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Can accountants and bookkeepers use Facebook to grow their business? You bet they can.  You see – do you know where your clients, and more importantly your future clients, hang out? Social media.

Facebook has on average 1.33 billion active users a day. 1.33 billion.  Now sure that is a world wide number, so the stats in Australia will be less, but that is still a whole lot of people in your back pocket courtesy of your smart phone.

Social media is almost like a cult. Once you are in you simply can’t get out (easily).  But what if you could generate content for your Facebook page which gave you a return on investment of 2-3 new leads every single month for your services? Surely that would be worth the investment of your time right?

And no, I am not talking paid Facebook Ads. I don’t spend any money on Facebook or Instagram ads and I still see new clients every single month reaching out on social media to work with us.

Your business Facebook page can deliver you potential clients who already feel like they know you. Even though they have not met you IRL (in real life).  Potential clients that already have a level of trust with you, a clear understanding of the services you offer, a want for your skills and potential clients who know that you will already be a great fit.

“Bookkeepers and Accountants can absolutely use Facebook to do just that – grow their business.  But it is not a random “let’s post some shit and hope for the best” kind of approach.”

You need a Facebook Strategy.  You need to plan your content.  If you are going to use your Facebook page to just spam people with tax legislation and expect them to read it, or spam them with bookkeeping services and asking them to “buy, buy buy” then you will fall flat. No doubt in my mind.

Then, you will probably say something like “Facebook is just not really a tool accountants or bookkeepers can use. It is just a waste of time. So I am just going to ignore it and worry about it later”.

You see here is the deal, if you work with tech savvy entrepreneurs and business owners, the first thing they do when they want to find an accountant or bookkeeper or BAS agent is they ask random strangers on Facebook for recommendations.  They end up with a shit load of suggestions and because these business owners are tech savvy, usually the first thing they do is “social stalk” you.  Because, they are already on their phone, they are already on Facebook asking for recommendations, so it is super easy for them to try to find your business on Facebook.

So if a potential client was to land on your Facebook page – what would they find?  You talking about Superannuation legislation, you telling them off for lodging things late, you selling yourself 24/7? (hint: that is not what you want to be doing).

Or if they were to stalk your Facebook page, would they find you offering snippets of advice, helpful hints, inspiring information, motivational advice and talking to them in a language they understand? (hint: this is the gold, absolute gold).

Over the years, we have found a love for social media – that is no secret. We get around half of all new work from a combination of Facebook and Instagram.  Yep – truly – these are random people we have never met who message us and want to work with us. They already know what service they want to book.  And we have never had a “real life” conversation with them.

“Stacey, do you really get any leads and new clients from Facebook?” Well that is truly the million dollar question right! And one we get asked sooooo often. And the answer is a BIG FAT YES.

So we are going to share some of our secrets.  We have launched a 5 day FREE Facebook Challenge especially for Bookkeepers and Accountants.  Yep – a free 5 day email challenge where you will receive a new topic for 5  consecutive days which you then need to build on and post on your own Facebook page.  We will hold your hand, but you still need to word the topics in YOUR voice. Why?  Because you want potential clients to resonate with YOU.

However, you already know that doing things well for 5 days is not enough to suddenly have your business Facebook page being a well oiled marketing and sales funnel.  It comes down to consistency.  Consistent content, consistent images, branded images, consistent posting of your information.  But that takes time right?  From our research, people are spending about an hour a week (sometimes a heck of a lot more) trying to think of topics to write about.  So that is about 50+ hours a year just to think of what the heck to write on your Facebook page.  That more than an entire week a year, possibly longer for those of you who are already struggling with Facebook content.

So what if you had that 50 hours back? Times your hourly rate – how much could you earn if you spent that time on clients AND had a hustling, bustling Facebook page?  Well the good news, is we are launching a Facebook Content Calendar (it’s not entirely ready yet….because….tech headaches), but our content calendar will give you 12 months of pre-filled content.

But you need to invest time to develop your content, your brand and your voice.  If you are expecting to post once and suddenly have 50 leads from Facebook, you are tackling it slightly wrong. But spending the time and effort to build your Facebook page the right way, will deliver you as a trusted (non boring) accountant into the palm of your potential clients hands. And that is exactly what you want.