Following on from my previous blog:
YOU have the same influence as any large corporation
I would say, definitely, yes.
An example of this was a lady recently who sent a message out on twitter asking for urgent help with a quick tax/accounts query.
I was the only person to reply to this in the whole of the UK!
No-one from any of the big accountancy firms, or anyone else from the thousands of small and medium accountancy practices throughout the UK replied.
With the case of the big firms, they have marketing budgets that can run into millions of pounds – yet no-one seems to have embraced the use of Social Networking, which is low cost and can be very effective.
We have taken on several new clients through twitter, as well as the increased visibility and the opportunities that have arisen due to the contributions made there.
For the larger firms, it wouldn’t actually cost them much to have a young tax senior on the staff, whose full time job was to monitor twitter/Social Networking sites for their whole UK office network and reply/refer when needed.
In fact, as far as I am aware, I am one of very few people in the UK who has really embraced twitter & Social Networking from my profession (Mark Lee is another) – it’s also the reason I have ‘the twittering tax man’ nickname.
With the low costs associated with Social Networking, and the benefits available, I would definitely recommend that people get on board now to get an advantage over their competitors (which could even be the very top firms in the country, as I found.)
An excellent quote I heard recently:
You are either on the train or you are under it.