Online Sales Success

Would You, Could You, Should You Blog?.

Journal of Accountancy · Online Issues

Lawyers have quickly adopted blogs, but what does this tool offer accountants, relative novices to the medium (see “Resources”)? Blogs can help CPAs enhance the marketing and knowledge management functions of their firms.

Marketing.

Blogs provide a low-cost way to reach a desirable market segment—the affluent and well-educated—and woo them as CPA clients. One way to approach this is to integrate a blog into your marketing plan, so it works with your existing Web site and newsletter. (Roth & Co.’s Kristan refers to his Tax Updates blog as the “first draft” of his newsletter. All stories in his weekly newsletter going to more than 2,000 recipients first appear in the blog.)

Besides helping to publicize your firm and showcase its niche specialties, blogs can allow everyone in your firm to share information quickly on current developments and to track information on sales leads. Caveat: A business blog that isn’t updated frequently, that contains inaccuracies or that is poorly written can do more harm than good. Don’t commit to blogging unless you are sure you have the time and talent on staff to oversee a blog that enhances your firm’s reputation. The time commitment for writing entries, gathering and incorporating related links and responding to comments that users may leave on the blog can be substantial.

Knowledge management.

CPAs may find value in a blog as a knowledge management tool. Firms can use blogs to help current employees work more efficiently and to get new hires up to speed quickly. As a repository of “institutional memory,” knowledge blogs can educate new hires, remind current employees of policies and procedures, link to documents employees need to read and document best practices. Blogs maintained by vendors that market to CPAs (Quickbooks’ http://quickbooks_online_blog.typepad.com, for instance) alert staff to new developments and training opportunities.

Internal knowledge blogs, sometimes referred to as k-blogs, are becoming mainstream business tools. Each team member can enter his or her remarks to create a record of actions and decisions. Blogs make it easy to document projects so that all team members are better informed. Knowledge blogs also can serve as a venue to help telecommuting employees stay more involved or for departing employees to leave knowledge behind.

Accounting firms that install accounting systems for clients may find internal blogs useful to manage those customer projects. Notes about updates, timelines and problems encountered with installations can be posted on a blog for the team to review. For more information on using blogs as knowledge management tools in a professional services firm, check the Excited Utterances blog (http://excitedutterances.blogspot.com), which focuses on knowledge management issues in law firms.

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