Best social media followers for law firms are not clients and prospective clients

Pamela Vaughan (@pamelump), a marketing manager at HubSpot, suggests this morning that companies need social media followers who won’t ever buy from the company.

The reason is reach and influence. And I am in full agreement that it’s the same for law firms and attorneys who are blogging and using other social media.

It simply doesn’t matter if your clients and prospective clients read your blog or follow you on other social media for you to be a client development success using social media.

It would be nice if they did follow you, and you should proactively share blog posts and mention your use of other social media to clients and prospective clients, but it’s not critical to success for these folks to follow you or your blog.

Here’s five points from Vaughn to which I’ve added a few of my comments.

• More followers means access to more followers’ followers. If you can understand that some of your fans/followers might share your content with their friends and followers, now you can start understanding the impact of reach. Even if that original follower of yours never becomes a client herself, that doesn’t mean one of her followers who saw your content because of her won’t.
• Influencers have, well, influence. As you build up a following in social media, you’ll have influencers among the bunch. While these influencers may follow but never buy from you, remember that these people are called influencers for a reason. They’ll include association leaders, conference coordinators, publishers, reporters, and other bloggers. Get in front of an audience who trusts them, whether readers or conference attendees and you’ll be in front of clients and prospective clients. Your clients and prospective clients will be heavily influenced by the fact that you’re ‘there.’
• Followers who won’t ever buy can still refer you business. Indirect exposure to your followers’ personal networks can be an invaluable source of business. Blogging lawyers regularly tell me they receive referrals of clients who don’t know they blog from other lawyers, consultants, and the like who do read the lawyer’s blog.
• Social shares impact SEO. The impact social media is having on SEO is only increasing. Search engines are taking social cues like social media shares into account when they’re ranking your content, which means the more people you can get to share your content in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn, the better.
• Who your clients are may surprise you. Building a large following in social media will expose you and your firm to people you might never have thought would be interested in your legal services. Maybe you had never thought of a Sri Lanka company as a client, but that didn’t stop a Sri Lanka executive from contacting Seattle Attorney Dan Harris who publishes the China Law Blog.

When developing a strategy for social media at your law firm, certainly make a tight list of the type of clients and prospective clients you want to reach with your blog and other social media.

But, more importantly make a list of the amplifiers and influencers. It’s those folks who you need to go after to make your social media program a success.