Online v offline marketing & communication

GinnyBee

Evening everyone. I wonder if I could have your thoughts on marketing & communication methods, specifically for our industry. This comes out of a to conversation with my sister in law at the weekend.

We are both in the accountancy/bookkeeping business and were talking about the various methods available to small businesses for marketing (everything from cards in the corner shop to Facebook adverts)

She uses the "normal" methods for advertising (her words) and said to me that she didn't agree with using Facebook for business as it is a social network. Any anyway none of her prospective clients would be there anyway. Just an extract from a much longer conversation but it gives the gist, note that we did not get onto paid advertising such as Adwords or blogs and so on, the conversation kind of stalled at Facebook!

Do you think her thoughts are where the majority of the UK population are?
Is Facebook appropriate for accountants?
What about other networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter? Forums?
Any other thoughts?

Thanks, look forward to hearing your comments :-)

(Just a quick note to say this post is completely unrelated to my other post earlier!!)

burg

I've tried traditional methods with very little success. I am on Facebook but not very active so to speak. I do have a company page but I don't do alot with it. I do however run an adwords campaign and this is around 60-70% of my new clients with the remaining being word of mouth.

For me internet based methods are better and have had far more success. I do plan to do more with Facebook and Twitter but frankly I don't really 'get' Linkedin