This is the playbook we walk accounting practices through when they want to grow the online side of the business.
Start from one shift in framing: Facebook, your website and every other social platform are commercial premises. Putting up a proper website is the equivalent of taking an office in the city centre - not a box to tick because "every business has one these days".
Chartena has built digital assets and online premises for a lot of small and medium firms, and what follows is the version that consistently gives small businesses the most result for the least spend.
It used to be enough for an accountant to be good at the work, or to open a firm and live off word of mouth and referrals. That has changed. Combine genuine service quality with the near-unlimited reach available online and you can double, triple, even ten-times revenue - without another qualification and without paying for more physical space.
First job: fix the website
Most accounting offices have a website... in name only. Stock photos, generic service copy that reads exactly like the other hundred firms, and a handful of "SEO articles" the web agency wrote to fill space - nowhere near enough to move a Google ranking.
Your website should behave like a full-time salesperson: on duty 24/7, always ready to explain the service and persuade the visitor to book a consultation, or even close on the spot.
For that to happen, the current price list has to actually be on the site, and there have to be buttons and forms so people can get in touch and book.
Use forms, not a wall of call and chat buttons
Resist the urge to plaster call buttons and chat links everywhere. Use well-designed enquiry and registration forms that collect what you actually need from a prospect. Someone incorporating a company should be asked the standard questions up front - company name, sector, capital structure - which both filters out the tyre-kickers and saves you time when you call back, because you already know their situation.
Leave a bare phone number or chat handle and you mostly attract idle price-checking, which exhausts your consultants (and you), since you're advising someone whose circumstances you know nothing about.
The site does the work when you're not in the room
Here's the situation every good accountant knows: someone you've just met likes you and asks for your details so they can talk about working together. What exactly are you handing them?
A simple business card pointing at a substantial website makes their decision far easier - especially when the person who likes you isn't the decision-maker and has to take it back to their boss. A site that lays out your experience, articles showing how you've handled real tax and compliance situations in exactly their field, your process and your pricing makes it much easier for "the boss back at the office" to say yes.
And publishing prices for at least some services makes quoting lighter and far more professional. A price sent over chat can feel like an opening bid, or like you sized up the client before naming a number - businesses with money are particularly wary of that. When core services carry a public price, people read it as the firm's official rate. If it's out of their budget they still respect it, rather than suspecting you inflated it for them.
Social platforms are the trade fair, not the house
If the website is the house - head office - then Facebook, TikTok and Instagram are the trade fair, the event, the supermarket floor where you attract a crowd.
Keep in mind these will always be someone else's venue, with rules set by whoever runs that market. Finding clients there works well, but always bring them back to head office to do business. Don't run the actual work on those platforms - the risks deserve their own article, and we'll cover them separately.
In other words: post on Facebook all you like, but the destination is your website, where the full information lives and where the enquiry or booking form is waiting.
Concretely: someone messages asking what company incorporation costs. You send the landing page on your own site - "have a look through the service here" - instead of typing out a long explanation that tires you out and tires them out too. The landing page is polished and complete: service detail, past cases, pricing, and one clear next step (usually booking a consultation). It saves an enormous amount of time at exactly the stage that eats your day.
There's a second effect. Once someone is inside your house, they wander into the other rooms - and discover the other services you offer without you having to upsell. Accountants generally don't enjoy the feeling of having to sell expertise they spent years building. So let people browse. Everyone likes buying and hates being sold to: "if I find it myself, fine - but if someone pitches me, I assume I'm being worked."
Run a business page, not your personal profile
On social, set up a proper business page rather than working from your personal Facebook account.
That keeps your personal brand separate from the firm's brand, which matters enormously if you have interests across several sectors.
The page is where the articles and videos live. You then share that content from your personal profile, so friends and contacts who are interested can follow the business page themselves.
If the business page publishes ten posts, share three to five of them. That gives interested people a reason to follow the page for the rest, so you avoid spamming personal contacts who don't care about accounting, while still reaching the prospects who genuinely want the knowledge.
The posting plan: edit posts and ad posts
On the business page, the plan we recommend is deliberately lean - it cycles year after year and still performs. There are two kinds of post: editorial ("edit") and advert ("ad").
Edit posts
Edit posts share knowledge and value: useful explanations, behind-the-scenes or personal glimpses of the firm, or entertainment at a sensible frequency.
For example:
- The risks people run into when incorporating a company, or an update on the 2026 tax rules
- A photo of the team at work
- A funny caption about something that happened on a job
Edit posts sell nothing. They exist purely to be useful. They tend to open like: "If your tax code has been locked, check these items... here's what to do... and then we..."
Ad posts
Ad posts are advertising. Think of a newspaper ad - except instead of carrying ads for anyone who pays, your page only advertises your own firm and services.
They're short and clear: what's on offer, and what to do next - book, enquire, get started.
Ads can be general or specific: the firm's overall credibility (how it started, its track record) or one particular service (unlocking a suspended tax code, say). They read like "ABCXYZ has ten years' experience doing ABCXYZ - get in touch at..." - or even "hiring a general accountant..." Yes, recruitment ads count.
The ratio
The usual split is 50-50, adjusted for your sector and the nature of the firm.
The bigger the engagements and the more premium the client - the more trust you need to build - the more you tilt towards edit posts. If instead you deliver standard services to a broad range of clients, tilt towards ads so more people learn the service exists: lower value per client means you need volume.
One rule: anything you put real effort into writing goes on the website first, then Facebook. Post a portion of it there and invite people to read the full piece on the site - so that effort also earns another visit to head office.
A week, laid out
A workable week: Monday edit, Tuesday ad, Wednesday edit, Thursday ad, Friday edit, Saturday ad, Sunday edit.
Give the edit slots fixed themes so they're easy to keep up. Monday: the latest circular or regulation. Wednesday: a photo from a client visit or trip - it makes the firm easy to picture and connect with. Friday: a specific tax strategy you know well. Sunday: something lighter, or a Q&A thread in the comments to engage the people following the firm.
The Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday ad slots flex to whichever service you want to push that week.
In short
Your website is the firm's digital asset, its head office, and the place where trust gets built and clients convert. Facebook, TikTok and the rest are channels that get you known and route people to the website. Quality content builds credibility; ads make it clear what you offer and what to do next.
Marketing an accounting firm doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. Build the right foundation, share knowledge consistently, and give people a clear path from first hearing about you to booking a consultation - do that and you're already well ahead of most of the market.
The important part is treating your online presence as a long-term investment rather than a short campaign. Every article, every video, every enquiry left on the website adds to a digital asset. That asset keeps bringing in new clients while you're heads-down on the work, out meeting clients, or on holiday.
A good accounting firm deserves to be known. Marketing doesn't replace service quality - it gives more people the chance to discover the quality you spent years building. Put solid expertise together with a systematic marketing approach and you stop depending on referrals alone, and start generating new clients steadily and predictably.
Written by
Thi Nguyen
Marketing & Automation Consultant