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How will legal marketing and communication professionals learn social media?

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September 12, 2014

On Thursday I attended one of the better legal marketing programs I’ve been to in a while in the Los Angeles LMA program, “The Next Big Idea.”

Excellent speakers with 15 minutes apiece, a keynote, and a couple panels made for darn near an overload of info. For me it was “Wow, look at all the things LexBlog and I could be doing.” Enough to feel a little guilty.

Add to this the camaraderie and friendly faces from across the country. Computers and social networks are great, but there is no substitute for hugs, laughs, food, and drinks.

One thing I couldn’t help but feel during the day, including while looking out while presenting, was who was going to teach all these marketing and communication professionals how to network online. To blog, to use Twitter, to use Facebook, to use LinkedIn and more – for business and personal reasons.

I wondered if some of the professionals honestly believed that really knowing how to use these media personally, through experience, was critical for them to do their jobs.

Maybe they could hide behind the firm’s social media accounts? Maybe they personally or through other companies could teach and support lawyers in the use of social media without using it themselves? Maybe they could grow personally and professionally without networking online to build their own relationships and word of mouth?

Sure, there are many professionals adept at social media, but it sure looks like the majority are not.

Understand, a lot of the program was not about technology and social media. Much was solid insight on leadership and offline business development and sales. But the message was clear during most of the day that we were not going back and that the net was a powerful business development tool in all we do.

One session that particularly struck me was a panel of communication professionals and legal media professionals. Two or three of them did not use Twitter, and if they did, only did so personally.

Some pushed back that lawyers don’t use Twitter that much or that Twitter doesn’t work well as a “content distribution” tool. It was like, “Golly, some of these guys don’t really understand how Twitter works for relationships with your audience, including the media.”

I wondered how such professionals could give insight to those in the audience on the intersection of earned media (traditional media) and created media (law firm content) without having a working understanding, through personal experience, of how Twitter works. How about back at the law firm for those working at firms.

Don’t get me wrong, these folks are great people, very talented, and are extremely busy accomplishing all they do for their firms. At some point though social becomes so critical to a lawyer’s and law firm’s ability to compete that not knowing and using social personally as marketing and communications professionals cannot fly.

How will marketing and communications professionals learn social? I think the same way everyone else has. Through trial and error. Through getting out there and following a passion, no matter what it may be.

Social is not a lunch and learn, classroom, or conference session kind of thing. Sure, get ideas and inspiration there, but you have to get out and do it to learn. You don’t learn to ski in a conference room, and you don’t learn social there either.

Fear and reservation are holding a lot of folks back. What if I get in trouble? What if I get the firm in trouble? Get over it, the things you will be doing personally and professionally to learn social are not going to cause your firm or you a problem.

Your firm and you personally are probably in more trouble by you not learning social than you using and learning social.

What an opportunity there is though for marketing and communications professionals. An opportunity to grow personally and professionally by networking online and an opportunity to lead by personal example and experience the other other professionals in your firm in the use of social media.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Moyan Breen