Perhaps the overwhelming message coming out of the LMA New England Regional Conference, Lawyers v. Technology, which took place this week in Boston, is that social media are not going away despite many a lawyer’s reluctance to embrace them. Luckily, legal marketers seem to be willing to continue to push the adoption of social media as part of an integrated marketing strategy and as a way to create and sustain personal branding and “thought leaders.”
(Cartoon commentary by Michael Cucurullo)
The cultural shift has begun in a few firms and in select pockets within firms. Over lunch with Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog, and between sessions with other legal marketers, I heard and shared success stories of individual attorneys and firms alike using social media (including blogs, videos, Twitter, Linkedin and the like) and attributing them to creating and strengthening relationships and winning new business. Certainly, legal marketers’ interest in social media and their technological literacy has increased dramatically in the past few years.
Below, I share the scribbles on my conference notepad (that still made sense the day after). In no particular order, these are “my” take-aways.
1. Google Analytics is not necessarily the best analytics program. Sure it’s free, but Google does not let you have as much control and access to server data as other paid programs, including PDF downloads. Some other analytics programs to check out include GetClicky.com and OpenTracker.net.
2. Web traffic rule of thumb. For the first time I heard the answer to a question I am often asked by law firm clients. The question: How much traffic should we be getting? The closest thing to an answer I’ve heard yet: 3 visits per attorney per day. Further explanation: The number was given by Igor Ilyinsky, of FirmWise, which conducted a study of 1,000 law firm websites, sizes ranging from between 5 and 250 attorneys. While the number should not be interpreted as the amount of traffic a site “should” get, it is the outcome of this specific study and does give us a benchmark to consider. (Using this benchmark, I am happy to report that law firm sites I manage for clients are getting 2 to 6 times this amount of traffic when looking at absolute unique visitors per month.)
3. Use Linkedin’s Advanced Search feature to automate keyword searches that get e-mailed to you weekly. What an easy and great way to “listen” to your industry segments.
4. Remember the basics. Technology aside, Deborah McMurray of Content Pilot reminded us of this important starting point for your web site strategy.
People are coming to your website looking for three things:
- What have you done?
- Who have you done it for?
- What can you do for me?
5. Attorney bio pages are still #1 — are yours up to snuff?
6. Video can be powerful.
7. The future is mobile.
What are your take-aways? Since I only attended one day of the conference and 3 sessions, I’d love to get other attendees to add their favorite conference take-aways by adding comments to this post! Thank you!
Great summary Amy.
With so much focus on social media and staying connected, it was nice to see all of the attendees managed to make it through the day without their smart phones!
Here are a couple of other tips I took away.
It is better to put an individual attorney’s name on a Twitter account than a topic specific name. For example @JoeSmith is better than @BostonIP.
Look at using tools like Mashable, Google Reader, TweetDeck, and HootSuite to help schedule and manage your Tweets.
Don’t be afraid of your competitors. If their content is applicable to your followers, retweet it, include it in a blog, and share it in LinkedIn. It will help establish your reputation as an expert in the area.
42% of people click the first link in a Google search. Only 8% click the third link. What comes up first when you search your name? Is it your firm bio or LinkedIn page? Update your bio and LinkedIn pages to ensure you are making the best first impression.
Thank you for adding your take-aways Kirsten! OK, who’s next?
Great info Amy – thanks for devoting a post to the conference. Here are my top three:
1. When writing a social media policy, take a broad approach and tie it in with existing firm policies;
2. Use QR codes for specific purposes and point them to specialized pages – and *track* traffic from each code;
3. Sometimes you just have to tell an attorney “Don’t Waste Our Time!” This applies when perceived ’emergencies’ don’t match strategy.
Thanks for coming Amy – maybe we’ll meet next time!
Excellent post Amy. I’d add:
1. Remember to think of social media as a listening tool
2. It is also a tool to accelerate relationship building (thanks Kevin O’Keefe of Lexblog for that one.
3. It’s all about content and sharing content. Decide on goals, and determine content, and then decide on which tool(s) to use.
Again – thanks for putting this out there Amy!
Stewart
Great points. Thank you Stewart!
Thank you to Michael Cucurullo of Teplow Cucurullo Communications for the great cartoon to illustrate this blog post.
There are more comments related to this post on the Linkedin discussion here:
http://lnkd.in/bwqExG