Set-it-and-forget-it blogging and social media for lawyers
For those lawyers who don’t like engaging people and who, in my opinion, are approaching unethical conduct, we now have “set-it-and-forget-it style blogging and social media management.”
This from a press release from Dallas yesterday:
For many professionals, social media is too time consuming on the one hand, but too important to delegate on the other. Still, we know that possessing a well-run social media presence can pay tremendous dividends. That is why so many legal blogs begin with the best of intentions, but when business picks up blogging becomes the lowest priority.
Wired For PR is a brand new service which offers set-it-and-forget-it style blogging and social media management. In addition, from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, we work to make sure our clients have the most engaging, active, and cost-effective social media presence in their industry.
The service is offered by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, a licensed attorney with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in journalism.
Her website reads a bit like a restaurant menu with a bloggers special at $1,499 a month, social media guru at $1,799 a month, and dozen or more ala carte items. More power to Dwilson for carving out a living offering a service some lawyers appear to want. But to me, the whole thing is nuts.
Lawyers get their best work from relationships and a strong word of mouth reputation. The Internet, including blogs and social media, doesn’t change that.
Relationship and reputation building requires, damn near by definition, personal involvement. You don’t have your ‘set-it and forget-it’ professional talk to a reporter for you or present at a conference for you. Would you have your ‘set-it and forget-it’ networker go to a reception with business leaders for you?
Lawyers blogging and using social media in a real and authentic fashion enhance their reputation and build relationships. Real and authentic engagement is the key here — and that can not be farmed out. And if not disclosed, could be viewed as false and misleading and thus, unethical.
Ironically, the press release acknowledges that “Delegating something as public as social media to the wrong person can prove disastrous.”
Unfortunately, someone suggesting to you, as a lawyer, to handover your engaging others to build personal relationships and to enhance your reputation may be the wrong the person.