Archives for August 2011

Larry Bodine said goodbye to Facebook and Twitter; he’s now a “plusser”. Jennifer Golden is fed up with Google+ fanatics; she says Google+ doesn’t do anything you can’t already do on Facebook. And with the recent growth of Linked In, Steven Fairly notes the increased opportunities for lawyers to meet new referral sources.

So who’s right? Which social media is best for marketing legal services?

I think this is the wrong question.

If you’re going to incorporate social media into your marketing, why would you want to ignore Facebook, for example, with 750 million users, or Twitter, with it’s preponderance of influential Twitterati?

Social media marketing is time consuming. Checking in, following, commenting, posting, sharing, finds most people spending way too much time relative to the return on that time. And so most of us do have to pick and choose what we do with social media. But that does not mean we have to give up one platform in favor of another.

I am not a social media power user. I’m still trying to figure out Facebook fan pages, but I do have one. Twitter seems like the place to go if you like lots of noise, but I do regularly post. I have accounts with Linked In and Youtube. And I have a Google+ account which I haven’t spent much time on yet. So I am “connected” via social media, at least insofar as the biggies are concerned, and you should be, too.

But here’s the thing: I’m not connected via social media because I am “social,” I’m connected because that’s where the people are. I may not be very active on any one social media platform but many of the people who follow me are. When I share something they like, they share it with their followers. And that’s the point.

If you want to do ANYTHING with social media marketing, here’s what I recommend:

1. You should have business accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and, probably, Google+. Youtube is the only other option, if you produce videos. Don’t worry about the hundreds of other social media platforms, stick with these, that’s where the big numbers are. You will have to add/follow folks so that there is someone to talk to, but this can be done late at night, and will grow, over time. A few will lead to a few more and if you regularly post good content, this will occur (to some extent) naturally.
2. Connect your social media accounts to your web site or blog. Encourage visitors to follow/friend you and to use the social media badges on your site to share your content with their friends and followers.
3. Use software that allows you to post/update on all platforms simultaneously. If you have a blog, your RSS feed should post to your social media accounts; when you tweet on Twitter, your Facebook friends and fans should see the update.
4. Share your good content or somebody else’s, once or twice a day. Check your emails and direct messages, reply if warranted (this is networking, after all), but unless you are very good at growing your social media network and it is resulting in clients, and thus, is a significant source of growth in your practice  (or you want it to be), you don’t need to spend more than 15 minutes a day on social media.
5. As for your favorite platform, the one where you focus a bit more of your time and energy, just pick something. It doesn’t matter which one. As the social media world grows, Facebook may wane and Plus may wax and many things will change. Nobody knows where social media will be in five years, let alone five months, so don’t sweat it.
6. Lastly, if you don’t understand social media (and don’t want to) or you don’t enjoy it, if you have more money than time, I give you permission to disengage from all social media and do something else to grow your practice. Life is supposed to be fun, and that includes business, and if it’s not, do something that is.