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Why do law firms include social network badges across all the pages on their websites?

Home page, practice areas, lawyer bio’s, office locations and what have you. It looks like the firm has a sponsorship deal where the social networks are paying the firm to display the logos.

The logos, of course, are share buttons where the page and its description can be shared on a social network such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest.

The problem is that no one would share the marketing pages of a company, especially a law firm — except for maybe employees of the law firm who don’t know how silly they would look by doing so.

Share buttons are used around the Internet to move news, information, insight and commentary. Most of this information for law firms would be on law blogs.

Sure, there are probably exceptions. But I think the products, services and people pages being shared would have to be pretty popular items. An Apple Watch, a pair of Nike running shoes, a national park trail, an NFL star or a rockstar.

I don’t see how website pages displaying marketing information on law firms fall into this social share category.

What’s the harm? You look lame.

Law firms boast that they are tech savvy. Many law firms are looking to get work from tech companies, start-ups, venture capitalists, media companies and the like. Employees at these companies know better. Most people know better for that matter.

It’s not good enough to look as equally ignorant as other law firms. Law firms may be setting the standard for Internet ‘lameness.’

It’s also not good enough to do everything your Internet marketing/website developer is advising or doing. There is a lot of marginal work out there.

Yes, do ask people on your website to connect and engage with you via social networks. Have badges that link to Facebook, Twitter and Linked pages for the firm and individual lawyers. That’s far different.

The use of the Internet for business development need not be that complicated. As a lawyer or other professional, use blogs and social networks. Gain a level of common sense that will dictate good practice. That way you avoid these sort of problems.

 Image courtesy of Flickr by Darryl Moran