Lawyers e-Journal
Thursday, May. 10, 2012
Law Practice Management Tip
Mixed messages: Keep your personal and professional profiles separate on social media
Perhaps the surest sign of the
Apocalypse that does not terminate in the number seven is
likely that there exists a social networking app called 'Pair,' on which
couples can connect exclusively with each other. The Internet:
relationship saver. Couple the existing of Pair with Pinterest's
near-overnight success, Google's determination to make Google+ a viable social network and old school
stalwarts going strong (Facebook, LinkedIn) and not so strong (MySpace), and
you can acquire a number of social media profiles, all across the
Internet.
Social media wasn't always used for business marketing; there
weren't any 'business' profiles, only business people, with
business intentions and personal profiles. Now, though, almost
every major platform has, or is likely developing, business
profiles; and, in that environment, those attorneys who seek to
market their practices on social media should segregate their
business marketing endeavors from their personal networking. A
number of folks start with a personal account, which ends up
becoming a mixed-use page, for personal and professional
information streams; but, that is not the optimal arrangement. Even
on services where business page functionality does not yet exist,
users can jury-rig a professional profile with fairly simple
workarounds.
'Don't commingle' is the ancient caveat when it comes to keeping
attorneys' operating and trust accounts apart; but, the same
warning applies to segregating personal and professional accounts
on social media. And, there are some practical considerations for
doing so: If you have individual personal and business pages, you
can still say what you want on your personal page (with
ratcheted-up security settings) while maintaining your business
reputation in another space. This method will allow you to insulate
your personal account, to the extent possible. Creating a public
business profile on a social media outlet is also an easy way to
add to your web presence, while cultivating your professionalism in
a new medium. With improving functionality, it's also becoming
easier to cross-post across platforms, and to toggle between
account profiles. From an ethics standpoint, there are certain
additional advantages: It's perhaps less misleading to have an
up-front business profile; and, it'd be, likelier, clearer to your
potential clients that there is a level of formality in place,
thereby probably decreasing the chances that said potential clients
would end up believing that an attorney-client relationship was
created informally, based on access to, posts made on or
conversations surrounding a personal profile page. It's easier (and
essential, frankly) to be in the attorney mindset/wear the lawyer
hat when you're active in your professional account. You can apply
disclaimers to your business pages more effectively, as well; these
won't appear so awkward, or out of place, as they would on a
personal page.
Of course, as you might suspect, none of this is printed in black
and white. For example, if you're not a solo attorney, your
business profile will likely be accessed/co-administrated by others
-- which gives rise to the question of how you personalize the
site, other than by making posts from your (still) personal
account. Perhaps the end game here is the adoption of branching
business accounts (professional-individual and
professional-company); but, nothing like this has yet been formally
adopted by any of the major social media services. The trick, then,
is to work within the existing frameworks (and to apply certain
workarounds) to keep your personal and professional online social
identities as distinct as possible from one another.
Tip courtesy of Jared Correia, Law Office
Management Assistance Program.
Published May 10, 2012
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To learn more about the Law Practice Management
Section, which is complimentary for all MBA members,
contact LPM Section Chair Thomas J. Barbar or Vice
Chair Stephen
Seckler.