I would recommend starting with one Facebook business page for the law firm. They take a lot of care and feeding, so to build more than one at a time might be a monumental task at first. One option is to have it focus on one major practice area, industry group or area of focus in your business and marketing plan, but I would suggest making it multi-focal to start. Your clients and friends need to be reminded what your firm is capable of, so let it cross-sell for you. Try to encourage conversation, an emphasis on your clients’, as well as your, activities, and don’t ever stop creating topics and conversation, and inviting people to come visit through its promotion on all of the social networks you are using.

Facebook accounts or profiles should always be separated in to two different types – personal and professional. How embarrassing it would be to have had a fun night out on the town only to have an embarrassing photo of you tagged to your Facebook page where clients and future clients will view.  We recommend always getting permission from partners or management if you do set up a professional blog, social networking profile or anything else that will use the name of a law firm or company name. Even if the name of the company or law firm is only in your biography. Get it in writing.

Now, if you have a professional law firm or company FaceBook Fan Page or account set up you may want to have your IT staff create the accounts using the employees law firm / corporate email address. That way the firm always has control over the account.

I strongly urge law firms to set up individual Facebook accounts for each member and to advise the of their individual policies such as the purpose, what you will allow and not allow on the Facebook page, and making sure they use them for “law firm” business only. I would encourage the employees or attorneys of the firm to also add friends to their account that would be appropriate and to use care. Also I would encourage them to have their network become “a Fan” of the law firm’s Facebook Fan Page or Account.

There are a lot of legal pitfalls to avoid so we would recommend obtaining advice from employment lawyer that specializes in reviewing employee handbooks and Internet policy to make sure your covered.

This shift and the ability to communicate credibility has law firms positioning their law firm’s Facebook like icons on high visibility areas of their web pages. This means that lawyer and law firm Facebook fan pages that have the most Facebook users who “like” what they have to offer will appear higher in Facebook search rankings.

Right now there are two different ways that a Facebook user may “Like” your law firm’s fan page. The first technique is by adding a Facebook “Like” link or plug in on your law firm website so that users of your website may click on your law firm’s Facebook’s “Like” icon. The other option to generate more Facebook.com fan page “Like” votes is by creating a fan page within Facebook for your law firm that is separate from your personal Facebook page which gives Facebook users the option to “Like” your law firm.

Facebook has confirmed that there is no difference, at this point, which option is best for placement on its search engine.

So, what does this mean for lawyer marketing on Facebook? It means there is a value to promote not just your Facebook profile, but more importantly to push users, visitors, clients and colleagues to vote or “Like” your law firm Facebook Fan Page. Also, using a dual strategy where you include the Facebook Open Graph API and website/blog plug-ins you will achieve the very best results.  Also, becoming more active on Facebook with a law firm page is am important step toward increased visibility in social search results resulting in more new clients and establishing effective web credibility.

Lawyer Success, Inc. (lawyersuccess.com), has been a leader in solo and small law firm web lead generation since 2003. We help law firms get ahead of their competition through the use of highly specialized law firm Internet marketing techniques. Call the law firm marketing experts at Lawyer Success, Inc. now at (769) 218-6099 or log on to http://www.lawyersuccess.com to learn more about turnkey blogs, social media marketing and other web lead generation solutions for lawyers, attorneys, legal professionals and law firms of all sizes.

The point of having a face book page for law firms is to keep the public informed of what is going on in the firms practice area. This gives potential clients the confidence that the firm is active and current. What I have found useful is to link both facebook and linkedin to twitter. Post a comment on one and it proliferates through all sites. For longer articles make a post to facebook. The end goal is to keep everyone informed.

Justin Kistner, an analyst at Webtrends said that social media websites like Twitter  and Facebook would likely diminish in popularity by 2012. Our law firm marketing consultants have been involved with Web marketing for 11 years and have seen the rise and fall of many popular websites.  We agree that social media is likely to peak around 2012 and that the next big thing is right around the corner probably likely to appear some time in 2015.  This is consistent with some other observations about specific sites.

Other exerts in the field of web traffic and usage analysis such as Compete,  say that the number of Twitter users has flat-lined. Compete, a Web analytics firm, says that the microblogging website’s number of visitors hasn’t changed much since June and that its roughly 22 million visitors in December 2010 was about 770,000 fewer than its highest number, which was in August 2010. And other analysts paint the same picture, raising the question: Has Twitter peaked and what does this mean for lawyer advertising and marketing effectiveness?

Although it appears that the “Twitter fad” may have indeed peaked, another social media website, Facebook, continues to see steady growth in both visits and new accounts. In January 2010 Facebook drew 133.6 million unique visitors which out ranked the grandfather website Yahoo that garnered 132 million visitors. Another important statistic is that Facebook is the number one website when it comes to the amount of time people actually spend online using the website.

Compete.com, the popular Web analytics firm stated, “In January, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook (compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google. Google still holds the number one spot with 147.8 million visitors, or nearly half the U.S. population.”

The question becomes, what does this mean to attorneys and law firms when it comes to their Internet marketing strategy? We believe that social media marketing for lawyers is here to stay and will continue to grow in importance as these social media sites learn how to turn their massive membership in to business opportunities.

I particularly like websites or social media sites that take in detailed information or demographics from their user. The user can add personal details such as their favorite movies, books, career, job title and more valuable information for marketing purposes. Unlike Twitter, this enables advertisers to zero in on specific demographics or groups that offer the best match for their services making pay per click advertising very attractive and targeted.

Call Lawyer Success, Inc. to discuss any questions you have about marketing your law firm online or on social media sites like YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter or others. Call (769) 218-6099.