5 places to steal content ideas to grow your firm
Stuck for what to create? Try these 5 places for inspiration...
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So you want to begin promoting yourself and your firm…
Maybe you’ve seen other accountants being active on social media, or sending out interesting email newsletters, and you want to do something similar for yourself.
But as you sit down to get started you find yourself stuck…
“What should I write about?”
The truth is that content ideas are everywhere, and once you start looking, you’ll find an infinite stream of ideas hitting you throughout the day.
Think about the last time you bought a car, you probably had a specific make or model in mind. I bet that during the process of buying that car, you started to notice more of them out and about on the roads. Sound familiar?
This is all thanks to your Reticular Activating System (RAS) - think of it as a simple filter between your senses (what you see, feel, and hear) and your brain (what you actually process).
Your senses are picking up on millions of signals each and every day, but only a small fraction of that makes it into your brain. This is the job of your RAS.
So when it comes to content ideas, you need to set your RAS to active and open to looking for content inspiration.
To give you a running start, here are 5 places you can find content ideas to grow your firm…
PLUS, an important tip at the end before you think about implementing any of these in your own marketing.
1. Your client’s questions
This is the best place to start.
Lots of firms spent their days fielding questions from their clients. Often these questions are asked multiple times by different clients.
By turning these questions into content (blogs, videos etc) not only can you use it as a resource to answer questions from your existing clients, but also as a way to attract new clients into your firm.
Quick Tip - Create a shared spreadsheet/Asana or Trello board for you and your team to keep track of all the common questions being asked by clients. Make note of frequency and use this to prioritise which questions to answer first.
2. Other accountants on social media
Pablo Picasso is widely quoted as having said:
“good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
Now I’m not suggesting you go out and steal other accountants’ content. But rather, look at what they’re posting and use this as inspiration for your own content ideas.
Can you put your own spin on it? Add a different perspective to it? Relate it back to the niche that you work in?
There are a ton of incredibly active content creators in the accounting community, here are a few we’d recommend following:
Quick Tip - What’s important to note about all of the people above is that they’re not trying to please everybody. Whether it’s content for a particular niche, or content with a particular angle which some might not agree with, getting a reaction and engagement from a core few is better than creating bland and vanilla content.
3. Trends on social media
Social media channels and algorithms are changing all of the time.
What works today might not work in 3 or 6 months’ time. That’s why keeping a pulse on what’s working and what’s trending is a great way to find content inspiration.
On Linkedin right now you might have noticed a trend of selfies with posts. And rightly so, they’ve been found to increase engagement by up to 3x and reach by 2.5x.
There are similar trends on Twitter with ‘threaded tweets’ where people write a series of connected tweets to break down a particular topic. Here’s a good example.
Keep your eye out for these trends and ask yourself how you can tap into them.
Quick Tip - Blogs like Hootsuite do great research pieces into current and future trends on social media and marketing as a whole. If you don’t have the time to spend learning on the platforms, this can help.
4. Follow other marketers and creators
Similar to following other accountants, why not broaden your content horizons and follow other marketers and creators?
People who create and monetise content for a living tend to be at the forefront of content creation ideas and trends, often being the first to do things before they become common practice.
Personally, I like to mix up the different mediums of content I consume to get a rounded picture of what’s working by following top creators on different channels such as Linkedin, Twitter, and Youtube.
Quick Tip - Create a marketing swipe file in Notion or similar apps to keep track of ideas/formats that you like so that you can refer back to them at a later date. Next time you get stuck, simply flick through your swipe file for a dose of instant inspiration.
5. Other industries
Sometimes the best inspiration can come from other industries outside of accounting.
What are recruiters doing to stand out in a crowded market online?
How are dentists driving new clients for what could be seen as a ‘grudge’ purchase?
What are airlines doing to promote themselves and get you to pay more?
There’s inspiration in all kinds of places if you’re open to looking for it.
Quick Tip - As well as looking to other industries for marketing/content ideas, also look at what other aspects of their businesses you can learn from for example how they onboard customers, or how they manage customer service.
Important, don’t steal these content ideas until you’ve done this first…
We said upfront there was an important caveat before you steal these ideas and start to implement them in your firm.
And that caveat is your content strategy.
There’s no harm in using the suggestions above to find content inspiration, but you need to make sure they fit in with your strategy before you start posting them.
This means thinking about who you’re creating for, and the best channels/mediums to use in order to target them.
Lots of accountants fall into the trap of ‘random acts of marketing’, a concept described in Alan Dibbs 1–page marketing plan.
These random acts might lead to some engagement and activity, but in the long run they often fall short in helping you to achieve your marketing goals.
To help you understand the importance of a cohesive strategy, our newsletter next week will feature a full tear-down of a real-world marketing strategy. That’s right, we’re picking on somebody from the accounting profession and breaking down their entire marketing strategy from the channels they’re using, how they’re using them, and what they can improve on.
Could it be you?
Tune in here the same time next week to find out…
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Until next time.
- Jordan & Matt
I loved this very informative thank you.