No doubt about it, our online lives - including those of your potential clients - are spent engaging in social networking activities.  So if your law firm marketing plan doesn't have a robust social media component, you are courting irrelevance.

The Facts: 

In a new report on the influence of blogs, eMarketer found that in 2010, 51 percent of Internet users in the U.S. -- over 91 million - read blogs, and projects that usage to go to 60 percent (150 million) in four years.

Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase) according to research released recently from The Nielsen Company. According to the data, Americans spend 36 percent of their online time communicating and networking on social networking sites like Facebook, blogs, personal email and instant messaging. 

Technorati, the top blog search engine, was indexing over 126 million blogs as of December 2009.  Two years ago, there were only about 1,800 to 2,200 blogs written by lawyers.  Law.com now indexes over 23,000 legal blogs.

Digital research firm eMarketer released a report about how blogging has become more fully integrated into marketing communications.

The Technique:

Are all Blogs Successful?  No and I will tell you why- The problem arises when you begin blogging without a clear strategy behind you. 

Blogging should be a part of, but not your entire law firm marketing strategy. It is your forum to connect with the community at large and to make it clear that you are an expert in your field.  But to make it the highly effective medium you need it to be, your law firm marketing and promotion strategy should include:

• A topic list designed to engage your target audience
• A list of social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) to promote it
• A list and schedule for article marketing services to add visibility and to feed it to reporters and thought leaders
• An up to date blog that you write articles for at least 2 to 4 times per week
• A search engine optimization formula to increase your page rank

When you have all these things in place, you will be well on  your way to creating a blog that will enhance your overall law firm marketing efforts.

The Audience:

If you go back and review the statistics at the beginning of this article you will see that the general Audience Base for a Blog is Huge.  In addition, consider that social networking use has doubled for older adults.  The latest boom in social networking use is happening among baby boomers and seniors, according to the latest research by Pew Internet and American Life Project.  Here are the latest stats from the research:

• Social networking use among Internet users age 50+ nearly doubled-from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.
• Between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking use among Internet users ages 50-64 grew by 88%--from 25% to 47%.
• During the same period, use among those ages 65+ grew 100%--from 13% to 26%.

Researchers said that the reasons more older Americans are flocking to social networks like Facebook and Twitter is to reconnect with people from their past, form support networks for new career ventures or other life changes and to communicate better with children and grandchildren.

If you target people over the age of 50 with your legal marketing, this research should give you added impetus to ensure that social media marketing is part of your law firm marketing program.

The Results:

Many business owners (yes, you are a business owner) continue to struggle with how to measure ROI for social media.  As you develop your social media marketing plan, take the time to determine what you want to know.  Your plan should be able to identify all of your target audiences, the key influencers to those audiences, and your effectiveness in reaching them.  You should be able to track the conversion rate of prospects to clients, the response percentage to your marketing messages, and who is responding to your messaging.

However you choose to measure social media, it is imperative that you have a success metric in mind before you begin. Without some sort of benchmark, determining your ROI is impossible.

Digital intelligence firm eMarketer just came out with a free report called Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media that does a nice job of summarizing exactly what marketers need to do to achieve success with their social media marketing programs:

1. Establish clear marketing goals for your product or brand, and then identify social measurements that directly support those objectives.
2. Organize your measurements and metrics in a logical framework.
3. Take a long-term outlook with social media interactions and measurements. It's a commitment, not a campaign.
4. If hard ROI metrics are difficult to track directly, consider a range of softer metrics that can be linked back to desired business outcomes.
5. Determine a dollar value for customers who choose to opt in and engage with your brand via social networks.
6. In your ROI calculations, don't overlook the value of cost savings that can result from ongoing social listening and tracking.
7. Build the technological capabilities to measure your customers' complete digital footprint-in real time.

One of the hardest ones for most attorneys to grasp is #3 - it's a commitment, not a campaign.  Building a social media presence takes time.  You can't expect to throw up a few blogs and have prospects knocking down your doors.  Create content that is relevant to your targeted prospect, keep pumping it out there, and they will come.

Want to get started started blogging, but need some help?

Give us a call at 888-588-5891 to find out how you can get a jumpstart on your competition in the next 30 days.

Or Learn More! See Below for information about our upcoming Webinar on The Five Rules Of Internet Marketing For Attorneys: How To Use Your Website and Blog to Generate High Quality Leads For Your Law Firm