Law firms and social networking : One hot topic
There's little question that social networking is one hot topic among lawyers and law firms.
I'm told my presentations on social networking and law firm business development before Legal Marketing Association events in Boston, Seattle, and Portland have been among their most widely attended events. Presentations for this fall on social networking before LMA chapters in Cleveland and a few other cities are in the works.
Yesterday, LexBlog covered social networking as part of its monthly webinar series on the best blogging practices and the response was overwhelming. Lots of positive emails coming Rob's, Stacey's and my way as well as plenty of 'tweets' on Twitter about the presentation. Based on demand, we're going to do an encore webinar presentation in the next week or two.
Sure, Facebook, LinkedIn, Legal OnRamp, Twitter, FriendFeed, del.icio.us, and the like are new to most of us. But the concept of networking for business development has been around as long as commerce. And networking as a way of creating a word of mouth reputation has been the backbone of lawyer marketing forever.
So maybe we shouldn't be surprised to see lawyers, young and old, taking to (or at least inquiring about) these new networking mediums. But it sure feels wild to be using Twitter to network with others in what has been among the most technology challenged professions - that being the law.
You're right - it's not surprising to see social networking catching on with lawyers. It's not that different from in-person networking except that it's easier in many ways. You don't have to drive to a meeting, if you are shy you don't have to face people, you have time to craft responses and thoughts. And if you are really busy you can always get help managing your networking needs!
I agree the buzz on this topic is high, as is the interest level. The question is: will user level among lawyers and other professionals increase? My clients and professional colleagues are continually telling me how challenged they are by how to utilizethese networks.
I've listed to and attended a number of the webinars and teleclasses for lawyers. After hearing them, I can understand why usership is not as high as the talk about social networks. The terminology needs to be translated into lay terms for new users.
Even the younger professionals find leveraging business sites such as Linked In a mystery. Facebook not the same issue - they socialize on that site.
As marketers and consultants, we need to bring it down to some elementary tools for the tools to be truly pragmatic and effective.
A colleague and I will be co-leading a session in the Fall for professionals where we will focus on just a few tangible deliverables for attendees. In this case, we believe less will be more.
Nancy Fox
www.sociabling.blogspot.com