Social Media in business development: A Guide for Lawyers

“Social Media in Business Development and Relationship Management: A Guide for Lawyers”

The booklet provides a practical introduction to social media for lawyers. It starts with a review of the benefits and risks of social media use by lawyers so that those in management positions with little knowledge of social media can make informed policy decisions. By avoiding technical details and jargon, it then offers an introductory and pragmatic guide on how all lawyers – irrespective of industry sector, firm size or client base – can successfully integrate social media into their marketing, business development and client relationship management programmes.

Containing essential information on the benefits and risks of social media in the legal sector, it examines the social media platforms used by many law firms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) and gives an overview of those less frequently used – enabling lawyers to make an informed choice. It provides step-by-step instructions for setting up profiles and pages and using them on an ongoing basis.

As well as featuring practical advice for setting up and using social media as an integral part of a lawyer’s business development activity, it also offers guidance on:

how to develop a marketing plan and campaign;
how to write great blogs and social media posts; and
how to integrate social media into a structured content management plan that supports business development objectives.

It also addresses how central systems, technology and support can be used to ensure that social media plays an effective part of a firm’s business development programmes. So, in addition to lawyers, it will useful to marketing and human resource professionals in law firms who want to ensure the effective and sustainable use of social media.

The book contains case studies of how lawyers and law firms are using social media. Firms involved include:

Baker Law
Clutton Cox
Forsters
Inksters
Thackray Williams
Wollen Michelmore

This book was reviewed in December 2018 by Pippa Blakemore

Overview of contents

Introduction
The business case for social media
- Benefits of social media
- Risks in social media (and how to avoid them)
Overview of the common platforms
Develop a plan
- Firm and practice groups
- Individual lawyers
Use LinkedIn
- Company account and profile
- Lawyer account and profile
- Building your profile – step by step (include settings)
- Making connections
- Liking, commenting upon and sharing others’ material
- Using messaging and InMail
- Writing status updates
- Endorsements and recommendations
- Publishing articles
- Using groups
- Advertising
Using Twitter
- Overview
- Company and team accounts and profile
- Individual account
- Using public and private lists
- Tweeting, retweeting and commenting
- Hashtags and live tweeting at events (tweet walls)
Using Facebook
- Company, community and personal pages
- Curating and moderating
Blogging
- General guidelines
- Writing tips (include emotion, engagement and embedding)
- Effective titles
Content development and management
Central management
- Policies
- Brand, style and tone of voice
- Analytics and monitoring effectiveness
- Training and support
- Disaster recovery plans
- Tools to support management