Be relevant and grow clientele by really using social media
TWITTER value
Twitter enables you to establish yourself as an intelligence agent in niche areas of the law.
Your Feedly folders include blog posts and articles relevant to your work. Add Buffer, a software application that enables you to schedule your tweets, and you have a one-click solution to tweet what you are reading.
Include the Twitter handle of the blogger, reporter or subject so that they see you. It’s their seeing you that builds your name and nurtures relationships.
You’ll build a following on Twitter as people see you as an intelligence agent, a sort of Associated Press on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You’ll have funneled the most relevant news for those interested.
Dennis Garcia, assistant general counsel at Microsoft in Chicago, sees Twitter as invaluable to lawyers for learning, networking, getting news, being an evangelist and building a strong reputation.
Garcia cannot imagine a practicing lawyer not using Twitter. And here’s a recipe for failed efforts: Your firm is looking for technology clients while employing attorneys who don’t use Twitter well.
FACEBOOK friendly
Facebook is the most powerful—yet underutilized—social network for lawyers. While almost 2 billion people use Facebook, most lawyers are afraid to touch it.
Yet a recent study found that almost as many people use Facebook professionally as LinkedIn.
The best way for me to get hold of leading executives, including law firm leaders, is Facebook Messenger. It’s where we have gotten to know each other personally and naturally.
It feels natural to message the president of Bloomberg BNA and the CMO of Jones Day, asking to get together for business as I fly from Seattle to New York City. They’ve become my friends, in part because of Facebook.
When befriending someone on Facebook or considering a friend request, ask whether they would add value to your life. It may be family pictures; it may be the news and information they share. Facebook is much more than accepting friend requests from people who just change their profile picture every few months.
Share what you’re passionate about on Facebook. It may be sports, family, business and your team at work. Those are mine.
Let the algorithms, the most powerful in social media, decide who sees what. Facebook can display any one of 1,500 versions of a news feed to users. Those who use Facebook see what’s valuable and relevant—not junk—as a result.
Think you can’t build a name and relationships on Facebook? Ask Staci Riordan, a partner at Nixon Peabody’s Los Angeles office who, with a blog and Facebook, invented the fashion law niche and is now representing the top brands in fashion worldwide.
I’ll never forget the day she told leading lawyers in New York City that she wouldn’t be caught dead on LinkedIn; her clients were on Facebook.
It’s not all about the type of work you do, either. New York City-based Lew Rose, managing partner of Kelley Drye & Warren, weaves Facebook magic by giving shoutouts to associates, sharing pictures of cocktails with friends and telling stories with his wife.
becoming LINKED
LinkedIn is much more than a resumé and Rolodex. With its robust mobile app, LinkedIn has become an effective social networking solution.
Share word of your blog posts in your status updates. Look to see who likes and comments on your posts. Rather than just think it’s cool to see likes and comments, as every lawyer does, get out and meet the folks via LinkedIn.
Is there an in-house counsel who commented on your post? How about a local financial planner who could refer work to you as an estate-planning lawyer?
Reach out and connect with them on LinkedIn. Ask them for lunch or coffee. You need not say, “I saw you liked or commented on my post.” They’ve already taken a liking to your view on things.
Share and comment on the posts of others on LinkedIn, doing the same thing. Remember that the end game is not content: Content is relationship currency.
Connect with most every business person or legal professional you meet. LinkedIn gets to know who you would like to meet and who would like to meet you. LinkedIn is offering to go out and seed relationships, yet most lawyers blow it off.
DON’T RUSH and DON’T WAIT
Start slow. Social media is an art and a skill acquired over time. Don’t try to master everything from blogging to Facebook. You may never use all the media. Set a goal of one year to have a working understanding of social media.
Remaining unconnected is not an alternative. Doing so is selling yourself, your firm and your family short.
There has never been a better tool to learn, to build a name and to nurture relationships, all in less time, than social media.
This article appeared in the August 2017 issue of the ABA Journal with the headline “Sociability Skills: Be relevant and grow clientele by really using social media" Kevin O’Keefe, a 2009 ABA Journal Legal Rebel and a leading authority on the use of blogging and social media for professional and business development, is CEO of Seattle-based LexBlog, a managed platform for the law used by more than 15,000 lawyers worldwide.
