Social Networking For Lawyers

Archive for the ‘Social Networking for Lawyers’ Category

The Best Reasons for Your Law Office to Have a Facebook Page

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

More and more businesses, both large and small are turning to Facebook in order to create an additional online presence, as well as giving their customers a less formal platform with which to engage. Even if you are a true Facebook addict on your personal time, you may wonder how Facebook can be successful for your law firm. Considering that the average Facebook fan logs on a minimum of six hours per month, there are many ways Facebook can increase your legal website’s exposure in the most positive ways imaginable. Some of them include:

Search engine optimization is very positively impacted by your firm’s Facebook page. Once your law firm has an up and running Facebook page, it will show up high in the search results for your business because Facebook lists pages on the individual users’ public search listings—therefore each user who “likes” your firm’s Facebook page instantly adds another link back to that business page. This process can provide numerous links back to different areas of your legal website, thus dramatically improving the search rankings of your site.
Facebook can facilitate communication between you and your potential client by updating your firm’s Facebook page to let clients know about a new service from your firm. The members of your group then comment about your new legal service, thus opening a positive dialogue, and engaging potential clients. Facebook also allows for customized applications on your firm’s Facebook page, which could include things such as “join our mailing list.” This allows you to add potential clients to your e-mail marketing program sending them out interesting and informative articles each month.
The personal communication which takes place on your firm’s Facebook page can be invaluable in giving you feedback regarding your firm’s services. You can see firsthand what clients have to say about your services, which in turn allows you to resolve customer issues and gain valuable feedback you might never have been aware of before. The kind of information you receive from clients can advance your market research efforts and allow you to improve your customer service. Because Facebook’s members choose to become so, you can keep in constant contact with new, old or potential clients through uploading content whenever you want. This content shows up on your client’s newsfeeds, giving them information about your firm in a much less intrusive manner—your clients may even look forward to new content being added!
Facebook business pages can be a wonderful addition to your online business presence, and can be a sort of less-formal extension to your firm’s website. The Facebook page drives increased traffic to your firm’s website and with numerous links back to your regular website Facebook becomes yet another way your potential clients can find you.
You will gain invaluable information about your clients, including graphs and stats on the types of users your Facebook page attracts, whether they are male or female, ages, locations and other demographic data as well. The average Facebook user has 130 friends in their network, therefore if one of them “likes” your Facebook page, there is the potential for all 130 of their friends to see that, causing them to investigate and look at your Facebook page themselves. If you attempt to do the math on such a phenomenon, you will see that the “reach” of Facebook is literally beyond your imagination.
Having “Fans” makes you business more credible and legitimizes your business.
Your comments, articles, etc can be distributed to others at no cost to you.

Facebook offers law firms the chance to show a different, less “buttoned-up” side of themselves than what is typically shown in their legal website. Your firm can post photos and videos of a staff function, or an attorney’s television or court appearance. It can show the softer, more personal side of the attorneys who make up the law firm, and give potential clients an insight into the firm they might not otherwise have.

So let’s review: Having a Facebook page for your law firm’s website has a huge reach, is completely customized and branded, is almost as powerful a marketing tool as your website itself….and it’s free!

FREE ADVICE (from real experts, no sales people) concerning Facebook and other social media management services for law firms, lawyer, and legal companies. We also offer custom Facebook design and programming. Call (769) 218-6099 for free advice.

Tags: reasons why law firm needs facebook fan page, The Best Reasons for Your Law Office to Have a Facebook Page
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Facebook's "Like" Button Effects Lawyer Rankings on FaceBook

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Facebook is developing their own social search engine to provide better placement of those companies, products or service providers who are well received by Facebook users. Facebook’s Open Graph will have attorneys taking note of the value of their law firm “like” button popularity since this may ultimately challenge Google’s dominance as a search engine.

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.

Tags: Facebook-seo-rankings-for-lawyers-attorneys-law-firms, Facebook's "Like" Button Effects Lawyer Rankings on FaceBook
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Has Twitter Peaked in Usage?

Wednesday, June 30th, 2010

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.

Tags: Has Twitter Peaked and What Does That Mean To Law Firm Internet Marketing?, Has Twitter Peaked in Usage?, How-effective-is-twtter-for-lawyer-advertising-marketing
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How Lawyers Can Use LinkedIn For Ethical Marketing Purposes.

Monday, June 21st, 2010

One of the biggest mistakes most law firms make due to time restraints and the push for developing new business is the lack of responsiveness and the neglecting of current client relationships or relationships of the past. LinkedIn.com is a popular business networking tool that has a very good reputation for developing new business for law firms and solving the issue of keeping in touch with client of new and old. One of the best practices we use when using LinkedIn.com to market our clients our law firm internet marketing company is to make sure you send invites to new or potential clients. This is a great way to make sure that #1 – you make a great first impression, #2 – keep in touch with new clients or potential new clients. We find that is a very courteous and well received.

If your firm offers special seminars or educational workshops with potential clients, offering an invitation through social networking sites like LinkedIn.com can make life much easier for reaching out to your prospective clients on both an individual level and on a group level. The feedback our law firm clients consistently receive utilizing this technique is uniformly positive. Also, keep in mind that LinkedIn.com is great for finding colleagues and past clients. Making a new connection is just like freshening up your your old client referral list. Our clients have been able to really refine their client referral programs making and revisiting with connections on LinkedIn.com.

Many of our clients used to just simply accept the LinkedIn invitations, believing that this exchange has no more relevance to their practice that the typical “meet and greet.” However, LinkedIn is an effective marketing tool just as joining a civic group or business networking group. Be cautious though of using LinkedIn to blindly identify and invite new clients or push unsolicited invitations in the hopes of develop a huge network of referral sources which spans the globe. I realize there are most marketing companies promoting this idea but it is a violation of the rules of professional ethics in all 50 states for your to do just that.

The best way to attract people and clients that have never heard of you before in a manor that keeps you inline with the lawyer advertising rules is to build a very robust profile and create a legal group where people may join. This is a technique that is completely permissible and will allow you to ethically market to a potential audience (now with 60,000,000 members). We typically advise our client to set up groups in which they offer potential or existing clients entry and participation. This builds value and value enables you to demonstrate expertise and skillful application of legal services.

One of the other benefits of LinkedIn is the relatively simple user interface. This interface makes it very simple to add, edit or remove information within minutes. This application also enables attorneys to connect with new clients, potential clients, past clients, and referral sources daily with just a few minutes of effort. No more having to buy lunches or setting golf outings to make a fresh connection. The theme of LinkedIn is business communication and everyone gets it.

To discuss some of the best practices your law firm can take to develop a strong presence and create value using LinkedIn. Call the 11 year veterans of Lawyer Success, Inc. You can speak to one of our marketing experts immediately by calling (769) 218-6099.

Tags: best-practices-law-firms-on-linkedin, ethics-of-linkedin-for-lawyers, How Lawyers Can Use LinkedIn For Ethical Marketing Purposes.
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Social Networking for Lawyers Including Facebook and LinkedIn

Monday, June 14th, 2010

There is an absolute myriad of information available on the internet. People from every inch of the world have a literal web of information available at the push of a button. Therefore, you must introduce YOUR particular information as quickly and as professionally as possible in order to run far ahead of the pack. One key way to go about presenting the favorable information that you want to be known for is through social networking.

Social networking sites, such as Linkeden and Facebook, are very powerful tools when it comes to marketing your legal practice. There are also social networking sites available to lawyers and lawyers alone. Social networking can make a large firm seem small and personable and an individual seem larger than life. The best possible way to go about designing and maintaining a successful social networking site is to have a lawyer website designer tend to the details of making the perfect lawyer website design. You may be a professional when it comes to law, but the niche of lawyer website design is the profession of lawyer website designers. These are the individuals that could literally make you or break you in the world of social networking.

Also a very cost effective marketing plan, lawyer website designers can spread your practices key qualities amongst an abundance of social networking sites. Your name will be popping up on search engines everywhere, one click leading to a virtual treasure trove of information on your law practice. A sort of amped up directory, lawyer website designers can tweak your listing to be so much more than a simple address and telephone number. You can provide reviews, testimonials, awards, basically anything that you would find as desirable to be known to the public, to be known for.

Another benefit of social networking is the ability to find people that can help you. For example, searches can be done for potential new business and also for business that provide services to legal practices. Jobs can be found as can new hires.

Social networking is beneficial to lawyers in so many ways. A dynamic lawyer website designer with a clear vision of a supreme lawyer website design is detrimental to your practices future. A skillful designer partnered with an unmitigated lawyer could prove to be virtually unstoppable. A successful social networking site could prove to be ultimately the wisest decision you could make to boost your business’ notoriety.

Call Lawyer Success, Inc. at (769) 218-6099 if you would like a free consultation regarding social networking marketing and strategic planning.

Tags: Facebook for Law Firms, LinkedIn.com For Lawyers, Social Networking for Lawyers
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