (hootsuite.com)
Hootsuite is an online platform and app for managing multiple social media accounts. It works for both
individuals and teams.
IFTTT (ifttt.com)
IFTTT (If This Then That) is an automation platform for various digital services, allowing you to connect
things together and automate activity.
Pinboard
Pinboard is a simple, highly functional bookmarking service for links, allowing you to categorise and
write notes for the things you save. The main competitor to Pinboard is Delicious, however Pinboard
provides a much simpler service with greater flexibility.
Pocket (getpocket.com)
Pocket is a cross-platform bookmarking tool, designed for links you want to read later. As such it
doesn’t provide the level of features that Pinboard possesses, but it is great for saving things from
different devices and catching up with them another time.
Tweetbot (tapbots.com/tweetbot)
Tweetbot is a commonly used Twitter application for the iPhone. There are many alternatives to
Tweetbot (many of them free) including Twitter’s own app, but Tweetbot provides a much higher level
of functionality, especially for multiple account use.

About the author
Simon Gough (imagetext.co.uk) is a consultant, trainer and writer with a special focus on
developing social and customer-focused businesses and organisations. He has a background
in technology and design, with clients across both the public and private sectors.

ICAEW is a world leading professional membership organisation that
promotes, develops and supports over 145,000 chartered accountants
worldwide. We provide qualifications and professional development, share
our knowledge, insight and technical expertise, and protect the quality and
integrity of the accountancy and finance profession.
As leaders in accountancy, finance and business our members have the

knowledge, skills and commitment to maintain the highest professional
standards and integrity. Together we contribute to the success of individuals,
organisations, communities and economies around the world.
Because of us, people can do business with confidence.
ICAEW is a founder member of Chartered Accountants Worldwide and

the Global Accounting Alliance.
www.charteredaccountantsworldwide.com
www.globalaccountingalliance.com
Information Technology Faculty ICAEW

Chartered Accountants’ Hall Moorgate Place London EC2R 6EA UK
T +44 (0)20 7920 8481 find ICAEW IT Faculty

E itfac@icaew.com @ICAEW_ITFaculty
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© ICAEW 2016 TECPLM15196 09/16

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BUSINESS WITH CONFIDENCE icaew.com/itfac

3. The key social media platforms and optimum usage 7

4. Building a social media strategy 16

6. Expanding social media 27

8. The next steps 29

An introduction to social media 1

2 An introduction to social media

2.1 To encourage or discourage?

2.2 Personal and professional

An introduction to social media 3

2.4 Privacy and security

2.5 The legal perspective

4 An introduction to social media

2.7 Dealing with negative comments and feedback

An introduction to social media 5

2.8 The international angle

6 An introduction to social media

3.1 LinkedIn for networks and leadership

Connecting with people

Adding your company

An introduction to social media 7

8 An introduction to social media

3.2 Twitter for content, curation and listening

An introduction to social media 9

10 An introduction to social media

Retweets and likes

An introduction to social media 11

12 An introduction to social media

WordPress provides two ways of getting a blog online:

• through its hosted platform, wordpress.com; and

• through the free, downloadable software provided from wordpress.org.

An introduction to social media 13

14 An introduction to social media

An introduction to social media 15

4.1 Individual thought leaders versus strong brands

16 An introduction to social media

4.3 Competitor analysis

An introduction to social media 17

4.4 Understanding the market

18 An introduction to social media

4.5 Trending versus building

4.6 Understanding clients and their perceptions

4.7 Setting social media objectives

An introduction to social media 19

20 An introduction to social media

4.8 Monitoring social

An introduction to social media 21

22 An introduction to social media

5.1 Tools and technologies

An introduction to social media 23

5.2 Collaborating internally

24 An introduction to social media

5.3 Collaborating externally

5.4 Listening on social media

5.5 Adjusting course

An introduction to social media 25

5.7 Getting the right social media training

26 An introduction to social media

An introduction to social media 27

In summary, the following points are of particular importance.

28 An introduction to social media

Ten steps to getting started

3. The key social media platforms and optimum usage 7

4. Building a social media strategy 16

6. Expanding social media 27

8. The next steps 29