This article is one in a series of 'help guides' for 2025 ProAdvisor Award applicants. It deals exclusively with requirements for the U.S. ProAdvisor Awards. You can apply for the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE or nominate a U.S. ProAdvisor HERE.
Not everyone receiving the Top Social Media ProAdvisor Award over the past ten or so years has had a 15,000-attendee monthly webinar or a 100,000-listener podcast. So, if you answered our headline question "yes," we want to ensure you know how to earn the most Top 100 award points possible for your social media engagement.
If you answered the headline question "maybe," we want to ensure you have a chance at being ranked for the Social Media award category.
For many ProAdvisors, social media is the primary focus or one of the major focuses of their practice. For others, social media is a necessary component of their practice to promote their services, increase awareness of QuickBooks and the ProAdvisor profession, and share what they have learned with their colleagues.
So I will ask you. "Do you have a blog you write or contribute to?" Perhaps, "you host or regularly participate in a podcast?" Or maybe, "you have a tremendous following of other ProAdvisors or QuickBooks users for your "X," "Linked-In," "Facebook, "or another Social Media Network?"
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you could be a Social Media mogul who is a perfect candidate for the Top 100's Social Media award.
If you're a social rock star or mogul, we want to show you how to maximize your scoring potential. So, let's look at some of the Social Media category-related questions in the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor award application.
ProAdvisor Practice Categorization
As discussed in several other articles in this series, a critical place to start is with one of the major keys to positioning yourself for the social media category. U.S. ProAdvisors are asked to 'categorize' themselves according to the same categories and sub-categories we use for the awards.
Question 44, at the bottom of Page 7, is "QuickBooks ProAdvisor Practice Categorization" (shown below). You may select two or more of the categories listed. For each category, you need to rank your practice emphasis. Any or all categories that you consider as 'fundamental' or 'primary' to your practice you should rank using the option "Primarily my ProAdvisor Practice." Any categories you consider as being of 'secondary importance' to your practice you should rank using the option "A secondary priority of my ProAdvisor Practice."
Be aware of the carry-over terminology from years past regarding social media. The social media category is "QuickBooks Evangelist—' I host social media about QuickBooks'." If you are a social media mogul or a regular rockstar in QuickBooks (ProAdvisor, accounting, etc.) social media, be sure that you are ranking yourself in this category with either a 'Primary' or 'Secondary' option. Failure to do so could preclude you from being ranked in this category.
Social Media Platform Preferences
Next, I want to call your attention to Question 52 at the bottom of Page 9... "Rank Your Social Media Preferences" (shown below).
We ask you to rank the ten most popular social media platforms and give us at least your top three (3) platforms. Notice that we ask you to rank the ten platforms on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being your highest preference and 10 being your lowest preference.
What you've never previously been told is our point system for this question is just the opposite of the rating scale. In other words, your first platform choice earns you 10 points, your second choice earns you 9 points, your third choice earns you 8 points, and so on.
Indeed, you can stop ranking your platform preferences after enumerating one through three (as we tell you in the instructions), but that will only earn you twenty-seven (27) points. If you rank all ten platforms, you can more than double the total number of points to fifty-five (55).
Social Meda Evangelist ProAdvisor
This is not a question but a page of questions within the application form geared toward the Social Media Awards category. I am talking about Page 21, the upper portion shown below.
When you reach this page, you have answered one or more questions sufficiently to qualify you preliminarily for consideration in this category; however, some applicants, unlike you, might not consider themselves Social Media Rock Stars or Moguls. We, therefore, give them the option, using Question 97, to turn off this page completely.
If you are still reading this article, you want to find yourself at the top of Page 21 so you can answer additional questions related to your social media exposure and experience.
Social Media Activity
Just as we ask instructors to tell us how many hours they taught or authors to tell us how many pages they wrote, we need to know how many hours of 'social media activity' you produced during 2024. Question 98 (shown at the bottom of the illustration above) provides you with space to record your social media activity in hours.
Produced social media content can be your own 'social media blog' or a 'podcast' or other format(s) of social media in which the content must be related to accounting, bookkeeping, or business consulting. This produced content may or may not be product-specific. Still, if it is product-specific, that content must be specific to the Intuit QuickBooks product line-up, the QuickBooks Ecosystem, or the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program.
Let me give you a few examples:
- If you have a podcast and discuss your practice as a ProAdvisor, you discuss QuickBooks Ledger, or you present using QuickBooks Workforce for Payroll onboarding, those are eligible hours.
- On the other hand, if your podcast covers Xero, Sage Intacct, or another 'brand' of accounting software, those are NOT eligible hours.
- If you team up with two other ProAdvisors to discuss practice efficiencies or accounting methodologies, those are eligible hours. However, divide the time (hours) by three because we assume you share the delivery time equally.
Be sure NOT to include hours you report elsewhere in the application form.
Social Media Followers
Question 99 (as shown below) has another list of Social Media platforms; however, this time, rather than rank those platforms, we ask you to report the number of followers you have for each. Please note that these are individuals who 'follow you,' NOT the number of individuals 'you follow.'
You will select the number of followers from a drop-down menu for each platform. The ranges in the drop-down menu are extensive, so select the range option that is most appropriate for your followers when you complete the question.
You must report the number of followers for at least two (2) platforms. Of course, you can earn more points for reporting your followers on all the platforms you actively participate in.
In Summary
Most of you will have ProAdvisor practices that focus on one or more categories other than Social Media, with it as a secondary consideration; however, some of you may spend more time involved in the social media aspects of your practice than in client-related services.
If you provide social media services, as we discussed, then social media is at least a "Secondary Priority" of your practice, and you should apply for the U.S. Top 100 ProAdvisor Awards and report all your social media activities.
On the other hand, if you know another ProAdvisor who is really into social media, then you should nominate them for the U.S. Top 100 ProAdvisor Awards.
At this point, we need to gratefully acknowledge our 2025 Award Sponsors, without whom these awards would not be possible.
