A decade of accounting and social media

Some 10 years ago, when I was at the helm of a national accounting magazine, two of my Millennial staffers came to me with an idea. They wanted to start a section of the publication that would be geared toward young accountants and diversity, since the profession long held a reputation of being older, white and decidedly male.

One of the foundations for the new offering would be a high-profile presence on what was then a burgeoning social media platform – Facebook. Since I was several years past their generation and knew they were far closer to what piques the interest of young CPAs than me, I told them to run with it, the only stipulation that I had the final say on the business plan and that the IT department would agree that it was doable.

We got a bit of a pushback from the technology folks who insisted that the social media aspect be another fast-growing platform – Twitter – but my staff stuck to their guns and a few weeks later, the section was on Facebook and we were printing out various iterations of layout design.

A decade later, it remains one of the magazine’s best read sections. Like the Hannibal character was fond of saying on the A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together.

Shortly thereafter I began my own page on Facebook and later on LinkedIn as well.

I harken back to that successful venture into social media when I saw that as of June, Facebook had exceeded the 2 billion mark in monthly users. Let me repeat that – 2 billion! To put that figure in perspective, if you combined the populations of North and South America, Europe and Africa it would still fall short of 1 billion people.

On a daily basis, Facebook as 1.32 billion users. Its Instagram unit has 700 million monthly users while it houses some 15 billion business profiles.

But enough eye-opening statistics.

You know what’s even more amazing? That I still encounter CPA firms that bypass any and all social media. To me this is akin to refusing to go paperless. The proverbial no-brainer. I tell them that just on an exposure scope; they’re probably missing out on untold client opportunities.

Despite all that I’m sad to report there are still more than a few holdouts. They still harbor the past stereotype of social networking equating to social “notworking” and some firms still maintain an employee ban.

Those are probably the same folks who still have typewriter repair shops and Blockbuster Video franchises as clients.

Whether they want to admit it, social media has become as much of a part of the accounting landscape as cloud applications or other emerging technologies. Those firms that are slow or resistant to it can take heart in the fact that down the road they will be creating client and real estate opportunities for others far more enlightened.