73% of adults use social networks : Are your lawyers engaging them?

A couple days ago. I blogged how the next wave of a social law firm required going from the corporate use of social to a personal use of social. A recent report from Pew Research Center’s Internet Project makes clear how important moving social from corporate to personal is. 73% of online adults are now use a social networking of some kind and 42% are using multiple social networking sites. Irrespective of which social networks Americans are using, many are using more consumer orientated networks than business networks, the point is the same. People are using social networks to engage each other, develop relationships, and build reputations. But rather than social being used at a corporate level, everyone across the organization will need to participate in the next wave of business social beginning in 2014. Lawyers ought to be empowered, encouraged, and educated on social. Marketing’s lead, alone, on Facebook and Twitter does not realize the value of personal engagement. Marketing’s posting of content to LinkedIn, blogs, and other sites leaves lawyers out of personal exchanges. As I shared from Clara Shih, CEO of Hearsay Social and Board Member at Starbucks:

[We’ll] move from enabling the few (i.e., the few marketers who manage corporate social media accounts) to mobilizing the many (i.e., the entire workforce and the “feet on the street”) to authentically engage at a personal and local level. After all, people buy from people, not companies. People trust individuals, not corporations. It’s the way business has always been done, but now social business complements traditional methods and allows for companies and their employees to manage and measure this engagement at scale.

Social may be as simple as lawyers needing to go where people are. Today people are on social.