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Do general counsel understand how blogging and social media build relationships?

lawyers attorney social network
October 16, 2014

Following tweets from the Legal Marketing Tech Conference in San Francisco (‪#‎lmatech‬) this AM, I got the sense that general counsel for companies valued relationships first when they select lawyers and law firms, but questioned the value of lawyers using blogs and other social media for business development.

Seems like a disconnect. Blogs and other social media are all about networking online. Networking to nurture existing relationships and build new ones.

Take Facebook for example. The business/legal insight and information shared, in addition to personal items, is great, but the text and photos shared are just currency for relationship building.

Think of networking in person at a social event which includes clients, prospective clients, companies that work with these folks, the media (bloggers and traditional) that report on these folks or about the subject of their business, and association leaders.

Do you remember the words exchanged over a glass of wine or beer or do you remember the people you caught up with and the people you met the first time? Words that included where they’re from, how many kids they have, and how’s business.

It’s the people and the relationships that you recall. It’s the relationships that are the stuff that life is made of, that build trust, and develop business. Just as the GC’s at LMA Tech said, it’s the relationships that matter.

It’s the same when it comes to blogging and other social media. Used effectively you build relationships via blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Relationships that lead to business.

Two years ago, Dan Goldman (@danielg280), one of 43 in-house attorneys for Mayo Clinic, told lawyers and legal marketing professionals (YouTube interview) at program also put on by the Bay Area Chapter of LMA (Legal Marketing Association) of the importance of social for lawyers looking to develop business.

Don’t try to measure the ROI of social media in analytics, measure the return in relationships. Have you connected with in-house counsel in a way that they have come to know and like you?

With Mayo being a big proponent of social media for all of of their doctors and staff, Goldman personally uses social media to build relationships with lawyers and hires those lawyers he knows and likes. So do other in-house counsel at Mayo.

Goldman warned the audience that the price of not using social is irrelevance. As more and more people, including lawyers use the Internet to network, you’ll just not be connected to others if you don’t. It’s much like the phone, per Goldman.

I wonder how much the GC’s at the conference today use social media and social networks themselves.

Do they blog – on anything – personally or professionally? When they blog do they engage people and companies strategically? Do they share on Twitter what the read via their RSS reader so as to meet other GC’s, thought leaders, business people, lawyers, and the media who then follow them? Do they reach out and get to know people on Facebook for both business and personal reasons.

If they don’t regularly use social media to get to know people and develop relationships, I can understand their views.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Luc Legay