A recent article in the Law Society Gazette, Social media and digital natives, highlighted two key problems many senior lawyers and managing partners believe they will face if they let individual lawyers build personal brands using social media:
- Lawyers who use social media to enhance their online reputations and develop personal networks might be harder to include in a firm’s central marketing strategies, increasing the risk that people associate more with the lawyers than with the mother firm;
- Lawyers who have enhanced their reputations using social media are less likely to stay, and will take businesses away with them.
Perceptions like this are very difficult to fight against, and this has been one of the reasons why many law firms delayed implementing social media strategies within their firms.
As the Law Society Gazette article pointed out, more Digital Natives are joining law firms and rapidly climbing up the ranks. Their awareness of social media and communities of interest means the historical types of engagement law firms had with prospects and clients is not something they will be comfortable doing.
So, what can law firms do to get over the 2 problems highlighted earlier?
First of all, they need to understand that in today’s business environment, it is necessary for lawyers to enhance their online reputations if they want to differentiate themselves from competitors. One of the greatest paradoxes about the Internet is that there is so much information available for everyone, and people want to filter out masses of content to identify people they want to follow or buy from.
It is impossible to stand out above the crowd as a lawyer if every message coming out of a firm is tightly controlled or does not seem different from any other firm.
The only way to enhance online reputations is to use social media as a listening and engagement channel. It should not be used as a simple broadcast channel. It is also important to let lawyers’ personalities come out as part of this engagement exercise if they want to be memorable.
Secondly, it is important for every lawyer that wants to use social media to understand how this contributes to the parent law firm’s marketing and sales funnels.
When firms worry about individual lawyers becoming too high to the detriment of the parent organisation, then it is almost always because of the disconnect between the individual use of social media and the overall business goals of the firm.
Any social media activity lawyers do should contribute or add value to their law firm’s marketing strategy.
Thirdly, if lawyers feel they have the support to use social media to enhance their online reputations and generate more leads as a result of this, then they should be supported fully as this benefits the firm as well. Sure, some lawyers will leave but most want to be supported, and want to feel that their efforts benefit both them and the firm they work for.
In business development, people buy from people. Even within large corporate firms. And in today’s business world, social media makes it easier to connect with interested parties and develop trusted relationships.
With more digital natives coming on board, this is definitely the case. They will be aware of the fact that their online reputations tie into the success they have for their clients and to the image their firm has as a result. Why take risks when they are getting the best of both worlds?
So the key is to make sure all lawyers are absolutely clear about how the parent firm’s sales funnel works, and how they can use social media to contribute to it.
This is vital if social media is to work, otherwise you simply end up with a bunch of blogs, Twitter accounts and LinkedIn profiles that don’t result in new business.
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