In one of my previous tech columns entitled, "You've Got a
Website, Now What?" I wrote about digital marketing beyond merely
developing a website; this includes tackling social media. Whether
you like it or not, social media has become an essential marketing
tool, helping to generate clients for many law firms. Social media
is effective because it is yet another way to "touch" prospective
clients and referral sources, keeping you "top of mind" when they
need to hire an attorney. Plus, a presence on social media can
demonstrate your credibility and strengthen your reputation. But
this all requires time - time you already don't have. Below I'll
give you some tips to make your social media marketing more
efficient and effective.
First, social media revolves around sharing and engagement.
Thus, in order be effective on social media, you first need to have
content to share. We live in an age where there is certainly no
lack of content, rather quite the opposite: too much content. This
can be overwhelming. A few sources you might turn to for content
include the American Bar Association's Blawg Directory and its Top
100 Blawgs, JDSupra for expert analysis and commentary from law
firms, and Jurist Legal News for substantive daily legal news
stories. Sharing content from other attorneys is a great way to
engage with other attorneys for referral marketing purposes.
Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Apple also all have news aggregation sites
and apps. For example, rather than read only the New York
Times (NYT) and Boston Globe, you can use Apple's new
News app on your iPhone to aggregate a bunch of sources of
interest, including the NYT and the Globe. The News app also allows
you to save stories and share to social media directly from the
app. Content doesn't only come in the way of reading, there are
thousands of excellent podcasts such as NYT's The Daily which
provides a daily twenty-minute in-depth report on top news, as well
as a variety of law-related shows available on the Legal Talk
Network.
Once you've found the content, you need a way to manage and
store it for review, reference, and sharing. A great way to
subscribe to multiple content sources is through a source
aggregator such as Feedly, Netvibes or Reeder. Say you like the
ABA Journal, a certain NYT columnist, the SCOTUS blog and
a practice area-specific blog; checking all those sources each day
is extraordinarily time consuming. Instead, you can add those
"feeds" to your Feedly et al., check only Feedly on a daily basis,
and use its integrated tools to share to social media platforms
such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. You can also use your
source aggregator to group sources according to category, create a
must-read list of your favorite sources, and save sources for
reading later.
Speaking of reading later, in addition to all those web sources
you want to review on a regular basis, you also receive content by
way of email (i.e., newsletters) or you might find yourself landing
at a webpage with an article you want to read later. You need a way
to capture that content. That's why "read later" services exist.
Instapaper and Pocket are two popular read later services. With a
unique email address from the service, you can forward content into
your Instapaper et al. account and with the web browser extension
save any webpage you'd like for later. If you want to take this to
the next level, create a rule for email newsletters you receive,
thus bypassing your inbox and forwarding directly to your
Instapaper account. Just like the source aggregators above, these
applications also allow you to share directly from the service. For
content that you've reviewed and wish to store away for reference
later, try Evernote as a central repository for all those
resources. Evernote's robust search capabilities, tagging system,
and synchronization in the cloud make it an excellent choice for
collecting and organizing resources. Most of the aggregators and
read later services above integrate with Evernote, which makes
moving content into Evernote a breeze.
Streamlining your social media marketing means cutting down on
the time spent reviewing and posting to social media. Of course,
there are technological tools for that. Hootsuite (free with
premium options) allows you to connect multiple social media
accounts to display in one central dashboard. You can then review
and post to multiple accounts at once. Hootsuite also allows you to
schedule posts. Another similar option is Buffer (free with premium
options), which allows you to schedule social media posts to
multiple accounts and integrates with a number of other services
such as source aggregators, news aggregators, and read later
services. Furthermore, services such as dlvr.it automate your
social media posting enabling you to connect your blog - each time
you post to your blog, dlvr.it will automatically post to your
social media accounts. This is just one example of workflow
automation; for further and more sophisticated automation, try
IFTTT (If This Then That) or Zapier, two services that connect
multiple applications to automate workflows.
Finally, even if you implement all the tools and suggestions
above, if you don't set aside time every day for your social
marketing these tools will not lead to more effective marketing.
Start out by scheduling twenty minutes per day to devote to
reviewing your source and news aggregators and social media feeds,
selecting content, and scheduling posts. If you are having trouble
finding the time, schedule it in your calendar every day for thirty
days. The goal is to make it a habit. If during the thirty days you
stop, don't worry, it's ok to be imperfect (yes, I mean that and I
know you don't hear that often), just start again. Don't wait until
you "have the time," because we all know that's a losing battle.
You must make the time!
Heidi S. Alexander, Esq. is the director of Practice
Management Services for Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, where she
advises lawyers on practice management matters, provides guidance
in implementing new law office technologies, and helps lawyers
develop healthy and sustainable practices. She frequently makes
presentations to the legal community and contributes to
publications on law practice management and technology. She is the
author of the ABA Law Practice Division's, Evernote as a Law
Practice Tool, and serves on the ABA's TECHSHOW Planning Board.
Heidi previously practiced at a small firm and owned a technology
consulting business. She also clerked for a justice on the highest
court of New Jersey and served as the editor-in-chief of the
Rutgers Law Review. She is a native Minnesotan, former collegiate
ice hockey goaltender for the Amherst College Women's Ice Hockey
Team, and mother of three young children.