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Facebook a rising client development tool for law firms

facebook lawyer business development“Wee Willie” Keeler, one of baseball’s most prolific hitters, when asked about his success, said “I keep my eyes clear and I hit ‘em where they ain’t.”

For lawyers the key to client development success is going where the people are. The people preferably being your target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three.

Today those people are flocking to Facebook in huge numbers. This from an article on Facebook growth in Thursday’s Greensboro Business Journal.

Facebook picked up nearly 1.5 million U.S. users in January, dethroning Yahoo as the second most visited web site in the country, according to Compete.com.

Facebook traffic grew from 132.1 million to 133.6 million, while Yahoo’s fell by 100,000 to 132 million……The average time users spent using Facebook per month, however, grew nearly 10 percent to about seven hours, far above the roughly two hours that Yahoo.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world.

I have the enviable job of playing in the Web 2.0/social media sandbox so I can advise lawyers what’s real and what’s a waste of time when it comes to business development. Through the end of the last year, I advised sticking with the big three of blogging, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

I labeled Facebook as an ‘up and comer.’ Something to keep your eye on, but not something I’d be spending significant client development time on. I thought Facebook more social in nature (not that that’s a bad thing for business development) than professional business oriented. No longer.

Facebook is getting too big to ignore. More people are hanging out on Facebook than any other place on the net. And they’re not all kids. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. Why? They want to stay in touch with their grandkids.

Ignore the staying in touch with grandkids thing. Focus not on why people are drawn to Facebook, focus on the fact that people are drawn to Facebook. Facebook is no longer a community for college kids and recent grads (couldn’t get in without college email address a few years ago).

Facebook, like AOL was when I came to the Internet in 1996, is where everyone is going when they come to the Internet. Go ahead, dismiss Facebook because the leaders in your law firm are ignoring it. My partners thought the Internet and AOL were goofy and a fad when I started using AOL for business development in 1996.

I enjoyed a recent Knicks’ game with Steve Rubel, a leader in social media/marketing/communications and SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital. I asked Steve what he sees as the most important social media tool for business development and marketing. “Facebook.” He agreed with me that Facebook is apt to become, if it’s not already, the operating system for social interaction on the Internet.

Sure Facebook is short quips passed back and forth. But as social media author and speaker, Shel Israel, once told me “Small talk leads to big things.”

Business development is all about relationships. Lawyers build relationships by engaging their target audience, even if the engagement is through social conversation.

When our 12 year old Lab, Newman, was dying last Saturday night, I posted a picture of him on Facebook. I just felt the need to express how hard it was a to lose one of our family’s best buds. Nine heartfelt comments were posted by the next morning. Nine business professionals who took the time to care. That’s true engagement, even if not a business exchange.

That’s just one of the experiences I’ve had in my Facebook experiment of commenting on people’s posts, pictures, or fan pages on Facebook over the last couple months. I’m far from an expert in knowing how to use Facebook for business development. But there’s something here and I plan to keep on experimenting.

I’m not sure I have any other choice. With the world going to Facebook, how can I ignore it and survive as a successful business leader?

  • http://www.gaycoupleslawblog.com Gideon

    Even if you ignore the professional relationships you can develop through facebook, it’s a very good way to just promote blog content. It’s essentially an RSS reader through the facebook wall.
    I’ve seen this in practice with the facebook fan page for my own blog. There’s a lower bar for entry to to interact with posts through facebook than on the blog itself. On the blog, a reader can just click a button to “like” something, and comments of just a few words are common.
    More, those interactions are public and spur other people to interact as well.
    The key is the amount of time people spend on facebook. I spend more time checking facebook than I do checking my RSS reader–and I check my RSS reader more than most already. I’m a fan of a few law-related fan pages, and I know what’s posted on their blogs more often than I would if all I checked were their RSS feeds.
    But I’ve also had facebook work for me for professional connections. An attorney saw that I wasn’t yet facebook friends with another lawyer in Atlanta who was starting a non-profit in a field related to what I write about on my blog. She introduced us to each other by sending a message to both of us through facebook. I ended up meeting this attorney for coffee, giving myself a valuable real-life connection and resource.
    Facebook is more personal than twitter and Linkedin, more interactive, and connections through there more trustworthy. It may not be the best tool to discover and make initial connections, but it may be the best one to grow and cultivate the ones you’ve already made. Law firms and organizations should absolutely include fan pages and other features as part of their social media strategy.

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

    Thanks for the comment Gideon, real valuable info for everyone. Ought to have you do a guest post about Facebook for business development.

  • http://www.steverubel.com Steve Rubel

    Kevin, spot on. All the geeks are missing this story.

  • http://vetsteinlawgroup.com Richard D. Vetstein

    I agree with Kevin and Gideon in just about all respects. Kevin, I’m surprised it took you this long to write this post, as it’s long overdue.
    I’ve been active on Facebook for about 3 years. Since I started my own practice in May, it’s been a great client development and business generator. I have both a Fan Page for my firm (with over 700 fans) (http://facebook.com/vetsteinlawgroup) and a personal profile.
    Here’s where Facebook excels: staying in front of your core referral base: your friends, family, former co-workers, present and former clients (yes, despite the naysayers), high school and college friends, fellow chamber of commerce members, BNI colleagues, basically everyone in your Outlook contacts who is on Facebook. It’s the 80/20 rule in real practice. It’s not so much about getting new friends or fans of your page, although that’s certainly beneficial as Gideon notes, but being the first attorney your core base thinks of when that referral opportunity arises.
    I also think Facebook excels where Twitter and LinkedIn do not in enabling users to share so much more information: photos, videos, events, etc. It’s just much more personal and engaging than the other social media outlets.
    As for new contacts, for me, a real estate attorney, my huge target demographic — Gen Y and Gen X first time and new home buyers — are heavy Facebook users. And as Kevin said, baby boomers (for me, empty nesters selling their homes) are the fastest growing demographic.
    I feed my blog content through my Fan page through the Notes RSS feeder and sporadically through my personal profile (I don’t want to annoy my real friends with too much business related stuff). And I’m now cross marketing with real estate offices who are using Facebook as well.
    Facebook is here to stay when I learned my 64 year old staunch anti-social media father just joined a few weeks ago, to keep up with all the family comings and goings and reconnect with his high school buddies.

  • http://www.gaycoupleslawblog.com Gideon Alper

    I think the reluctance to use Facebook for business development is that people say “Oh, Facebook is for personal stuff.”
    That’s true–it is. But Facebook’s uniquely personal nature is not a reason to shy away from it, but to use it even more. It’s exactly as Richard says–when clients and colleagues are used to thinking or hearing about you on their personal time, they’re more likely to turn to you when they need help.

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

    Thanks for the comment Richard and the accompanying information on how you’ve found Facebook valuable for client development. The info you and Gideon shared, with I am sure more ideas coming, will be the makings of an upcoming post of mine.
    And you are right Richard, this post and my endorsement of Facebook for client development is long overdue. I’ve never claimed to be be brightest kid on the block.

  • http://rozeklaw.com Allison Rozek

    Couldn’t agree more. I recently joined my husband’s law firm (Rozek Law Offices, SC) as the new Client Relations and Marketing Director. My husband used to do his marketing himself (I am amazed at how much he has been able to do!). Since I got on board in November, we have created a new blog, started an office twitter account, created a Facebook Page for the firm, and started submitting articles to free, on-line publications.
    Its taken a little arm twisting to get my husband to recognize the importance of having an ACTIVE presence on social media rather than just a static profile. He still is a little hesitant about advertising on Facebook, but I think i will win him over in no time!
    Thanks for the post, it gives me one more way to influence him :)

  • http://www.marketinglawyers.org David Knott

    My condolences for your losing Newman. If we as people could be half as earnest and loyal as man’s best friend, the world would be a better place. I recently wrote on this subject as well: http://www.marketinglawyers.org/social-networks-determining-factors/. You hit the nail on the head when you said business development is about relationships. I’ll bet you lunch that when you were practicing friends/clients asked you consistently to take cases/matters outside the scope of your practice. People turn to lawyers they know and often ask them to take cases others may be better suited to handle. Knowledge is the foundation of trust and Facebook lets them get to know you.

  • http://vetsteinlawgroup.com Richard D. Vetstein

    Kevin, you know you’re one of the brightest bulbs in the social media block! Thanks for continuing to broadcast the message.
    Rich

  • http://www.myrlandmarketing.com Nancy Myrland

    Kevin and other readers, this was a great post. I think you have hit the nail on the head about not being able to ignore Facebook as a major force in networking for lawyers and law firms. What better way to come to know, like and trust someone than through their personal and professional thoughts and actions? We have this ability on Facebook, Twitter and, to a lesser extent, LinkedIn. To this point, it is not as social as the other two, although it offers amazing ways for all of us to show our knowledge and networking abilities via updates and group activity. I love these kinds of discussions. Thanks for sharing.