How to create a cyber-security conscious firm
Most of us are aware of the dangers associated with a lack of awareness around cybersecurity.
We’re constantly being tested by cyber criminals who use increasingly sophisticated methods to access our data.
As soon as we easily recognise one malicious technique, they source new methods that test our habitual assumptions. As accountants, you hold incredibly valuable personal data in your systems. The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2017 (published in a joint report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and National Cyber Security Centre) identified companies holding Personal Data as more likely to be targeted than companies than those that do not (51 per cent compared to 37 per cent). This puts accountancy practices firmly in the target zone for cyber-criminals. The most common attacks took the form of fraudulent emails, followed by viruses and malware.
Here are five top tips to create a culture of cyber-security
- Provide clear instructions
Explain the habits you’d like your team to use when thinking about cybersecurity. If you don’t give explicit instructions such as not to download a file or click on a link from an unknown sender, then you’ll have a greater chance of a breach in your firm. Make sure your guidelines are clear and concise. Try not to use jargon, make sure your remove ambiguity wherever possible. Providing in-depth training for new staff and regular refresher training is one way of proving clear instructions.
- Discuss it regularly at team meetings and meetings with your bosses
Just because you’ve provided clear instructions on best practice, education doesn’t stop there. The more you discuss threats associated with cyber security, the greater their awareness and likelihood of recognising a potential attack. The more stories your team can share about things they’ve read and seen, the greater the engagement levels across the firm. You’ll be surprised how quickly this becomes part of a conversation piece with customers.
- Have open and honest conversations
Everyone is a potential target, and nobody is completely infallible. Accidents happen and if they do, business owners need to be aware of this as soon as possible. The more time that goes by after any malware downloads, the greater the potential damage. Be sure not to cultivate a blame culture by encouraging your team to report anything suspicious, however small. Staff should feel comfortable to speak up if they think they may have downloaded something they shouldn’t have.
- Password complexity and reset frequency
I know, everyone hates creating and remembering passwords. But this is a key weapon you have in your defence arsenal. Make sure you have clear guidelines on the frequency and complexity of passwords. If you can enforce regular password resets on your IT systems it is well worth considering.
- Training
There are several low-cost/no-cost online training tools for you and your staff. I’d recommend a finding a good course on Phishing. Phishing is a tool that uses email to try and gain sensitive information. Emails will arrive and look incredibly real, sometimes even experts find it hard to tell the difference between a real and fraudulent email.
My recommendation is to maintain conversation and training around this topic to incorporate it in to your firm’s culture. By protecting your firm from a data breach, you’re doing your best to help protect your clients against fraud. Thomson Reuters Onvio offers secure online file storage and client portal software for accountants. Benefit from a more streamlined process for client communication, easily share files and documents with your clients online and gain online approval from clients with e-signing.
For more tips on cyber-security, see how Lucy Cohen and Olly Evans approach risk management within their successful accountancy firms.
TC Group expands into finance, legal and HR
Top 60 accountancy firm TC Group has announced the launch of a full range of financial planning, legal and HR services.
It marks the latest development for TC (Taylorcocks) which has significantly expanded its operation over the past two years through several major mergers and is officially the fastest growing Top 60 UK firm.
The new Financial Planning, Legal and HR departments will support TC’s extensive range of accounting and taxation services and are headed up respectively by Simon Perkins, James Allen and Wendy McGarvey, all of whom have extensive experience of working with SMEs.
Simon Perkins, head of financial planning, joins from Fidelius, having previously spent 13 years with Lloyds providing advice to its commercial banking clients while also gaining experience with its high net worth, private banking sector. His department will offer a comprehensive range of financial planning solutions designed to fit around clients’ lifestyles, family life, business and professional interests.
Head of legal James Allen has spent 17 years working as a company commercial lawyer, specialising in the buying and selling of businesses and other transactional work.
At TC he will provide clients with a range of advice covering business acquisitions and disposals, shareholder agreements for start-ups and joint ventures, group restructuring, commercial agreements and secured lending.
Head of HR Wendy McGarvey has over 25 years’ experience working in senior positions with large corporates and SMEs and has wide ranging industry knowledge both at operational and strategic levels. Her department will offer a wide range of HR support covering all aspects of recruitment and employee management.
TC’s managing partner, Richard Keyes, is confident that there will be a huge demand for the new services: "Clients trust their accountants who often play a very central role in their business growth and development. It is therefore logical that they will welcome the provision of such a range of complementary support services covering financial planning, legal and HR.
"Wendy McGarvey, Simon Perkins and James Allen have extensive experience of working with SMEs and we are very excited about the additional benefits they will bring to our clients.
"The launch of these new services also coincides with a major rebrand which is designed to facilitate and support our continued growth into one of the UK’s leading firms."
Getting serious about an advisory role for accountants
There is a lot of stuff and nonsense talked about advisory.
I’ve been an advisory partner in a top 10 firm and a 100% new business director in a regional practice plus I’ve worked in big corporate world for a large leisure company and been FD of an SME M and E contractor.
I currently run F3C Advantage and we work with accountancy practices that want to get serious about Advisory - by providing them an Advisory delivery platform called CAS – the Complete Advisory Solution.
So, I reckon I’ve got a pretty good fix on what clients want from accountants plus a pretty a good fix on what accountants feel about Advisory and why to date so many dabble rather than get serious.
OK, let’s get into our helicopters and rise up, look at the big picture, make sure we can see the whole forest and not just a few trees.
Now looking down from our helicopter, let’s keep it simple, what is advisory? The best explanation I have found of advisory is helping clients to:
- Move forward
- Protect and improve their personal positions
- Protect and develop their businesses
And when we accountants help clients we are “facilitating INSIGHTS to INSPIRE clients to INNOVATE and make changes”.
It’s all about the clients.
It starts by helping clients clarify what is most important to them. As we know clients are not all the same and they want different things. Never assume clients are clear about what is important to them.
When we help clients clarify what’s important to them this enables us to fully understand their personal and business goals and aspirations. Not only is this essential to ensure we are providing best advice but it’s one of the three things that all client surveys over the last 30 years or more have identified that clients want from their accountants
- To show they care and are in it for the long haul
- To bring new ideas
- To understand me and my business
The Success Gap Model is an excellent way of illustrating what is important to a client or prospect. Some measures of success will be financial – the pound note – others will be non-financial – the smiley face. Do you know all the pound notes and smiley faces for all your best clients?
How can we help clients achieve their pound notes and smiley faces?
Every time you look a client square between the eyes think – what’s the plan, their plan? Have they got a clear plan? Does it go beyond just numbers?
Being the person who has helped the client put their plans together is a powerful position to be. Being in the room when the decisions are being made establishes you as their MOST trusted adviser. You want to be more than just someone who helps them with implementation or solves ad hoc problems.
An annual planning event with your best clients is a great place to be and is core to Advisory.
In today’s fast-moving world not everyone wants to take a day out, so be flexible, break it down into bite size chunks. Two hour sessions are probably optimal going up to maybe half a day. The client experience is everything – when they leave you they should be thinking, “that was great and I want more”, not “that was great but I’m exhausted”! Regular client Advisory meetings with the reference point being the client plan that you helped them put together is also core to Advisory – and will result in new recurring income streams plus project spin off work.
So how do we get serious about Advisory?
Well I was the 100% new business director in a regional practice that tripled in size in two years and I have seen other firms achieve great results. How? The answer is – organise and structure advisory just as you have probably already organised and structured everything else in your business – with systems and process.
We know that good process provides
- Leverage and scale
- Consistency and quality control
- Accelerated learning and development
Most firms whether they are large or small have written or unwritten processes for how they deal with accounts and audit work or tax work. Let’s call them standard operating processes or SOP’s. Few have SOP’s for Advisory work. The successful firms have SOP’s for Advisory.
Accepting that most firms seek to be better at the WIN
W - Winning new clients
I - Increasing client spend
N - Nurturing client relationships for retention
Then successful firms develop standard operating processes
W – SOP to differentiate to attract new clients
I – SOP to broaden the services the clients buy
N – SOP to protect and develop client relationships
If you want to get serious then systems and processes are essential as is the development of SOP’s. You could create your own process in your head or you could look to bring in a proven process from outside – make sure it is client centric and can be deployed in a way that fits you and firm’s priorities.
So how does this work in practice?
I was talking with a small firm before Christmas with two partners. Partner number one has started as the champion but the plan is to involve a new director who joins them after Easter thus creating a pod – the champion model becomes a pod model. The long-term plan is build the advisory revenues and integrate advisory across the whole firm but in the short term it is champion to pod.
The firm in question reckon the have 200 or so business clients and they have segmented and targeted the top 20%. Post year end or pre year end meetings are being held with each of these clients over the next 12 months using one of the CAS tools specifically designed for such meetings. The plan is to migrate a proportion of these clients from being primarily compliance to being compliance advisory. Forty client meetings piggy backing off existing meetings over 12 months they believe is very manageable.
Supplementing this will be a process for handling prospect meetings. The plan is to attract compliance advisory clients and advisory only clients. And then migrate some of the advisory only clients to become compliance advisory clients.
Draw yourself three columns. Left hand column is your C clients. The middle column is your CA clients and the righthand column your A clients.
This firm is serious, it is organised, it’s deploying process in a way that suits them and they are making their life easier by using a delivery platform.
John will be speaking at Accountex on 2 May in the Business and Finance theatre at 11am.
HMRC chief of MTD heads Accountex keynotes
Theresa Middleton, HMRC’s director of the MTD for Business, will headline the keynote stage at Europe’s leading accountancy and finance conference and expo next month.
Other industry leaders speaking at Accountex on May 1-2 include Caroline Miskin, technical manager of ICAEW’s tax faculty; Jennifer Warawa, Sage’s executive VP of partners, accountants and alliances; Nick Williams, head of business development at Intuit QuickBooks; Steve Cox, chief evangelist of IRIS Software; and Ed Molyneux, founder and CEO of FreeAgent.
Newcomers to the big stage at London's ExCeL include:
- Richard Asquith, VP of Global Indirect Tax at Avalara, who will discuss Brexit and its tax implications;
- Dr Michael Willis, programme director of Cambridge Master of Accounting (MAcc) at University of Cambridge Judge Business School, will focus on accounting education;
- Darren Shirlaw, founder of BoB Group, will talk about economic and consumer trends;
- Richard Brewin, managing director of ProgressBB, on how to get the most out of Accountex.
Over in Keynote Theatre B, highlights include a joint session with TaxAssist Direct’s Sarah Robertson and Daren Moore (group operations director and group commercial director respectively); an MTD-focused session from Rebecca Hutton, customer readiness and external stakeholder team lead at HMRC; a talk from Trent McLaren, head of accounting at Practice Ignition, about driving innovation; and a session on blockchain from technology futurist Ian Khan.
Keynote B will also host the British Accounting Marketing Awards, presented by Amanda C Watts and the TwentyTwo Agency, in association with Accountex. Designed to reward outstanding marketing achievements from accounting firms and industry suppliers from across the UK, the awards ceremony will take place from 5pm on opening day (Wednesday 1 May).
Other Keynote speakers include:
- James Ashford, CEO of GoProposal
- Alastair Barlow, founder & partner of flinder
- Martin Bissett, founder of The Upward Spiral Partnership
- Rob Brown, founder of BD Academy
- Warren Cass, international speaker & author at Achievers International
- Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA, founder of Soaring Falcon Accountancy
- Ian Fletcher, speaker & writer at 2020 Innovation
- Phil Hobden, business development manager of Intuit QuickBooks
- Rudi Jansen, accountant’s coach, practice owner, author & speaker
- Nick Longden, VP of Sales at FreeAgent
- Richard Neal, Group CEO of MyWorkpapers
- Steve Pipe, speaker, strategist, business author & former UK Entrepreneur of the Year
- Carl Reader, entrepreneur, author & small business champion
- Joshua Riffe, chief FUN officer of FUNancial Services
- Neil Robertson, executive chairman of Compleat Software
- Mark Telford, director of Telford Accountants
- Andrew Van De Beek, director & founder of Illumin8
For more information about the sessions, please visit https://www.accountex.co.uk/london/seminar-timetable/.
Accountex 2019 boasts the show’s biggest ever education programme – including the Keynotes, it will feature over 200 CPD-accredited sessions in 12 theatres across two days, covering everything from trends and technology, business growth and efficiency, cloud and cryptocurrency, as well as more specific topics such as Making Tax Digital and Brexit.
“This is the only industry event which provides unparalleled access to thought leaders, vendors and peers who can assist accountants with their evolution,” says Steve Cox, chief evangelist of IRIS Software, who will be appearing in multiple sessions at the show. “Our fast-paced, digital economy means we are generally focused on our day to day roles. Accountex provides time and opportunity for professionals to identify where improvements can be made and how their firms can evolve,” he says.
For further information and to register for a free trade ticket, please visit www.accountex.co.uk/london.
Just 4 per cent of small businesses join MTD
The April 1 deadline for small businesses to sign up to making tax digital for VAT has passed by with a whimper rather than a bang.
It also appears to have slipped past many of the UK's small companies that should - technically at least - have registered for HMRC's new regime.
Just 4 per cent of the country’s businesses mandated to join MTD have signed up for it. That's right FOUR!
Registered clients
And only 2% of accounting firms have registered clients for MTD, from an estimated 72,000 tax UK agents.
These nuggets of information came to light after a freedom of information request by cash flow service Float.
Float, and many other observers, say the MTD process is confusing and that HMRC has much more to do to inform people about the change in the law.
Not fit for purpose
Anita Monteith, of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales, says: “The agents services account was not fit for purpose until relatively recently and that’s why agents couldn’t sign up."
Theresa Middleton, director of the MTD programme, says: “You don’t necessarily need to sign up from day one, but you do need to make sure you’re keeping your records digitally for your next VAT period which starts on or after April 1.”
Here are some of the latest MTD statistics following Float's request...
- 55,250 businesses have registered for MTD out of 1.2m.
- 13,427 businesses were signed-up by agents, meaning the majority of businesses signed up themselves.
- 88 per cent of VAT registered business with a turnover above the VAT threshold use an external agent to manage their tax affairs.
- 1,679 agents have signed up clients to MTD. HMRC estimates there are 72,000 agents acting for clients in the UK.
HMRC reckons about 4,00 businesses a day are signing up to MTD.
Due for submission
That seems like a lot, but it would still leave a big shortfall of registrations by the time the first quarterly VAT returns are due for submission in August.
Colin Hewitt, Float CEO, says: “While many businesses will have heard of MTD, they are busy running their businesses, and often rely on their accountants to communicate what they need to do.
"Many accountancy firms are still very much reactive rather than proactive, and won’t have done more than sending a few emails which will probably be sitting buried in inboxes across the country.
“Many businesses are using MTD as an opportunity to finally move from legacy software or spreadsheets to a fully-fledged cloud accounting solution, and this can take time,” he adds.
IRIS buys Hosted Accountants
IRIS Software Group has acquired Hosted Accountants, a provider of hosted desktop, telephony and other cloud-based technologies to UK accountancy firms.
Hosted Accountants was founded in 2008 to bring IT consultancy services to the UK Accountancy sector.
Since 2015, the business has experienced strong growth driven by a partnership with IRIS for the provision of IRIS Hosting, its cost-effective, secure and scalable solution for accountancy practice IT management.
Hosted Accountants extends the IRIS portfolio through the provision of hosted services and other value-added IT support, including telephony and core IT services.
Kevin Dady, CEO of IRIS Software Group says, “As the industry moves to the digital economy, accountancy professionals are presented with a number of strategic options for business growth.
"Whether they are focused on traditional assurance and core compliance services or capitalising on value added opportunities; our mission is to provide best-in-class software and services to help them be more resilient in an ever-changing landscape.
"With 21,000 UK accountants, IRIS and Hosted Accountants are in an excellent position to support firms who wish to outsource their software hosting.”
David Watson, managing director of Indigo Group & Hosted Accountants says, “IRIS recognises the requirements and challenges for accountancy practices, regardless of size. Outsourced software hosting complements the IRIS portfolio, as it provides all-encompassing support and maintenance which helps drive efficiency in any practice. Hosted Accountants is delighted to join the IRIS team and we look forward to continue developing market driven solutions that deliver the productivity and compliance requirements of our customers.”
Hosted Accountants serves over 5,000 users and in addition to the hosted desktop solutions, the business provides a range of hosted services including online backup and continuity; cloud managed network and security; Microsoft Exchange and specific applications; hosted telephony and internet connectivity.
The IAB: your career needs our support
The International Association of Bookkeepers (IAB) is a leading UK and international professional and awarding body for bookkeepers.
Professional membership:
Professional members join us to benefit from:
- Enhanced professional status
- Supervision under the Money Laundering Regulations
- Opportunities for Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
- Regular technical updates
- A range of professional and lifestyle benefits
Additional information about professional membership and supervision can be found here: www.iab.org.uk/join-the-iab/.
Bookkeeping and payroll qualifications:
We offer a range of Ofqual regulated qualifications, covering bookkeeping and payroll. Our qualifications enable individuals to learn highly sought after skills, to use either within their own business or improve their job prospects and open the door to a range of career opportunities. The qualifications can be used to upskill those working in a bookkeeping or accounting role or to gain new skills and knowledge. IAB qualified individuals give small businesses or accounting and bookkeeping practices a competitive edge. Further information about our qualifications can be found via the following links:
Bookkeeping qualifications: www.iab.org.uk/bookkeeping-qualifications/
Payroll qualifications: https://www.iab.org.uk/payroll-careers-qualifications/
How we support bookkeepers and accountants:
We are dedicated to supporting bookkeepers, accountants and SMEs. We do this by:
- Ensuring members are kept up-to-date with the latest news and changes relating to the bookkeeping and accounting sectors through the IAB’s own magazines and e-newsletters, and also the exclusive newsletter from Croner-i, which you receive if you are a professional member. This offers new ways to run your business efficiently and provides information to help you keep up-to-date with bookkeeping, accounting and payroll-related matters.
- Working to raise the profile of bookkeepers and the vital support that our members provide to businesses around the world, by attending business shows where we represent and promote the services of our members and also through local and national press coverage.
- Representing your views to government departments and agencies on a range of areas. This also enables us to keep you updated in relation to changes which will have an impact on bookkeepers, accountants and SMEs. Some of the meetings we have attended in the past year are:
- HMRC working group meetings which are attended by other professional bodies. The main topic raised at these meetings is Making Tax Digital for VAT which comes into effect from April 2019.
- The Pensions Regulator professional body working groups in relation to automatic enrolment and the changes taking place over the next year including further increases to contribution rates from April 2019.
- Meetings in relation to the changes to the Money Laundering Regulations which took place in 2017 and guidance on how to comply.
- We regularly meet with other supervisors and are also involved in Flag It Up which is a campaign run by the UK Government and supported by professional bodies to raise awareness of the warning signs of money laundering, promote best practice in due diligence and encourage the high-quality reporting of suspicious activity. Further information about the campaign can be found here: campaign.gov.uk.
- Meetings with Companies House providing updates in relation to the work they do and changes taking place.
- Upskilling individuals around the world through our bookkeeping and payroll qualifications. This equips people with the knowledge required to either run their own business or to progress or begin their careers as a bookkeeper or in a related role, enabling them to excel and hit the ground running to provide vital support to businesses.
Are you an accountant looking to outsource work to a bookkeeper?
If you’re an accountant and you’re looking to outsource the bookkeeping work for your clients to a bookkeeper then why not choose an IAB professional member? IAB members are not only qualified, but also professional and supervised with all the skills you and your clients need. They are required to continue their professional development – ensuring your clients receive the most professional service.
To find a bookkeeper please visit: www.iab.org.uk/find-bookkeeper.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the IAB, our membership or qualifications and the support we can provide please contact us: [email protected] or +44 (0)1732 897750.
We will be exhibiting at Accountex on 1-2 May so if you attend come and see us on stand 1111.
A personal guide to the UK accounting software landscape (Part 2)
I’m on a mission to depict the current landscape of software available to accountants to help improve their practice through better visibility, efficiency and/or automation.
My goal is to break down and understand just how many pieces of software are out there to help paint a picture on what firms can do in 2019 to build their tech stack successfully in the UK.
Here's Part 2 of my personal guide:
Workflow, Job management
- AccountancyManager
- Senta
- Karbon
- BTC
- Capium
- Glide
- CCH
- IRIS
- Xero Practice Manager
- QuickBooks Online Accountant
- Thomson Reuters Onvio
- Sage Accountant Cloud
When you see a list like this where do you start? If anything it was a little overwhelming to see just how many product there are available to accountants in the UK. In Australia this number is nearly halved and even when you consider what firms are using in the cloud, that number becomes a lot smaller.
Personally my biggest recommendation for picking a workflow tool, is try to find something that is going to integrate into your cloud accounting ledger. If you’re running QuickBooks or Xero, then you need to be sure that your workflow tools have an integration. If there’s no integration, then again you need to be mindful of what are you actually trying to solve, as you’ll end up double handling your data manually which is the opposite of what you want to achieve.
If you’re looking for an easy no cost entry to the market and you’ve got a small team. QuickBooks Accountant or Xero Practice Manager could be a great option for you to consider. Both products integrate back to their cloud ledger and have their own perks and benefits as a result. Also with Xero’s acquisition of Instafile it’s only a matter of time before this is incorporated into their practice management strategy in which case you’ll hopefully have a books to tax workflow, all-in-one.
For something with more depth and complexity, then it’s hard to go past tools like Senta, Karbon and Accountancy Manager. Yes you got options with CCH, Sage, etc but I would say this is not where the momentum is. BTC and Capium have notably been award winners in the past - but having little no to exposure to them or firms using them I can’t comment too much on how effective they are.
You’ll also find that some of these tools mentioned may also have Tax filing included which we’re about to talk about next.
Once you find a workflow tool that suits your needs, helps your firm stay organised and you’re really on top of your client work! Congratulations you’re 50% of the way there!
Tax
- Digita
- TaxCalc
- InstaFile (Xero)
- TaxFiler
- Nomisma
- ABC Self Assessment
- Simple Tax
Again, I found a lot of different tools that you could be using in the firm, with a variety of desktop, cloud and everything in-between. Coming back to my first point, I need something that integrates directly into my cloud ledger, and even better if that’s connected to my workflow solution.
As previously mentioned, Instafile was an interesting acquisition for Xero. I’m watching intently to see how this new product add’s to the UK Strategy.
In this mix the two I’ve come across the most are TaxCalc and TaxFiler, with both having integrates to QuickBooks and Xero, this is potentially a smart platform for you to be using if you carry both or one of those options in your firm.
The conclusion...
Navigating your way through the UK software market is no easy feat. I thought this would be a cake walk but honestly I can tell you, it wasn’t. I was left with a lot of questions. But when I focused back to the key pieces that were most important it was integration and streamline of process. I don’t want to have to learn how to use multiple pieces of software, I don’t have the time to trial 4 different practice management systems and I want to create a seamless experience for my clients, so that even they can see the benefits of running a fully cloud and automated stack.
Now this guide won’t work or for fit everyone. Why? Because we’re all different. You’ve got different firm with different needs and maybe you’re already using a combination of the products mentioned. It can be hard to shift, switch and change, especially if you’re systems are heavily integrated or completely disconnected. There’s no point bringing in another disconnected system unless it’s helping you to improve your client or staff experience, and help improve your profitability. Anything that doesn’t meet these two bits of criteria and you really need to ask yourself why you’re using it in the first place.
Good luck, happy hunting and remember. It’s best to plan out what you’re trying to achieve first, before you start buying tools and trying to get them to fit your existing processes. You may need to reinvent yourself and/or your firm as part of this process.
Trent will be speaking at Accountex on 1-2 May 2019. Check out the line-up here.
State of Social annual report 2019 – 10 top facts for the accountant
Based on the responses of over 1,800 businesses in the new State of Social Report 2019, paid for social media advertising is shown to be gaining traction with almost a quarter of respondents seeing it as very effective and a third saying it is effective.
Almost, two thirds (65 per cent) are planning to increase their social media advertising budget in 2019.
Accountants, often dismiss social media as something to do when there is room in the budget. However, if these insights are anything to go by, it can represent a cost-effective way of brand building, of finding new opportunities and increasing visibility as part of an overall marketing strategy.
Here are 10 top line facts for accountants taken from the report:
- Social media is a key part of marketing strategies Social media marketing has been around for many years now, and the majority of marketers see it as an important part of their overall strategy. Fifty-eight per cent of marketers say social media is “very important”, with 30 per cent saying it’s “Somewhat important”.
- Facebook and Twitter are the most widely used social media platforms Facebook is the most widely used channel for business use and 93 per cent of those who took part in the study said they were using it. This reflects a slight fall from 2018, when 96 per cent who took part in the same survey said they use Facebook. Twitter follows closely behind with 84 per cent. Instagram is in third position with 80 per cent, and 70 per cent of businesses use LinkedIn. Instagram is gaining traction and has increased its usage in the survey from 70 per cent in 2018 to 80 per cent in 2019. LinkedIn remains constant with 70 per cent across the two years. Interestingly, WhatsApp is now being used by 14.5 per cent of businesses.
- Facebook is the most popular platform to post business content on Facebook remains the most popular channel for businesses to share video content (81 per cent), with YouTube in second (62 per cent), and Instagram third (57 per cent). LinkedIn is fifth (32 per cent), and could be a channel to watch in 2019, with early data showing that videos on LinkedIn are being shared 20+ times more than any other content.
- More and more brands are turning to video content Facebook still leads the way. Video content in gaining in popularity with this year’s findings showing that just 14.5 per cent of businesses don’t publish any video compared with 25 per cent in 2018. More than one-third (36 per cent) publish video content monthly, with about a quarter (24 per cent) publishing video content weekly.
- Image and video lead the way as most important aspect of content Over a third of businesses consider that image/video is the most important aspect when creating and publishing a piece of content and this is followed closely by 34 per cent who consider narrative to be the most important. Call to action came in next with 21 per cent feeling that this is the most important feature.
- Lack of time is holding businesses back from creating more video content A lack of time is the most important reason given for not creating more video content with 66 per cent citing this as their number one. 41 per cent say they have no budget and 23 per cent say they are not sure what to create.
- Half of businesses don’t have a documented social media strategy There is almost a 50/50 split with 50.0 per cent saying that they don’t have a documented social media strategy and 49.1 per cent that say they do.
- Businesses are uncertain how to measure social media’s effectiveness Social media’s effectiveness as a marketing channel has long been debated, and the survey found that, though social media is key to marketing strategy, 19 per cent of marketers are still uncertain how to measure its effectiveness.
- Likes shares and comments are considered most popular form of meaningful engagement Over 66 per cent of respondents consider that receiving likes, shares and comments equals meaningful engagement when measuring the performance of content on social while 59 per cent consider interaction with the brand as their definition of engaging with the content.
- Engagement is the number one way of measuring ROI of social media advertising Engagement is used to measure the ROI of social media advertising by over 60 per cent of the companies that took part in the survey while traffic follows closely behind. 48 per cent cited leads as the key measure with 43 per cent choosing sales. This appears to be a continuation of a trend that was first seen in 2017 with social media becoming more about engagement than driving traffic or making direct sales.
Conclusion This report provides some interesting insights into those platforms that are being used effectively for social media campaigns in the business environment. With privacy emerging as one of the key priorities for 2019, one-to-one messaging is set to increase in popularity.
Accountants that want to deliver more personalised content have the option to use mass social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Messenger or they can use tailored communication platforms such as OneApp that have been designed specifically to connect accountants and clients digitally on their smartphones and tablets.