Social media marketing for attorneys in a nutshell

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This morning, I was reading an interview with Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, which as you know is my favorite application. I’m not the only one who loves Evernote; they’re adding one million users a month, without advertising.

The company’s growth comes in large part from its enthusiastic user-base sharing their love of the product with their friends and colleagues. Libin said,

“The job of getting someone who’s [sic] never heard of Evernote to use it for the first time is the job of our existing users. The job of our marketing department is to help our existing users do that job.”

He’s talking about social media marketing, of course, also known as referrals.

It struck me that this is the essence of social media marketing for attorneys. Social media platforms are just another conduit for customers (clients) to recommend products (services) to others. Obvious? Sure. Then why do so few get the referrals they want?

The key to success in social media isn’t how many likes or followers or friends one has. Those numbers are important, of course, but far more important is “passion”.

I didn’t just recommend Evernote, I raved about it. Well, my version of raving. I wasn’t over the top, mad with emotion (the California Bar frowns on that, I think) but I hope you could hear the enthusiasm in my voice, my love for a product that has truly changed my life.

I don’t know how many readers of this blog or my social media posts and tweets will go to the Evernote web site and try it but I do know that Evernote doesn’t pay me a nickel for sending them. Social media marketing works and it’s free.

There’s another point I want to make but Libin made it for me:

“. . .we started measuring stuff and found that users who had been referred to Evernote by a friend were much more valuable to us than users who had stumbled across us by themselves. . . .”

Bingo.

Referred clients are better clients. They are pre-sold on you, more likely to pay their bills on time, and less likely to complain about something you did or did not do. Best of all, referred clients are themselves more likely to refer other clients.

If you want more referrals, do something your clients can get passionate about.

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Lawyer TV ad spoof: would you hire this firm?

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Lawyer TV ads are often criticized for being tacky. “The Tackiest Lawyer Ad. . .Ever,” is a fine example. A lawyer advertising firm, hoping to attract lawyers for their services, created a parody of bad lawyer TV ads, but does it work? Would you hire the firm that created this spot?

[mc src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSKe42bxMZ0″ type=”youtube”]Bad ad about bad lawyer ads[/mc]

Do you think this is funny?

I didn’t laugh. Isn’t that the first objective of advertising that purports to use humor? In the first few seconds, I thought this was a cheesy lawyer’s attempt to advertise and I was embarrassed–for him and for our profession. Once I got the joke, I thought, “ah, a spoof, okay, we can all laugh at ourselves once in awhile.” But I still didn’t laugh; did you?

True, parody doesn’t always demand LOL and if this was just someone fooling around and poking fun, well, okay, it worked for some and not for others, but this is an ad by a company that wants us to give them their business.

Would you hire this firm?

The ad says, “lawyers’ ads are tacky and don’t work; we can produce an ad that’s not tacky and does work.” But they use a tacky ad to make that point. Is that good psychology? Is that good advertising?

I don’t think it is. At least not in this case.

If they showed us a successful ad they produced for one of their clients, would that be better? Yeah, I think it would. Show us what you do, not what you don’t do. Ads that demonize or make fun of “the other guy” can sell. But they have to get all the elements right and in this case, I don’t think they did.

What do you think? Click on the balloon above to add your comments.

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Where good ideas come from by Steven Johnson

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Soon, we’ll all be thinking about the New Year. How can we grow our practice? What can we do to enhance our personal life?

For some, the answer is to continue executing plans that are already in place. They know what to do, they just need to get better at doing it or simply give it more time. Others need a new plan. What they’ve been doing isn’t working. New plans call for new ideas, but where do ideas come from?

To answer this question, author Steven Johnson takes us on a visual journey into the creative process in this fascinating video:

[mc src=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=player_embedded” type=”youtube”]Where do good ideas come from?[/mc]

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The ABA Journal wants to know what lawyers think about the economy. I don’t.

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How’s business? The ABA Journal wants to know. They are surveying lawyers on the job market and the state of the economy. They’ve asked me to mention this on my blog, so here it is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=9Dhw2g7bX_2bxfq4mW8eB1Cg_3d_3d

Surveys are interesting, but guess what? The job market and the state of the economy have no bearing on your life. Unless you believe it will.

If you believe the economy will materially affect your practice or job, it will. If you believe it won’t, it won’t.

Does that sound naive? Some kind of new age hooey? Well, if you believe that, then for you, that’s exactly what it is. But I have different beliefs. I believe we create our reality. I believe we can choose to be successful in the face of adversity or we can choose to capitulate, wring our hands, and suffer along with everyone else.

It’s our choice.

You can choose personal responsibility. You can choose to be optimistic. You can choose to see opportunity when others see Armageddon. In the Depression of the 1930’s, unemployment was twenty-five percent and millions suffered. But many made fortunes. I guess they understood that periods of great change create opportunities for the status quo to change. Of course that’s also why many previously wealthy people jumped out of windows.

Business philosopher, Jim Rohn, said, “It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.” How are you choosing to set your sails?

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Update: In case you’re interested, here’s a link to the survey results: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/14307_lawyers_predict_the_future

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