Social Media & Legal Services Marketing

Participants in the social media “pods” at the November 20, 2009 LMA New England conference registered more comments about the risks than the rewards of social media participation. However, they also expressed great interest in the potential upside of social media platforms that are: 1.  no-cost or low-cost; and 2. already delivering measurable returns on business development for savvy users.

Out of 50 social media pod participants in five groups, 48 said that they need more help in understanding, using or explaining social media tools of potential use within their organizations. 

For the 96 percent of legal marketers who want more assistance, social media user Amy Campbell’s weblog has offered up some recommended resources: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/amy/2009/09/26/social-media-for-attorney-marketing-recommended-reading/

Elonide Semmes of Red Hat has also offered up a recommended visual chart of available social media tools: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredcavazza/3428921418/sizes/l/

And Stewart Hirsch of Trust Advisor Associates has recommended: “Trust Agents, Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust” by social media commentator Chris Brogan.

Legal service marketers in general might be interested in other informal survey results obtained from the 50 social media pod participants at the LMA New England conference. Some of the other results are as follows:

1. Only 26 percent had a social media strategy or were working on one.

2. Only 28 percent had any kind of social media training resources in their organizations.

3. Only 44 percent had social media policies in place or in process.

4. In 58 percent of the organizations of participants, marketers had taken the lead or were asked to take the lead in social media strategy, policy and/or training.

5. Only 8 percent had actually experienced a social media disaster, but 32 percent had obtained real, measurable results from use of social media for business development purposes.

The greatest number of participants who had used social media successfully were focused on the following tools: LinkedIn; Blawgs; ListServs; and social media monitoring tools (such as blog and social media news monitoring offered through Google and various search filters).

For an interesting use of YouTube, check out the video of a Skadden Arps lunch seminar on white collar crime:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cRyQU2MQEI