7 reasons to not use social media

You don't need social media if ...

1. You have more "A" customers than you can handle.
2. You don't want prospective clients and customers to find you.
3. You don't want to get recognized by press and your profession / industry.
4. You already know all about your customers, team members, and partners well enough.
5. You don't want to waste time building more relationships and connections.
6. You could care less about the new generation -- they need to adapt to you.
7. You love spending money on training and meetings and don't need any more cost savings.

Earlier this week, I presented a session at MACPA's Technology Conference titled How Social Networking and Remote Conferencing (via Second Life) Transformed the MACPA (and What It Means to CPAs).

Of course, we had to "walk the talk" by giving the session as a mixed reality session, live and in Second Life, and we treated the group to live conversations with Dr. Mike Kraten (Suffolk University) and Eric E. Cohen (PwC and one of the founders of XBRL), who came to them virtually from CPA Island.

Here are our top five lessons learned (look at slide 56 for more detail and what it can do for you):

1. Goin' virtual (Second Life), which allowed us to offer free CPE and new formats.
2. Listen and share. Our blogs have helped us communicate in much easier, faster and more effective ways than we ever dreamed. (Bonus: Our staff team knows what we are thinking and focusing on.)
3. Sharing is easier and strengthens our relationships with our members (Flickr, Slideshare, YouTube) -- over 40,000 views without any marketing or PR dollars spent!
4. Next practices: Connecting to thought leaders via social media is much easier than old-school methods. Just look at our Web 2.0 learning tool for CPAs, www.cpalearning2.com.
5. Connecting to members (or customers and prospects) is amplified and magnified via social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.
   
   How Social Networking & Remote Conferencing (SL) Transformed MACPA

   View more documents from Tom Hood.

We closed the session with our view of how Second Life can transform continuing education for CPAs and some real-life examples. Two easy examples of the power of this medium are our presentation at the AICPA Tech plus Conference and our broadcast of the XBRL International Conference from Paris this summer (highlights in the link). Or see our post about how to save money by training in Second Life.

If you aren't one of the lucky ones who does not need to care about social media, we have help for you.

You can learn about all of this social media stuff in 15 minutes a day at www.cpalearning2.com.
Learn about blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, RSS and more (and it's free from us to you).

Check out our webcast, "CPAs and Social Media: Passing Fad or Valuable Tool," on Thursday, Dec. 10, from noon to 1:40 p.m. Click here to register.

Here are our blogs (you can subscribe via RSS or by e-mail):

• CPA Success
• CPA Legislative Insider
• Business Learning Institute
• Second Life and CPA Island
• New CPAs

Connect with the MACPA here:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Facebook (NYPN)
• LinkedIn

Social media sharing sites for the MACPA:

• Presentations on Slideshare
• Videos on YouTube
• Photos on Flickr

Comments

[Ben]

Hey Bill, great post, I checked out both the slideshow and the cpalearning2 site and they both rock. I'm thrilled to see an association leader on cutting edge of social media. What has you success been with Second Life?? I've never heard of anyone using it like you're doing...

[Bill Sheridan]

Hey, Ben -- We've had some pretty exciting success with Second Life, particularly in the education arena. We've held numerous CPE-qualifying virtual events for our members and have brought a number of thought leaders in-world to speak to our members about a variety of issues. The members who have attended our virtual events have loved the experience. The challenge now is to spread the word and show more of our members how they can benefit from joining us in SL.

Thanks for reading!