Legal Marketing Articles

Posts Tagged ‘Social Media Marketing’

Reach more clients when you Tweet with Hashtags

Monday, March 15th, 2010
Iran's Election Crisis

Twitter is an great way to get your name in front of people on the web.  You don’t need a large following, as with traditional marketing efforts, just networking with the people you know can bring you leads or referrals.

But what if you  do want to reach a larger audience, or you are getting overwhelmed trying to stay in touch with everyone, or you have different topics for different groups? This is where hashtags (#)  come in.

A hashtag is just the pound symbol – # – followed by the name used to broadcast to a specific group.  For example, you can have #lawyer or #attorney.  Anyone that is set up to follow that tag will then receive your tweet.

Check out www.hashtags.org to see if a group exists by using their search box. And if there isn’t a group already, then create a new one by tweeting it.  Just use the #hashtag in your post.

Let’s say you have multiple areas of practice and want to send a tweet, but it is only meant for a specific group of people.  You can create a hashtag for #duilawyer and then a #drugcrimelawyer  to tweet each potential client group separately.  Although it is possible, you probably wouldn’t use #frensodrugcrimelawyer even if you are a Fresno Drug Crime Lawyer.  The number of people following this tag is probably small, if any at all.

Keep your tags short.  Sticking with our Frenso-CA-lawyer-theme, if you are a domestic violence attorney in Fresno and you have a tag like #fresnodomesticviolenceattorney, consider using abbreviations.  This tag is too long and takes up a lot of your characters.  You’re better off with #domesticviolence or even #domviolence.

There are some commands that you need to be familiar with some you can broadcast your message to the people who want to read it. Here are some of the key commands:

  • Follow #tag – lets you follow all updates tagged with #lawyer.
  • Follow username#tag – subscribe to all updates from a certain person that is sent to a group.
  • #tag message – Send a message or question to the group.
  • #tag !message – Send a message only to people who are subscribed to updates from #tag.
  • Leave #tag – Unsubscribe from the group. If your friends are subscribed to this group as well, you’ll still get messages from them that include updates for the group through your friends.
  • Remove #tag – Unsubscribe from the group and from friend messages that include this tag.

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How to Use Social Media Effectively

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Part II

If you’re a lawyer or law firm considering using social media tools to promote your business, it’s important you know what methods will help you and which could hurt your business.

  • Make it personal. When creating your various accounts with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any other social networking site, make sure to significantly personalize your page. Like all business marketing tactics, grabbing viewers’ attention right away is the most important. Make sure to outline what area of law you practice, your success stories and what makes your firm stand out alongside all of the rest.
  • Update, update, update. Nothing can hurt a business using social networking more than having old content up on their sites for months at a time. If a potential client comes to one of your pages to see what you’re about and content is old, he or she is going to most likely move onto the next attorney or law firm. Whether you’re a one-lawyer firm or a part of a larger firm, it’s important you or a fellow coworker is always updating your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn accounts. By refreshing your online content and adding newsworthy blogs or newsletters, the credibility and attractiveness of your firm will increase in viewers’ eyes.

 

 

For law firms, social media can be used to draw in new clients or reach out to existing ones. In either situation, it’s important to use online social networking to your business’s advantage and make sure nothing you’re doing will hurt or eventually hurt the number of clients you acquire.

For more information about various social media techniques and aspects, visit www.socialmedia.com or read about social strategies and social news at www.socialmedia.biz.

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Social Media Tools Not Best Choice for Legal Marketing

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Part I

As the trend of social media use increases, so have various industries’ adaption of such tools for marketing purposes. Nowadays, not only are millions of people a part of various social networks, but you can find a glimpse of almost every industry on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and the like.

Most people view social media as an always useful and beneficial way for companies to connect with people (and potential clients) and greatly increase their business. Many – however – do not realize some of the disadvantages of using social media to market.

For the legal industry, for instance, it may not be as beneficial. Like all businesses, it’s important that attorneys and law firms market their company efficiently. They work to promote their firm’s practice areas, successful experience-relating anecdotes and what generally sets them apart from the rest.

But for attorneys social media is not necessarily the best professional marketing tool for your legal business.

An attorneys’ primary marketing goal is to acquire new clients and expand his or her business. People all over the world use the internet to search for lawyers to help with their legal matters. Especially if someone recommends an attorney to someone else, that person is most likely going to do a quick search on the web before calling the firm for an initial consultation.

If attorneys or law firms have existing Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts, those will most likely be the first results to pop up on a browser should a potential client search for an attorney name or firm.

This isn’t necessarily a “smart” marketing strategy. Rather than a possible client being able to immediately visit your home page, read about your success stories and winning cases or learn about your primary areas of practice, he/she has to shuffle through a few social media sites first.

Like all business on the web, if a person cannot immediately find what he/she is looking for, they often move on to something else.

This downside is especially relative to attorneys who – in general – don’t have the time to sit down and update his or her Facebook or Twitter page daily, weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly for that matter. Consequently, potential clients immediately see outdated and untouched web page content which will lower their expectations and opinion of the firm.

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