Leveraging Social Media in Professional Services Firms

Professional services companies are discovering that social media marketing is quickly becoming an important method for driving business growth. While the idea of using “free tools” to drive marketing can be exciting, this excitement is often followed with the realization that these tools take time and commitment. At the end of the day, the million-dollar question is: can social media help professional service firms make more money?

This article will answer the following questions:

1. How does social media drive business revenue?
2. How do firms resource the time needed for social media?
3. How can blogs drive professional service firm leads?
4. How does the B2B application of social media for professional service firms work?
5. How can social media support offline marketing activities?
6. How do industry firms get started using social media and keep generating content?
7. How is the cost of customer acquisition lower when using social media compared to outbound methods like direct mail, advertising and print

First we must frame the problem that professional service firms are working to solve using social media. If you don’t know the root of the problem, understanding the details of social media will not be relevant to your business. Traditionally, large commercial businesses have had an advantage over small business owners because they’ve had larger marketing budgets and could spend more money on outbound marketing techniques like print advertising and direct mail. This is true in the professional services industry as well. Social media is one way to level the playing field. But like Alice in Alice in Wonderland, it won’t make any difference which path you choose, if you don’t know where you’re headed. First step: Identify the problem.

In the old marketing model, budgets dictated success.

Successful professional services firms have long thrived on word-of-mouth to help promote their services. With social media, these firms are now able to use free tools to help increase word-of-mouth while decreasing the need for outbound advertising platforms like the yellow pages, cable television ads, newsletters, magazines,newspaper ads, etc.

The 10 Fundamentals of Professional Service Firm’s Social Media Success

Professional services firms that successfully use social media…
1. Commit weekly resources to creating content and engaging in social media.
2. Have some methods of understanding how social media activity had an impact on business results.
3. Regularly generate content using blogs, Twitter, Facebook or other social platforms.
4. Don’t try to do use every platform, instead focusing time and resources on the social media channels that drive the best results for their business.
5. Use social media to drive participation in offline events.
6. Set clear expectations for customers regarding frequency and types of social media interactions their company is willing to provide.
7. Leverage social media to position their company as a thought leader within their industry.
8. Provide clear calls-to-action and opportunities to generate leads and new customers using social media.
9. Use information and data from social media to drive business strategy.
10. Balance paid and organic search engine traffic.

Does your content marketing mix include blogging, search engine optimization, whitepapers, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email marketing and pay-per-click advertising?

The Importance of Building a Blog Network for Professional Services Firm Success

Business blogging has been on the rise for many professional services firms. Some companies have taken blogging to another level and are creating more business because of it.

Instead of a traditional blogging approach, these companies built a network of internal blogs to match their diverse service offerings. Why do it this way?

Blogs are a key driver of organic search engine traffic. In order to create content that was relevant to diverse service areas; these companies have built blogs on different topics. Each blog serves a dedicated purpose and audience. Another important component of the multiple blogs is to have both general and specific blogs. Having both broad and specific blogs allows a company to generate search traffic from niche, low-search-volume keywords as well as broader, high-search volume keywords.

Blog about niche topics related to your industry to drive quality leads that can be captured using landing pages connected to calls-to-action.

Do you Twitter?

Where does the power of social media come from? It is evident when you realize that, unlike email, which is often communication between two or a small group of people, Twitter updates can be seen by hundreds and even thousands of people. It is the process that brings clients to you. Twitter is a place where you can expose your firm as thought leaders.

Plan how often you will engage with client online beforehand as an effort to set expectations for online customer service and engagement. This begins by making sure you have optimized your web pages for better search engine optimization. The second step is to set up landing pages so you have a method for driving leads. Finally, you create content around long tail keywords. Keywords become the niche to your business that will help drive incremental increases in search engine traffic.

The web is full of so many good ideas, that often the best use of time and resources is to apply someone else’s idea to your own industry. This approach has worked for professional services firm, with targeted blog posts and keywords strategies driving the best results for traffic and leads.

Social media also provides a secondary benefit of providing better business intelligence and insight. When clients are inbound to your firm, you can develop a better sense of how to emphasize your strengths and exploit competitors’ weaknesses. The bottom line: sharper, longer-term goals and a clear road map on how to get there.

Professional services firms need to take an integrated approach. Industry firms need to understand that tactics like social media, blogging and search engine optimization drive more powerful results when used together, instead of only picking one tactic. Integrating social media tactics and content creation drives results, and it is important to track the results of each of these tactics to determine the best ways to invest time and effort.

Final Thoughts

1. Start blogging today. “If you’re not blogging, you’re letting competitors win,” is how Tryst Anderson frames the importance of blogging in his Social Media Seminar. Blogging is such a powerful driver for improving organic search traffic and leads.

2. Focus on what works for your business. Professional services firms shouldn’t try to do everything when it comes to social media marketing. Twitter and Facebook need not be a major focus, if you find more business value in blogging and search engine marketing.

3. Use a content management system (CMS). As a professional services firm, having control over your website is critical. Content management systems could be called ‘Web Design for Dummies.’ Not having to rely on a webmaster to make changes to your website allows you to take control and quickly and easily publish new content.