On this week’s Dear Katie, a firm partner, whom I won’t mention, asked me: We are a well-known firm – we regularly make the top 100 list. I’m embarrassed to admit but we can’t get this social media thing down. I look at our social pages and the only interaction we ever get is from employees. Any strategies? We want to reach more people.
And this isn’t an easy question to answer without doing some digging.
I went straight to work reviewing the partner’s company content page and found a few immediate issues:
Based on these findings, I recommend five steps that will help the firm build a personality-led brand on social.
But first, there needs to be a crucial mindset shift in the firm.
Why?
People don’t connect with a company logo.
They connect with the humans behind the brand.
People crave personal connections, and generic corporate posts are anything but personal.
I want you to step out from behind the corporate curtain because that’s when social media really starts working for firms.
Breaking out of your comfort zone and posting on your own socials helps you create trust, differentiate yourself from the competition, and scale your brand.
As I always say, a firm’s brand is the sum of its people’s brands.
Everyone in your firm should be building individual brands to fuel your firm’s growth.
How can you, as a partner, do this?
What’s your personal story? I bet it’s a big one, and this is something that you want to keep in mind because you’ll use your story to create parallels to who you want to reach.
For example, let’s assume that you want to reach out to new accounting talent.
You obviously have a journey that led you to partner, and you can create parallels by answering a few questions:
If you want to attract clients, change pace and share your journey as an owner and what you’ve learned over the years.
And don’t be afraid of vulnerability either.
When you’re vulnerable, you’re relatable, which is exactly how you create trust.
If you want to connect with people and humanize yourself on social media, you have to be involved.
Sure, you can hire an agency to help you manage your social media, but help is the key word here.
To build a personality-led brand, you need to stay at the forefront of the messages and ideas you’re sharing.
Otherwise, you lose that authenticity that sets you apart from the crowd.
(And at Leaders Online, we love to help you spread your message and ideas!)
If you’re playing it safe, you won’t get noticed on social media.
To stand out, you have to be opinionated and polarizing.
Do you think traditional accounting is broken? Say it.
Do you think most outsourced CFO guidance offers generic advice that doesn’t move the needle? Share it.
Bold opinions spark conversation, create engagement and help you differentiate yourself from other firms that are following the status quo.
Are you starting conversations or just posting content and waiting for people to come to you?
To build a personality-led brand that drives growth, you have to actively participate in conversations on other people’s content.
It’s especially important to spark conversation with industry leaders and people you want to reach.
Contribute something meaningful to the conversation. Taking this approach will lead people back to your profile and give your brand’s visibility a serious boost.
Building a personality-led brand also means encouraging your team to step out from behind the firm’s logo and build their own brands. I’ve written an entire article on how to do this here.
The goal is to encourage your team to create content that reflects their own specialties and experiences.
When your team members build their own personal brands, it adds an extra layer of authenticity and allows you to scale your firm’s brand.
Bonus point: Metrics don’t matter; conversations do.
My advice? Don’t focus too much on the likes, shares and follower count.
Focus on how many meaningful conversations your posts are creating.
Comments and DMs are where the magic happens.
They are the true measure of success – not vanity metrics.
Whether you’re trying to attract new talent or clients, be sure to keep this one thing at top of mind: a personality-led brand > a corporate brand.
And, that’s a wrap on this Dear Katie question.
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Now I want to hear from you. Do you have a question?
Until next time, cheers to your success!
Katie