Using The Hubspot tool to manage your social media – an introduction for accountancy firms

Used wisely, the Hubspot tool could generate leads, convert more prospects into customers and boost awareness of your brand too. And, let’s be honest, why wouldn’t you want to invest in a platform designed to save your accountancy firm time and money? Social media marketing is hard. It’s also highly competitive. So you need to pull every trick out of the bag to get that all-important competitive edge over your rivals.

Before extolling the virtues of the Hubspot tool let’s take a step back and talk about social media marketing. Not all accountancy firms use platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram – so an introduction to these digital channels will help lay the foundation for our short Hubspot guide.

Strategic Positioning

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is about promoting your brand or business on one or more platforms through the creation of content tailored to the specific needs of your audience. The aim is to make your brand highly visible and engage with your prospects – with the ultimate aim of generating leads and carving out a strong online presence.

How many people use social media?

According to Data Reportal, there were 4.70 billion users in July 2022. The biggest social media platforms own the lion’s share of the market and in the following proportions.

Popular social media platforms include:

  • Facebook – 2.9 billion users
  • YouTube – 2.5 billion users
  • Instagram – 1.4 billion users
  • Snapchat – 617 million users
  • TikTok – 613 million users

Can you afford not to invest in social media? If you answered no, keep reading to learn how the Hubspot tool could help you tap into a growing audience of highly engaged users – many of whom are looking for a firm just like yours.

What is Hubspot?

The Hubspot tool is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool designed to help businesses of all shapes and sizes track leads and watch customers as they progress through their sales journey. The basic version is free but you can bolt on extra tools if needed – some of which come with a price tag. 

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How to harness the power of Hubspot for social media marketing

The Hubspot tool is packed with features – but not all are geared toward social media. Read on to find out which tools your firm can appropriate to enhance brand visibility and convert more customers.

#1 Track competitors and monitor mentions

Keeping pace with your competitors and engaging with prospects and existing customers is easy with Hubspot..

Keep tabs on your rivals

Your posts seem to be performing well but how do you measure up against the competition? Fortunately, the Hubspot tool lets you track rivals’ social media content by adding their URL – creating a stream that shows their best performing posts (you can compare up to three competitors)

You can now:

  • Compare rivals’ posts or filter by each
  • Sort content by date or channel
  • Order posts by interactions

And much more. You can even tell if a competitor has boosted a post (in other words paid to prioritise it in their prospects’ social feeds).

Eavesdrop on your audience

Right now people are mentioning your brand. But you don’t know who these people are or what channels they are using. Just think about all those wasted opportunities. You could be converting enquiries into sales or strengthening your brand profile by responding in a timely manner to complaints or questions. 

Using the Hubspot tool you can:

  • Identify engagement opportunities via alerts about likes, retweets, or favourites
  • React and reply to conversations received through your social channels

Keeping tabs on competitors, engaging with prospects, and identifying new opportunities couldn’t be easier with this nifty feature.

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#2 Schedule your posts to save time

Do you really have time to log into each of your social channels to publish posts? Rather than tie up your teams’ time unnecessarily you can use the Hubspot tool to schedule posts using the platform’s inbuilt calendar.

Especially useful is Hubspot’s bulk scheduling feature which lets you prep up to 200 posts for distribution via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Just think how many hours you’ll save.

Overall the scheduling feature will:

  • Make your firm more agile – so teams can focus on tasks other than social media management
  • Ensure content is posted often – instead of being forgotten or pushed back due to other priorities 
  • Boost profits – because you’ll be working efficiently across multiple areas of your business

#3 Which of your social media posts are performing?

Far too many businesses see posting on social media as a rite of passage: a duty they must perform simply because ‘it’s the done thing.’ Once published the content is forgotten about  – disappearing into a digital abyss.

And yet reviewing posts is an essential part of any successful social media strategy. How can you generate interest in your brand unless you know (a) what’s working; and (b) what isn’t? You’re posting just for the sake of it.

Using the Hubspot tool’s ‘Analyse’ tab you can review:

  • Created by – who published the content (if within Hubspot)
  • Interactions – how many have liked or reacted
  • Shares – how many have shared/retweeted 
  • Impressions – how many have seen your post
  • Clicks – how many have clicked

Hubspot cons

Is Hubspot right for every business? Does it have its flaws? As with any social media management tool Hubspot has its fair share of cons – although these are arguably outweighed by the pros. As to whether it’s right for your accountancy firm, the only way to tell is by signing up for a free trial and experimenting.

Some disadvantages of the platform include:

  • Considerable investment. Costs range from hundreds to thousands of pounds per year depending on how many users you need and the features required.
  • Extensive configuration. You’ll need to put in considerable hours of hard work to configure the Hubspot tool – although this is true of competitor platforms too.
  • Tricky to master. Once set up the tool can be hard to use correctly, especially when it comes to segmenting email lists and avoiding deluging prospects with messages.

Conclusion

Although hard to set up and use, the Hubspot tool can reap rewards if implemented correctly. But this brings us back to the issue of time. One of the primary reasons businesses sign up for social platforms like Hubspot is to reduce the manual effort involved in publishing and analysing posts across several channels.

Do you really have the hours and expertise to become certified Hubspot experts? If not then it makes sense to trust the hard work to experts with extensive social media knowledge – and who can therefore boost your engagement and ROI.

Why not book a free call with one of our experts to learn more?

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