Header graphic for print
Real Lawyers Have Blogs On the topic of the law, firm marketing, social media, & baseball

Law firm social media policy : Inclusion is key in developing

A lot of discussion of late about social media policies for law firms.

I’ve been getting questions when speaking around the country, clients are raising the issue, a reporter from New York called last week to get my thoughts, and today LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell’s Alin Wagner-Lahmy announces Martindale Connected will kick off a week’s discussion on social media policy & guidelines for law firms.

No matter what your law firm does on a social media policy, the key to success is inclusion of all stakeholders. Associates, paralegals, managing partners, shareholders, partners, client development pro’s, PR people, knowledge officers, CTO’s, CMO’s, and who have you.

Deferring to marketing, communications, and your firm’s management executives who are charged with ‘protecting the firm’s brand’ to lead here can be a loser. These folks are often the least knowledgeable on the issue and are often guided by the mission ‘how do we clamp down?’

Turning it over to the young people or making them key players on a ‘social media committee’ is the height of folly. These guys are not seasoned client development rainmakers.

Just because associates who just graduated from law school can drink better and recover from a hangover faster than 53 year old guys like me does not mean they are best at client development at social/networking events attended by your clients, prospective clients and referral sources. Associates usually suck at these events. Despite having used Facebook and other social media/networking tools for years, the same is true in social media/social networking online.

Portland Attorney Craig Bachman shared what I thought was a great idea during Lane Powell’s Social Media Seminar I had the good fortune of presenting at. Inclusion is the key. Get everyone involved.

As is usually the case, success leaves clues. Craig saw what IBM did in adopting social computing guidelines covering Blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and social media.

As explained in the intro to IBM Social Computing Guidelines, IBM used a wiki allowing everyone to participate.

In the spring of 2005, IBMers used a wiki to create a set of guidelines for all IBMers who wanted to blog. These guidelines aimed to provide helpful, practical advice—and also to protect both IBM bloggers and IBM itself, as the company sought to embrace the blogosphere. Since then, many new forms of social media have emerged. So we turned to IBMers again to re-examine our guidelines and determine what needed to be modified. The effort has broadened the scope of the existing guidelines to include all forms of social computing.

Getting everyone’s input is so important. Young people know the tools. Senior rainmakers know how to engage others and build relationships, both at the heart of real client development. Marketing knows the importance of a brand. And everyone has seen success and failures in social media they can share.

I’ve not seen tremendous success in law firm use of wiki’s. But in the case of formulating a social media policy a wiki like IBM used could be a real winner.

How else do you get everyone’s input in organizations employing hundreds and, in some cases, thousands? Committees and meetings are likely to be slow moving and could chill real input.

Allow everyone (I mean everyone) to contribute. Sure, kick it off with an outline framing the discussion. Every project needs a starting point. But allow all to participate.

I am not a fan of anonymity, but the peer and subordinate pressure in law firms may make it appropo here.

I see inclusion as absolutely critical here. How about you?

  • http://www.compliancebuilding.com Doug Cornelius

    Kevin -
    Great point. Of course you could also make the point about the development of any firm-wide/company-wide policy.
    You can’t enforce a policy if people are not aware of it. You can’t get people to respect a policy if they had no say in its development. You don’t need to have the mob rule, but you need to listen to the mob.
    Open policy-making allows you to express why the policy is needed. It also allows you gather the best thoughts, answer questions and build consensus BEFORE the policy comes out.

  • http://kevin.lexblog.com Kevin OKeefe

    Great point Doug that any firm wide policy works much better if you get inclusion.
    I am not sure about consensus though. I only have experience with building consensus in one large company. There consensus meant dumbing things down to the lowest common denominator.
    Developing a social media policy that works is going to take some leadership. Input from all is key, but someone is likely going to need to get out in front. Otherwise the firm risks stalling social media and turning off some of the more innovator stakeholders.

  • http://sleeplessinny.wordpress.com Alin Wagner-Lahmy

    Consensus and Inclusion – definitely key aspects of social media policy, ones with great benefits as well as challenges to the way actual policy is developed and more importantly – as Doug mentioned – implemented. Indeed, how does one form consensus around such a relatively new topic, when in many cases there are fundamental gaps and contradicting views of social media in the firm/company, especially when everyone is included into the discussion?
    That is a part of the slight concern I have around ‘Policies’ and ‘Guidelines’ as I have described in my post linked to above – if not formed ‘in the right way’, these could deter and damage more than guide and support. I have seen many social media policies use the word ‘Don’t’ so many times that it made me shiver from fear. These ‘Don’ts’ only alienate employees from the company/firm, which is the exact opposite of what they should do.
    Good news is that looks like we have reached the end of the ‘social media panic’ era – more and more people are listening and opening up to accept the ‘Do’s’ and see there is no need for so many ‘Don’ts’.
    To me, this is a key element in forming and implementing a solid and useful social media policy – understanding how social media can work with you, for you (and your brand/company), will bring you to consensus more quickly and smoothly. This could be a nice little bridge between ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Consensus’.

  • http://adamchristensen.com adam christensen

    Keith, thanks for the comments here. I work at IBM and was involved in helping to create the guidelines. I think one other benefit we’ve seen in having the community feel a sense of ownership over the guidelines is that it’s largely a self-moderating community. No one polices employee participation in social media spaces – internally or externally. We assume employees will follow the guidelines. When they don’t (which is rare) someone else usually nudges them into line. It’s extremely rare that corporate has to get involved – and all that results from the community’s ownership over those guidelines. They believe them (they created them) and so it’s in everyone’s best interests to behave in a way that maintains trust – both top down and bottom up.
    Sorry for the distraction. Just thought I’d throw it out there!

  • http://mintzwords.wordpress.com Mike Mintz

    Inclusion is important to successful policy creation, but ultimately the execution and best practices put in place to guide your employees once the policy is drafted will pay off more than total inclusion of everyone in it’s creation (too many chefs …).
    Like Kevin said in his response to Doug, (I am paraphrasing), the considerations of inclusion must be balanced against the need to be in the game; if including everyone in the policy creation means a large organization or law firm flies blindly in the social media space for six months to a year, unfettered postings may get out there, which put the firm back even further from the goal line.
    Alin hit it on the head:”a key element in forming and implementing a solid and useful social media policy – understanding how social media can work with you, for you.”
    I would add to that: make the social media policy MEANINGFUL to your people. If you present them with a 5-page document of Do’s and Don’ts, chances are few will read it and most will see it as just another corporate policy. If presented as “guidelines” to assist your people in making better use of social media spaces, all of a sudden you have gone from issuer of corporate rules to engaged employer who cares about my development. Followed up by training, review, and refinement, a hybrid approach to social media policy will help employees succeed in the social media space, which better reflect on the company and their efforts as well.

  • http://firstintheroom.com Chris Boudreaux

    This social media policy database contains links to more than 70 social media policies, and you can filter by industry:
    http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php