TCP Accounting & Tax Services, by Gwyneth James
Case study from my book and my close friend, thank you Gwyneth!
I am an
accountant. There are not many other accountants on social media, I have found. However, I am also a businesswoman and the mother of two teenage boys. The
former means I know a good opportunity to promote my accounting firm when I see
one. The latter means I’m more in touch with social media and less intimidated
by recent trends than another person might be.
One of
the frustrations I encountered soon after I bought my business three years ago
was the lack of knowledge my small business clients had about their financial
aspect of their businesses. Things like what was tax-deductible and what was
not, for example. Or how to correctly calculate payroll taxes. Or how to take
advantage of tax credits.
Gwyneth's handle is @ghj_cga or you can go directly to her Twitter account by clicking on www.twitter.com/ghj_cga .
It
didn’t take me long to realize I could use social media as a method for sharing
some of the things I knew in an effort to try and help people. I started off
with a business page in Facebook and a profile on LinkedIn. I loved watching my
“likes” and “connections” grow and it didn’t take me long to figure out how to
avoid having to post the same message twice. I was not overly impressed with LinkedIn
at first since it didn’t have a live news feed – to see what people had posted,
you had to refresh the webpage. Even now, it only updates the news feed if you
“click for updates”.
I saw
other people were using Twitter to populate their LinkedIn updates so in
December 2010 I joined Twitter. I started out following a few trusted local
people and media companies to see what the “best practices” were. After a
couple of weeks, I made my first posts and retweets. Somehow I also figured out
how to set it up so my tweets fed through to both LinkedIn and Facebook. That
was such an accomplishment I celebrated with a big glass of wine!
You can go directly to Gwyneth's LinkedIn account by clicking on http://ca.linkedin.com/in/gwynethjames .
Through
my presence on social media I have made connections in the Peterborough area I
never would have made – primarily with folks younger than I am (I’m 48) who are
involved in the community and interested in promoting it. I have been
recommended and gained new clients as a direct result of SM. I have learned
about news events and have been reminded of important tax legislation. I have
been asked to judge a local version of Dragons’ Den and to write articles for
local magazines. Most importantly, I have been able to put my personal stamp on
company communications which reinforces the image I want to project – friendly,
approachable, and supportive.
Gwyneth James CGA, Owner
TCP Accounting & Tax Services
www.tcpaccounting.ca
