There is a great post over at Inside Facebook on the best practices for Law firms using Facebook. Here is a list of some lawyers actively using Facebook.
Social media is proving to be a low cost and effective way for companies to market themselves.Whilst there is increasing anecdotal evidence law firms are catching on, it seems the legal profession is still struggling to make the most of the new media. Apart from the obvious ways of using social media, like interacting with clients, there are plenty of other ways law firms can benefit from using programs like Twitter. So we decided we would throw 10 ways law firms grow right now with social media .
- Stay on top of trends. This works from and industry and a client point of view. A lot of companies are now using twitter and facebook to post company announcements and updates. By following checking feed of a client once a month you can see where their business is moving. This goes for industry trends as well. Use Google alerts, Technorati Tags and Trendistic to stay ahead.
- Comment on trends. Social media gives you a great opportunity to comment on trends and provide information to companies that may be having the same legal issues in your industry. All this adds up to making your company brand stand out as an industry leader. Use your own blog, set up a new blog on wordpress.com or use the information in your company newsletter.
- Use it to recruit. The prime age bracket (33 -55) for qualified professionals is the largest portion of twitter users online. Social media is not just for kids. Posting job vacancies online is one way, but posting job vacancies on twitter and searching Linkedin is becoming more the norm.
- Develop targeted advertising. Social media now allows you to target customers by a range of demographics, such as age, sex, location, profession. It should not replace other forms of advertising, such as keyword targetted advertising. However, companies can use it to narrow down their target and the interests they may have.
- Track who is talking about your company. No longer do you have to wait to find out the good or bad news of people are saying about you. There are now a vast range of tools, such as google alerts, twitter search etc that allow you to find out what people are saying about you.
- Find out what your competitors are doing. Social media means you can create feeds or bookmarks that track your competitors posts, actions and announcements. This allows you to become far more responsive to changes in the competitive landscape. Use twitter tags, or follow your competitors on twitter.
- Improve your position in Google. Three key things that will help with your position in Google. One is you can build links from your online profiles back to your website. This can mean that you can have authoritative links pointing to your website that need little maintenance. The second is you can use social media to find trends that will allow you to comment and build content on your website. The more content you have the better you look to search engines. Lastly you can use social media to find out what other people are talking about in your field. You can use programs like Google keyword search and following Twitter tags to see what other people are talking about. When you add content to your website that is timely and on trend, you are more likely to be found by potential clients who are searching for that issue, it is good SEO practice.
- Communicate internally, build relationships. There is a good chance that your staff and coworkers are using some form of social media, and are already familiar with websites like Digg, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. However more companies are adopting social media as a way of developing internal relationships and sharing information.
ConnectBeam – Tagging and social networking
Ning – Create your own social network
SuiteTwo – An integrated package of social network options
