Doctors, Medicos, Lawyers have instantly adopted blogs and now its the turn of us accountants. But if one may ask what does a blog have to offer to the accountants the prompt answer which comes to my mind is discussion of ideas, participation, expression of views and thoughts.

But thats not the end of the road. These bolgs can be used as marketing tools too. Another added advantage of such blogs can be ‘Knowledge Management or sharing of knowledge.

Marketing—. A Blog can provide a low-cost way to reach a desirable market segment or the prospective customers—the affluent and well-educated—and woo them as your prospective clients. One way to approach this is to integrate a blog into your marketing plan, so it works with your existing Web site and newsletter.

Knowledge Sharing Other than helping to publicise the firm, a blog can be used to showcase the niche expertise. Also, blogs can allow everyone in your firm to share information quickly on current developments and to track information on sales leads.

A business blog should be updated frequently. Also it shoudnt contain inaccuracies nor should it be poorly written. A poorly wrtten blog can do more harm than good. Further, no one should commit to writting a blog unless he has the talent and the time to do so.The time commitment for writing entries, gathering and incorporating related links and responding to comments that users may leave on the blog can be substantial.

Knowledge management. Accountants may find value in a blog as a knowledge management tool. Firms can use blogs to help current employees work more efficiently. As a repository of “institutional memory,” knowledge blogs can educate new hires, remind current employees of policies and procedures, link to documents employees need to read and document best practices.

Internal knowledge blogs, sometimes referred to as k-blogs, are becoming mainstream business tools. Each team member can enter his or her remarks to create a record of actions and decisions. Blogs make it easy to document projects so that all team members are better informed. Knowledge blogs also can serve as a venue to help telecommuting employees stay more involved or for departing employees to leave knowledge behind.

Accounting firms that install accounting systems for clients may find internal blogs useful to manage those customer projects. Notes about updates, timelines and problems encountered with installations can be posted on a blog for the team to review.

HR Tool A blog can be used as a means to hire new recruits wherein the blog can display the vacancies in the firm and can call for applications too.

Popularity: 1% [?]