Is social media just a time suck for lawyers?
October 3, 2012
Stephanie Davis (@StephLDavis), a real estate broker and social media consultant asked in post at Inman News yesterday, is ‘Social Media Just a Time Suck for Agents?’
Her post drew my attention as I regularly get the same question from lawyers and legal marketing professionals. I don’t have the time or how can I demonstrate to my firm’s lawyers that social media is worth their time.
Before she shared a few tips on how to manage your time with social media, Davis shared a few stats to drive home the importance of social media for businesses (including law firms):
- 50 percent of small-business owners reported getting new customers from social media. (CrowdSpring)
- Nearly 80 percent of active Internet users visit social networks and blogs. (Nielsen)
- 91 percent of online American adults (approx. 129 million) access some form of social media each month. (Experian)
- According to an analysis of 4,200 companies by the business consulting giant McKinsey Global Institute, social technologies stand to unlock from $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in value.
I’ll add four more stats to further drive home the importance of social media for law firms:
- 40% of law firms say blogs and social media brings in work. (ALM)
- 78% of executives go online to search for counsel. (Greenfield/Belser)
- 84% of in-house counsel perceive blogs as credible. (Greentarget)
- 55% of in-house counsel are influenced by blogs in hiring. (Greentarget)
I agree with Davis when she says “Leveraging social media correctly in conjunction with the rest of your marketing/business plan will increase your revenue…”
We have too many lawyers among the almost 8,000 lawyers on our LXBN Network who have increased their business significantly (quite a few with 7 figure increases) through the effective use of blogging and social media for their to be any doubt in my mind that social media is more than the time suck for lawyers.
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