Why Your Law Firm Needs Social Media
One of the most common questions I get asked these days is, “Why does my law firm need Facebook and all the other social media stuff?” Attorneys say they don’t care if someone just spent two hours trimming their shrubs, and they certainly aren’t interested in sharing with the world that the line is long at Target. They want to know how social media will generate clients and revenue.
Four reasons stand out among many as to why law firms need a strong social media presence. (I’ll refer to Facebook generally in this post, but the same concepts apply to Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, and other social media properties.)
First, we don’t know how important something like Facebook will be 5 or 10 years from now. No one could predict 15 years ago how dominant and important Google was going to end up being today. But some law firms built websites and created a presence early, and many of those same firms enjoy great rankings today as a result. Will Facebook be a place where the masses go to find legal representation in the future? I don’t know. But it is absolutely worth it to spend the nominal investment to be an early adopter, and make sure that you’re in a good position if it does.
Second, Facebook provides a great place to build your firm’s personality in a way that a traditional website does not. For example, your firm’s website may not be the best place to post pictures from your softball team’s championship run in the bar association league. Likewise, images from your holiday party or a charitable event that your staff participated in are great items for social media. And those types of things matter to clients. They may not hire you just because they like you, but it never hurts to combine quality legal services with a likable personality, or better yet, similar interests to theirs.
Third, your clients live there. Facebook currently has 845 million active users. Fifty-six percent of users check Facebook at least once a day, and the average user spends at least 20 minutes on the site per visit. And there are over 2.7 billion Likes on Facebook every single day.
These numbers are mind blowing. And they don’t just represent the habits of high school and college students. That CEO who leads a company you’d love to have as a client? He posts pictures of his grandkids on social media… with funny messages.
Last, and most importantly, social media is an incredibly inexpensive way to keep your law firm’s name in front of friends and colleagues that are all potential referral sources. Unlike your website, social media properties are free to develop, and keeping them updated with important and interesting information takes only a couple minutes each week.
Social media is important… and easy. However, there are an infinite number of ways to stub your toe by posting the wrong information. Stay tuned for a blog about law firm do’s and don’ts of social media.