Where Are The Accounting Blogs? Pt. 1

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It has been 3 years since (June of 2005) Eva M. Lang, wrote, what I consider the seminal article on Accountant Blogging.   She asked the question, “Would You, Could You, Should You Blog?“  The article is in my mind the first real attempt to see how the whole blogging phenomenon fits into the world of accountants and other tax pros, whether it’s worth valuable time and energy to blog, as well as provide useful resources for accountants who want to blog.

(Her follow-up hit, “Accountants Who Blog“) is also widely quoted or referred to)

The article purports to “tell CPAs how blogging can advance a firm’s marketing, project management and research efforts” and for all intents and purposes does a fine job.  The article has been cited by numerous other blogs:  CPA Firm Technology Blog, Courtsnewcommtechblog, Golden Practices with Michelle Golden, The Solo Accountant Reporter, just to name a few.

Her article has also been included as content on various other websites (Questia, Allbusiness.com, Allbusiness.com again, etc.

(BTW — Both are a HUGE lesson to be learned there as to the power of what GOOD content can do).

Eva provides some examples of accounting blogs:  www.briantankersley.com/cpatech, Tax Guru (www.taxguru.net) blog, Taxable Talk blog (www.taxabletalk.com). Tax & Business Law Commentary blog at http://taxbiz.blogspot.com, and Our Taxing Times blog at http://trishmc.typepad.com, as well as some nontax accounting and law professor blogs, including one of my tax professors from Villanova Law, Mauled Again.

Where oh Where?

There are a number of folks asking where are the accounting blogs?

• Eva Lang notes that while lawyers have quickly adopted blogs, accountants have not.
  
• JE Moore, The Solo Accountant also noted the discrepency between lawyer blogs and accountant blogs.
• Michelle Golden asks the question: “CPA Bloggers: Where Are The Accountants?” (but notes a few months later that it is growing in “More Accounting Blogs.“

This excerpt from WebCPA (Blogging for Dollars) sums up the lack of accountant vs lawyer blogs:  Golden, whose blog, online at www.goldenpractices.com, lists links to blogs written by CPAs, said that the accounting profession has been slow to adopt blogging as a communication and marketing tool, as compared to those in the legal profession.”

“Lawyers are all over blogs; there are thousands of law blogs and there are two dozen accounting blogs,” Golden said. “The most effective blogs are industry niche-based, but a big problem [that accounting] firms have is declaring, ‘I’m a specialist in X,’ because they are overly worried about the implication that they don’t specialize in Y and Z. If they’re a small firm, they’re worried that they’ll disqualify themselves, but if they’re a big firm, it’s politics. When it comes to blogging, they mistakenly think it’s an all-or-nothing deal. Even if somebody is innovative enough to move forward and blog for industry niche X, other partners oppose it, saying, ‘I don’t want to do a blog, but I’m an expert in Y, and that’s going to make me look bad.’ This is an unwise sacrifice of a great opportunity for the sake of ego.”   Amen I say …

Progression and the Struggle to Keep Blogging

Again, it’s been three years since that article was written, and the question she asks is still relevant.  David S. Rachford over at CPAMarketingCenter.com alludes to one of the underlying reasons why some blogs fail to survive — lack of consistency.  He suggests that one should establish a regular posting schedule and that you can start with posting once a week; but make it realistic.  He adds that “consistency is key to improving your search rank, and your position online.”  I would only add that it is crucial to keeping the blog alive, meaning that a lack of consistency will create a negative feeling towards creating a new blog entry and a feeling of just giving up.

Says Reed Tinsley, CPA, CVA, CFP and a Houston-based consultant for the health care industry writes a blog at http://rtacpa.blogs.com, said that in the last 12 to 25 months, he has gained roughly 50 clients from his Web site and blog, which he tries to update every day.

“If you read my blog, I’m not pontificating like a lot of blogs do,” Tinsley said. “The intent of my blog [is] a receptacle of quick ideas or updates, changes in regulatory issues people need to know about. I’ve told my colleagues lately, I’m really surprised about how much business and inquiries I get through the Web site and I think part of that is the blog itself.”

The Association for Accounting Marketing has this to say about the emergence of Blogs.

“Similar to an online diary, a blog allows a firm to generate buzz by initiating two-way communication directly with readers. Some consider blogging to be an unsophisticated tool, but businesses now use them regularly to reach clients and expand mature markets. Savvy bloggers employ RSS feeds as a way to pick up regular readers. — 9/2007. MarketTrends, Association for Accounting Marketing.”

…. To Be Continued