A: A central point of contention between people who think online marketing (read: social media) is worthwhile for lawyers who want to get clients and those who think it is a waste of time is this question: Is there a critical mass of good-quality clients online, and are they ready and willing to hire you if you market yourself online?
In other words, if you go all-in with online marketing, could you get the kind of business you hope for in your wildest dreams?
At PandoDaily, B.J. Mendelson (author of Social Media is Bullshit, natch) pokes holes in the myth of social media ROI (that’s “return on investment” if you don’t speak marketing-ese). It’s not that social media ROI doesn’t exist; it’s just not what you think. When social media does pay off, it’s usually not the result of hitting the organic social media viral jackpot. It’s usually the result of hard work and lots of money, just like regular marketing.
But what about those famous social media success stories — the from-out-of-nowhere viral blockbusters? Mendelson breaks a couple down. Let’s take PSY.
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People create blogs to attract readers. And in other news, fire is hot.
But how to attract readers? Sure, you can follow Sam’s advice and strive to write well on topics you’re knowledgeable about. I’ve tried that. I’ve combined my experience with my own independent study to provide a lot of sober advice on good lawyering. Almost all those posts were greeted with a yawn, followed, I suspect, by an immediate click over to Buzzfeed.
I’ve also had a handful of posts get rather popular all at once. I’ve been wondering why, so I conducted an entirely unscientific study (okay, I thought about it for a while). You really should follow Sam’s advice—strive for informative, useful content. But when you want to mix it up a little, here are my Top 5 ways to get eyeballs on your posts.
I am dumbfounded by nearly everything about this story:
Drost, Gilbert, Andrew & Apicella is a new law firm in suburban Chicago, but it already has 700 “likes” on its Facebook page.
How did the Daily Herald think this was newsworthy? How did the ABA Journal’s Debra Cassens Weiss link to it without comment as if it were a serious bit of news about lawyers? Why are these four lawyers letting one of their partners spend his time and throw what sounds like a fair bit of cash out there for Facebook page likes when nobody actually thinks Facebook likes are worth much? (Well, except this guy.)
Most of all, this is their big plan to raise the firm’s visibility? I suppose it’s working, if you want to be known as four guys who have a Facebook page where they post pictures of their Hawaiian shirts. I will say this for them: they look pretty genuine.
But yeah, somebody remind the Daily Herald to check in with the firm in 6 months to see if they have gotten any meaningful results from all this fluff. If they managed to build a practice on a Facebook page, that really would be news.
Will lawyers ever stop using Twitter for something besides soliciting their next criminal defense client?
If lawyers’ use of television, radio and billboards are any indication, probably not.
But can social media be used for something more than solicitation, self-promotional spam and merely being funny? I think so. Still trying to wrap your head around how you might use social media? Perhaps Mayor Booker will give you some ideas.
Keep Reading ⇒
Thinking about celebrating your latest triumph on Facebook?
Pop quiz hot-shot.
Does your social media victory lap concern your availability for professional employment? If so, you might be in violation of your state’s ethics rules.
Keep Reading ⇒
Noted technology evangelist Kevin O’Keefe, from LexBlog, and noted technology curmudgeon, Scott Greenfield, both agree that competent lawyers need to understand technology, including social media.
Instagram’s recent Terms of Service kefuffle is just another example of a social media company trying to figure out how to make money, and botching the part where the lawyers come in.
A few weeks ago, Instagram updated its TOS, then beat a quick retreat and issued a semi-apology. Oh, and in case you missed it, Instagram is now owned by Facebook.
At the Law Via the Internet 2012 conference, Clay Shirky talked about how social tools can help close the gap in comprehension between the law and the public. People don’t just need access to legal codes, they need to be able to understand them. They need context.
We — that is, lawyers — traditionally fill that gap, mostly for a lot of money and on a case-by-case basis. But as anyone who interviews potential clients knows, people are hungry for information about the law, and are busy going about finding it online.
Shirky argues that we need to embrace this impulse and assist in the interpretation of law online.
(You can watch Shirky’s presentation here.)
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“[A] charlatan told a worldwide crowd of serious academics that in the future, everybody will be a lawyer for 15 minutes.”
by Sam Glover on October 10, 2012 in Legal Technology
Scott Greenfield’s response to Clay Shirky’s Law Via the Internet conference keynote:
I think Scott may have gotten Shirky’s point backwards, perhaps due to my poor summary. Shirky’s point, I think, is that non-lawyers are — en masse — already trying to interpret and understand the law, largely without help from lawyers, and will continue to do so using whatever tools are available. Shirky thinks lawyers ought to pitch in and correct the of bad interpretations that Scott complains about in his post.
(Also, I’m not clear on why Shirky is a charlatan, but Scott is not the first to say so. It’s possible I’m just being dense, but its not obvious to me.)
Read The Future Of Law and The Fool’s Utopia, Rape Edition on Simple Justice.