Social Media “Teaches” Legal Marketers to Promote Themselves the Right Way
I recommend using social media as a central component for your law firm’s new business program. The primary reason is that it “teaches” small-to midsize firms to do the things they should have been doing all along to acquire new business.For social media to be effective you must:
- Identify your niche and your best target audience
- Listen. Better understand your prospective clients marketing challenges, obstacles and frustrations.
- Be transparent. The success of your audience must be more important than your own. But it goes without saying if you can help your audience with their success you will be successful.
- Build relationships. People always want to work with people that they know, like and trust. Social media provides these opportunities. It is “networking on steroids.”
- Always lead with benefits rather than the firm ’s capabilities. It’s all about your audience. The moment you try to “sell” your firm, services will be the moment you lose your audience.
- Become positioned as client service leader rather than a marketing partner. Clients want leadership not partnership.
- Better communicate and articulate what you know. Believe it or not, many legal marketers are often poor communicators. Don’t believe me? Ask any of them what they do. They can’t succinctly define what they do apart from a prolonged discussion.
These are the things legal markers should be doing, but most don’t.
Social media becomes the tool to put these things into practice. It helps small and midsize firms create a more clearly defined focus and differentiate their business strategy that will give them a competitive advantage for new business, a higher-profile reputation, and an improved ability to attract and win the clients they really want.
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