We're

so happy you decided to come back and
listen to Count Me In's 150th episode.

Welcome to today's conversation.
I am your host, Adam Larson,

and the speaker for this
milestone episode is Mfon Akpan,

assistant professor of accounting
at Methodist University.

Mfon has a passion for
emerging technologies and as
an expert in virtual reality

technology.

He researches new technologies and
educational methods to offer students

occurrent effective and relative teaching
experience and his conversation with

my co-host Mitch,

Mfon talks about the value of social
media and its accounting implications for

accountants and finance professionals.

Stay tuned now and thanks
again for listening to
another episode of our series.

Social media is not something
that many, you know,

accounting and finance people probably
keep top of mind, but following,

you know, initial conversation here,

there are a lot of dots to connect
between social media and accounting.

So to kick off our conversation,

can you please explain why is it
important for our accounting and finance

listeners to really understand
the value of social media?

Well, I would say that, well, first of
all, that's a great question, Mitchell,

and I would say in one word data and

another word funnels.

So when we look at the
outage of Facebook and

Instagram, that just happened,

there was a huge
disruption in both of those

areas, one data, so information,

two funnels. So you have many
businesses that use social media

to drive traffic, not
only to their websites,

but also to their physical locations.

And this was completely
disrupted. So, so many of those,

those individuals may say, well,
my business doesn't rely on,

social media is not that important.
What, when it was gone, many,

many business owners
felt the impact of that.

And I think it's important
as accountants for us to

understand number one,

to advise clients on their situation,

but also the environment as a whole.

And we need to also understand
where the environment is going.

So, one thing,

and we talked about this a
bit before the interview was

I found out that Facebook was down
because I started getting text

messages from, from companies and place
idea of business with that said, "Hey,

come to our website, Facebook is down,

this is a chance for you to
check out certain things".

That's how I found out because I was
getting text messages from it. So,

you know, understanding how this
can impact the flow of business,

I think is very important.

And I think the outage
of Facebook for many

business owners was a wake up call on
its importance and also the importance

of having some type of backup plan,

which translates to a
strategy on what to do if

it's not working.

And or if that platform that you are on

for some reason is not
as popular or as not as,

effective.

Yeah, those are great points. And, you
know, we, we talk about data, obviously,

data technology, evolution across
accounting and finance and, you know,

social media, it kind of lives on
all of that. So, you know, you don't,

like I said, it may not be top of mind,

but through our conversation and
considering everything that happened with

Facebook and Instagram and, you know,

we're talking events of the
start of October, but, you know,

I think there are, are a lot of other
points to connect with our listeners. And,

you know,

we also heavily rely on metrics right
in different benchmarks and other

data points specifically.
So as far as that goes,

what kind of social media metrics,

really affect the accounting and
finance team as these, you know,

events trickle down?

Well, I think it goes back to, as far
as social media, understanding that.

So from a, I guess, putting
at a very simple level,

understanding the dashboards on the
social media platforms that you're using,

that's very important from
the side of the accountant,

because if you're going
to advise your client,

you need to have some type
of understanding of it,

what data is there and what
may be relevant to your client.

Your client needs to understand it cause
needs to understand who's engaging with

their content. And when we
think about social media,

it can be broken down into three
areas. So you've got owned,

you got paid and earned. And
when you think about your,

your own accounts, so what you're posting,

if it's a Instagram,

if it's a Facebook or if it's
a Tik Tok understanding, okay,

what I post who's looking
at it, who's looking at it.

What are their demographics?
You know, are they moving?

And you can also look to, to
determine where the traffic is going.

Are they coming into the store?
If it's a physical location,

are they going to the website?
If they do go to the website,

are they buying same thing. If
they go into the physical location,

they call that conversions. So
understanding that, and really that,

that movement of getting people from
that social media to your website and

location, that's, that's a
funnel, what they call a funnel.

So understanding that I think
is important on both sides.

So from the accountant side to
the, to the, business owner side,

the other thing is that
what I tell people is,

you know, many people are, are,
overwhelmed. They said, well,

this is a lot of stuff to
learn. And I say, you know,

you don't have to become an expert at it,

but you should be knowledgeable,
particularly if you're,

if you're using it for your
business, you're posting it.

You may be missing out on opportunities by

understanding that information.

And particularly you need to
be knowledgeable if you're
doing what's called paid

media, you're paying for advertising.
You really need to understand,

are you effectively using your,

advertising dollars on that
platform? But if it makes sense.

I think, you know, for accounting
and finance, everybody's looking to,

you know, make sense of the
numbers, right. And quantify things.

And obviously everything you're talking
about certainly relates to that.

And I think one of the best or most
common, however you want to say it,

metrics really is, you know,
that ROI, what is the returns?

So when we talk about that,
what is the actual measurement,

as far as social media impact, you know,

what are some scenarios where
understanding ROI is really most important

for, you know, the business
owner, the accounting function.

Yeah.

It is very important because you want
to make sure that it's specifically

would that pay media portion.
You want to make sure that it's,

it's being effective. It's being
effective. There's measures,

not in the dollar sentence,
they call volume and valence,

but you want to make sure that, okay,

if I'm spending a
thousand dollars a month,

what does that equal in conversions? What,

what is the return for me on
that as a business owner and

as an accountant,

you want to be able to
understand if these,

these campaigns, as they
call them are being a few,

if you're advising your customers
or your clients to, use paid media,

is it being effective? So you,

one of the measures as
the impressions and the,

the overall engagement
with whatever, posts,

which could lead to further
awareness, or again,

the end goal is conversion. So,

and there's schools of thought
on this, the awareness is,

is more of the long game where they
said that awareness will eventually

lead to conversions or sales,

and then the conversions.

So immediate traffic and
then purchases, you know,

that that's the shorter
term of, of the area.

So it's important to understand all of
that and to have some sort of strategy,

whether it is formal or
informal, and to be able to,

to recommend and make
recommendations to your clients.

Also looking at trends.

So looking at seeing what works
and what does it work. And the,

a lot of this is tied into, you know, you,

you have the marketing point
where there's not a really,

you're putting things out in the
public public domain. So, you know,

some things may work is
a lot of trial and error,

which may be daunting to some as well.

So as far as keeping track
of all this, right, you know,

there are a number of data points that
you just discussed and a number of ways

to go about really figuring
out that return, I suppose.
But as far as, you know,

providing some kind of insight,

what can be used to track these
different metrics, you know,

are there tools out there?

How can our listeners who are interested
in learning and doing more in this

space, start to apply what it is
that we're talking about today?

Sure. So I'll answer this
from that. The answer is, yes,

there are many tools and many of the
tools that you may see there's different

dashboards that will measure
it. They, they, from,

from my research and investigation,

many of these tools,

the vast majority are based on
something called the Eisenberg EMV.

The Eisenberg EMV,

and they released what they
call the social media index. So,

and what this index is,

is they put a dollar amount on the likes,

the shares,

the engagement from various
social media platform

comments.

So from Twitter to Tik Tok
to Facebook, to Instagram,

they have a whole list.

So then you're able to put
a dollar amount on your

engagement. Why is that important?
Well, again, we talked about the ROI,

but now you can start measuring
the impact and effectiveness in a

dollar amount. So you may
have a spin, you know,

you spend 12,000, 15,000 on paid ads.

Now you can take a look at that
engagement from the paid ads

and put a number on it and say, well,
okay, this is really the net of it.

This is the return on that investment.
What we've gotten back from it as well.

Now, the power of that ties into
what they call earned media,

which is outside what you
post and what people are, are,

really talking about you
putting a value on that.

And that's something that I
think is very interesting,

which can tie into
community impact initiatives

and spending money in those
areas. And then posting,

and then getting an ROI on that earned
media from those particular initiatives.

So that community impact that
you were just discussing,

I think will probably lead nicely into
the last question I have for you here,

because, you know,

we talked a lot about business
impact and putting dollars, right.

Quantifying a lot of our
activity and operations,

but I'm sure there are parts of
social media that businesses can't

necessarily quantify
or measure, right. So,

and I guess if the answer to that is,
yes, it's probably a two-fold response,

right? There are certain things
that the business can't measure,

but can still be valuable, I suppose,

kind of like what you were just
talking about, but then, you know,

maybe there are parts of social media
that can't be measured and actually

increases risk. I don't
know. so, you know,

are you able to share some
insights into what other, you know,

qualitative data points from social
media businesses should be aware of?

Oh, that's very good. So comments,

so it's hard to measure
comment what people are,

are writing. I mean,

you can and you'd have to read through
all of the comments and try to find all

of them, which can be challenging,

but to find out what people
are saying about you, that's,

that's the hard part to
measure and they call that

consumer sentiment. So
it's hard to quantify that,

but you can take a look at
your analytics as far as

your, likes and,

and your shares and
engagement and impressions.

So your engagement on your particular
posts. One thing I would say for,

let's say a smaller business
owner that may be spending maybe

$500 to $12,000 in paid

advertisements. So their,
their budget monthly,

maybe between that $500. And, you know,

let's say $12,000 range is to
think about taking some of that

money. And this is something
we can advise our clients to,

to try taking some of
that money and potentially

giving some of their product away,
giving some of their product away, give,

give $200 of the product,
$2,000 of their product.

If it's,

let's say a t-shirt company
give 2000 t-shirts to a

boys club and then post it
and then take a look at the

engagement that they receive.

Now there's indexes
like the Eisenberg EMV.

If you're not able to afford that,
you can compare and contrast,

take a look at the engagement.

So this is why it's important to
understand that dashboard and your data

analytics,

because you can take a look at
your engagement from your paid ads,

from your earned media.
So from what you've done,

and this can be an incentive for you to
do some type of community initiative,

right? And, and it could
also generate more sales.

So it could be a win-win on that
side. So there's different ways to,

to look at it, but I think it's
important to understand it.

And, and again, it comes down
to, well, there's many points,

but I think the two primary
are the data and the funnels.

So the information that engagement,

and then the funnels leading to
sales and understanding that.

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