social media marketing for lawyers 2.0
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Social Media Marketing for Law Firms
October 27th, 2011
Mike Rabinovici, LL.B
VP, Web & Social Media Marketing
AR Communications Inc.
www.ar-com.com
Contact Information:rmation: [email protected] www.ar-com.com/blog Twitter.com/mikerabinovici http://ca.linkedin.com/in/mikerabinovici
Say Goodbye to the Information Age
• Over the last 5 years the Internet and information delivery have
fundamentally changed
• Information is being produced faster than we can absorb
• In 2009 – 12000 new URLs each day, in 2011 - 150,000
• By 2011, 20 typical households will generate more traffic then the
entire Internet did in 2008 – the last full year of information looked
in version 1.0 of this presentation
• Growth of knowledge is being matched by the growth of ignorance
Say Hello to the Attention Age The Attention Age Doctrine – Rich Schefren
This is Not your Daddy’s Internet
• Exponential data growth dramatically affects traditional marketing channels on the Internet
• The sense of information overload has created a shift in client behavior
• They are all reaching for and craving one thing:
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The Easy Button
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What is Social Media?
• The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue
• “Social Media tools introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between
organizations, communities, and individuals” Kietzmann, Jan H.; Kris Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre (2011). "Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media".
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Social Media Tools
• Blogging – www.blogger.com
• Podcasts – www.itunes.com
• Microblogging – www.twitter.com
• RSS – www.feedburner.com
• Photo sharing – www.flickr.com
• Social News & Bookmarking – www.technorati.com
• Video Sharing – www.youtube.com
• Wikis – www.wikipedia.org
Social Networks
• LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com
• Facebook – www.facebook.com
• Foursquare – www.foursquare.com
And so many more…
Which Social Media Tools Can Law Firms Use to Make the Greatest Impact?
• Blogs
• Podcasts
Blogs
• A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a website, usually maintained by an individual or company with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
source – Wikipedia
• Key Stat: B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who do not. Source: Hubspot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2011
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Social Media Best Practices for Blogs
• Relevant, timely content
• Updated regularly
• Once or twice a week unless a special event is taking place
• This type of content does not come naturally so you have to practice saying more with less words
• Repurpose existing content from commentaries, white papers or other content you’ve developed
• Consider outsourcing
• Expert positioning and SEO benefits
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Podcasts • A podcast is a series of audio or
video digital media files which are distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished from most other digital media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added
• Awareness of podcasting has doubled since 2006
Source: Wikipedia
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The Power of Podcasting
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• Device shifting - Listen on any device
• Time shifting: Listen anywhere at any time
• Fireside chats
• A 15 -20 minute conversation
• Focus on a relevant timely topic
• Upload to iTunes
• Approx. 100-200 million podcast listeners
Social Media Best Practices for Podcasts
• Content should focus on educating, not selling
• The podcast should sound like a “fireside chat”, not an infomercial
• Interview formats work well
Podcasts can be divided into three categories:
• Educating about the service or field of expertise with a lawyer being the interviewee
• Interviewing a client – the social proof aspect
• Interview with a third party expert – a combination of education and social proof
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– Great For Business
• Web’s largest professional network with over 120 million members in 200 countries. Canada has over 4 million members
• The average profile age on LinkedIn is 40 years
• More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages
• As of June 30, 2011 (the end of the second quarter), LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring solutions are used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies.
• App. 2% of LinkedIn user are in the legal profession
• 800 Million users
• If Facebook were a country is would be the world’s third largest, after China and India
• Facebook's biggest age group of followers is now in the 35-54 range
• 62 percent of Facebook users between 35-54 years of age have liked a brand (eMarketer)
• 61 percent of Facebook users who have liked a brand note that they are more likely to purchase from that brand (AllFacebook)
• Over 200 million accounts
• 1 billion tweets per week
• 460,000 new accounts per day as of March, 2011
• A great tool for providing customer services and delivering important information in real time
• Monitoring your firm’s reputation and keeping an eye on the competition
• Increasingly used by law firms
Next Steps
Begin with a Social Media assessment:
• What has your law firm done with social media to date?
• Was it done in accordance with a plan or ad hoc
• Are there any analytics for current social media activities – you must establish a baseline
• Is there an employee social media policy in place?
• What are your competitors doing?
Key Elements of a Social Media Strategic Plan
• Determine the audience you will focus on and where it spends most of it’s time
• Set your goals – these can include number of visits, leads generated, sales completed, etc., ROI expected
• Focus on the areas where we already know social media has the greatest impact
• Set aside a budget that is reasonable in terms of the goals you set
• Make sure to have a social media policy in place for employees
• Deploy social media analysis tools to measure progress
The Fundamentals Still Apply
• Forget about the technology • Focus on the trend • Leverage the tools technology
is making available Use it to: Position yourself or your firm as
the thought leader or expert in your field
Strengthen relationships and build trust Stay front of mind
Contact Information
Mike Rabinovici, LL.B VP, Web & Social Media Marketing AR Communications Inc. www.ar-com.com [email protected] www.ar-com.com/blog Twitter.com/mikerabinovici http://ca.linkedin.com/in/mikerabinovici 416-720-5485 4