If you are a UK lawyer looking to grow your practice through social media then one of the best things you can do is learn from those trailblazers that have gone before you and successfully used social media in their law firms.
This article is a transcript of a web conference on the topic of social media for law firms hosted by Adrian Dayton (@adriandayton) with the UK’s two most prolific legal Twitter users, Brian Inkster (@brianinkster) and Chris Sherliker (@London_Law_Firm). Also on the call was social media marketer Rory Webber (@MrRX).
These are our notes. Enjoy…
Making Connections… Building Relationships
Chris: Twitter is a process in which you engage… It’s about building relationships… We have found clients from Twitter including a major client who then went on to became a supplier… They then also referred us to a large telecoms client
Adrian: It’s a giant cocktail party, and it requires you to step into the circle to engage
Brian: We haven’t received any direct client work, but I have been interviewed by the press several times as a result of being on Twitter, including today… Was interviewed by The Metro on topic of social media and property. This of course can raise the profile of the law firm, and it’s not impossible that tomorrow we could get enquiries after people read the Metro article
Adrian: Twitter is about instant real-time conversation… You can join any conversation internationally and make international connections
Chris: Our firm is active in the USA, but not Turkey, and through Twitter we have met @turkish_lawyer, got to know him, and as a consequence have referred work to him and received referrals from him
Adrian: This is the death of the cold call… There’s no reason to make them any more… You can build relationships first
Making Time for Twitter
Brian: It is called social media. I tend to do it in the evening or first thing in morning.
Chris: It fit it into my normal routine… 95% of tweets are from my iPhone… e.g. while waiting for taxi. It makes use of moments where I wouldn’t be able to do much else
What About ROI?
Chris: I think of Twitter as a way of finding people to provide services to, and people to provide services to me… It’s a very time efficient way to sell. We have benefited from that, but equally have met people who have since provided professional development services to our firm, and people who are building our blogs
Brian: Taking the relationship outside of Twitter is what really brings the benefits… But don’t forget it’s fun… It’s social media.. . It’s fun for me… If business comes out of it, great, but that’s not the key priority
Chris: When people talk ROI, one of the things they should also remember is that Twitter is completely free. And that effectively I have had something like 7,000 free adverts. The only investment you have to make is time and you don’t have to spend ages in Twitter
Adrian: I find it useful to organise meetings through Twitter ahead of conferences… So I have a jump start on other people attending
Getting the Mix Right
Adrian: Twitter is a great way to meet other fascinating people… But the perception in the US is that UK lawyers are more serious…
Brian: Not a huge number of UK lawyers using Twitter yet, and between those on the call, we probably know all of them. Firm accounts don’t work in the same way as personal ones, and you really need individuals or groups of individuals to make the interaction work on Twitter
Chris: I send out a mix of tweets from serious legal matters to how to make the perfect cocktail… and that seems to work well for me
Brian: We originally started with a company Twitter account, but switched to personal account… Going back to the cocktail party analogy, I realised you need to be a person to go to a cocktail party
Adrian: No one wants to hire a law firm; they want to hire a person they like
Getting Started
Chris: When you first register, it asks you the question what are you doing right now? I quickly realised no-one wants to know. People are more interested in getting to know people. There is a marketing adage that people only buy from people the know, like and trust. Otherwise they are not going to instruct you.
Rory: People need to get connected then listen and learn. In the modern age listening is reading, and speaking is writing… When you first join you should spend more time listening than speaking… When I first joined Twitter i spent first couple of weeks ‘listening’ before joining the conversation
Chris: It takes a while to convince others to use social media. When I first started everyone thought I was mad. Now we have four partners using Twitter in the company
Adrian: It’s important to find right champions in your firm. Companies often leave it to juniors, and this isn’t always the right thing to do. Chris is using the tools better than many younger professionals… You need more experienced attorneys that add value… It’s about growing relationships and then taking them to the next level such as lunch or coffee
What Does the Future Hold?
Chris: With the upcoming Legal Services Act, and hence non-lawyers and institutions coming in, lawyers will need to use these tools to get work from elsewhere… It takes a while to build up followers so they had better get moving
Rory: Agreed. Growing competition means that people need to get involved
Footnote
These are our notes from the call, and focus on the things that grabbed our attention. Leave a comment below if there is something important you feel we missed.
And finally, Adrian has promised to make a recording available for on-demand playback for anyone that want to listen to the whole call. Keep checking his website for that.
NOT sure that lawyers 'et al' should be having 'giant cocktail parties' on the web while the rest of us rough it :-)… but it's good law firms 'get' social media for e-business.
Excellent job capturing conversation. Rory's last comment regarding growing competition is right on. It is my experience that the rainmakers in law firms, principals, and firm owners are the ones paying attention to social media. As a modern day businessperson, you nee”d every base covered. Even though social media is a “new strategy,” connecting with people and creating relationships is an old proven method to get business. Being able to connect with attorneys worldwide in seconds and getting solutions for your clients who do international business is an obvious reason to use Twitter, social media.
NOT sure that lawyers 'et al' should be having 'giant cocktail parties' on the web while the rest of us rough it :-)… but it's good law firms 'get' social media for e-business.
Excellent job capturing conversation. Rory's last comment regarding growing competition is right on. It is my experience that the rainmakers in law firms, principals, and firm owners are the ones paying attention to social media. As a modern day businessperson, you nee”d every base covered. Even though social media is a “new strategy,” connecting with people and creating relationships is an old proven method to get business. Being able to connect with attorneys worldwide in seconds and getting solutions for your clients who do international business is an obvious reason to use Twitter, social media.
Thanks for posting this Linda and Mark. After almost a year of getting my head round twitter the discussion seems to match the views I've formed. I'm increasingly seeing twitter as key to my professional/business career and ambitions.