Social Media + Search Engine Marketing = a Successful Law Firm Marketing Plan
Sunday, December 5th, 2010Most legal firms are well aware that social media has made dramatic changes to old-school marketing techniques; in the past you may have felt like your marketing efforts boiled down to your lone voice shouting out to an ever-increasingly distracted crowd, attempting to entice them to your firm. While there are some similarities between old-school marketing and the newer social media marketing, social media marketing takes away your lone little voice, replacing it with people who are telling others about your firm; they’ve been there, done that, loved it and want to pass along the news. Social media marketing, can take your law firm to heights you never even imagined in the grand marketing scheme.
Plan for Success
To make sure your social media search marketing efforts are highly successful, you must begin with an overall plan. Ask yourself who your audience is, and what your primary objectives for your marketing campaign are. Once you determine you audience and objectives, think long and hard about what strategy you will use to achieve your objectives, and what tactics will make your strategy a rousing success. Never forget that the goal of social media marketing is to influence potential clients to use your legal firm, therefore your goals should include increasing the number of connections, comments and re-postings.
Give to Get
Social Media Marketing requires that you encourage people to your site and your services rather than browbeating them to purchase. Offering free reports which give great, useful information is a great motivator as is constantly updating your website with information your potential clients will absolutely want to read and changing your blog frequently using the same criteria. Remember that simply taking your “regular” marketing or advertising campaign and putting it into Facebook will likely backfire, even possibly getting you banned should your messages be too overtly commercialized.
Always Be Upfront and Honest…But Realize You Can Never Absolutely Control the Message
You always want to strive to create honest yet professional social media to ensure that you don’t alienate the very people you are attempting to establish relationships with. In turn, your satisfied readers will tell others about your social media leading to excellent, yet responsible marketing strategies. Never lie or come across as fake; some examples of this include starting fake blogs which are populated only by employees. This type of practice can permanently harm your legal firm’s vital reputation. In old-school advertising you were totally in charge and could control the message completely. In our new social media marketing world, however once something hits the Web, people are free to adapt, change and interpret as they see fit—making honesty on your part even more important. Even though you need to protect your brand to the extent possible, you must know that controlling information on the Web can be next to impossible.
SEO….Yes, Again!
You may have the hottest legal website around, have a legal blog that is truly unparalleled, or sending out the greatest Tweets imaginable, if no one knows you exist, none of these things will matter at all. Search engine optimization is key to your success, and you must give it the seriousness it deserves. Remember that three out of four adults in the United States use the Internet for legal advice and information—only six years ago that was hardly the case. Today’s Internet is the biggest source of legal information in the United States, leading the number of people who currently ask friends and family for legal advice in a decline of over 35%. Think about it—why ask anyone else for advice, when Google is only a few keystrokes away? This means that the challenge of having your website and blog found, easily and consistently is an incredibly important one, and legal SEO is, at the end of the day, what makes it happen.
Don’t Forget….
You should encourage participation and feedback from your clients; if a client posts something about your legal firm on Twitter or on your website, do your best to get back to them with a response, letting your clients know you really are listening. This fairly simple exercise in paying attention can build your client relationships in incredible ways. Although you must post on a regular basis, don’t over-post. If you truly have nothing new and valuable to share with potential clients, then don’t share at all as it could cost you followers and fans in the long run.
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