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I was speaking with a client recently who is the Managing Partner at a small, full service law firm with several attorneys. They practice primarily in the areas of personal injury, family law, estate planning, and more recently they started up a bankruptcy practice. Several months ago they hired The Rainmaker Institute to build and run their social media campaign on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Avvo.com and JDSupra.com.
Before we started this program they only had a dozen or so active referral sources. By building their platform on social media, we have been able to connect them with well over 20,000 prospects and potential referral sources on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in their local area.
Just a few months into starting this program, their referrals had doubled and they had received 67 leads for their brand new bankruptcy practice! While I'm not suggesting all of these leads came from social media, building their platform on those networks has created a much deeper pond to pull prospects from...
and most attorneys I know would love to launch a new practice and have 67 leads the first month!
Second, social media is more than a fad. Social media has become a fundamental shift in the way we communicate and find information-or rather the way information finds us.
When you consider the pure number of people who are now using social media the question you should be asking is not, are my prospects, clients, and referral sources using social media? The question you should be asking is which network are they using more?
In a recent survey by the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center they found 56% of attorneys are already using a social network! This means for you skeptics out there, if you are not maintaining a presence on at least one social network you are already behind the curve. Of those networks, LinkedIn is the most popular at 83%, Facebook is second with 68% and Plaxo is third with 18%.
However, for attorneys who are looking to connect with consumers (versus business owners), like criminal defense, personal injury, bankruptcy, estate planning, and family law just to name a few, Facebook should be your primary focus because of the sheer number of people that can be found there (over 750 million registered users and growing).
Depending on the demographic of your clientele you may have more success with one social media platform compared to another but it is important that you have a presence on them all. For example: Business oriented attorneys, like business litigation, securities, and intellectual property, should focus more of their efforts on LinkedIn. However, LinkedIn also has the highest number of attorneys who use the network so it's a little more difficult to stand out as compared to Facebook or Twitter.
What many people fail to understand is how people are starting to use social media. Social networks are more and more being used as personal search engines mainly because Google has become too generic and they often don't trust what they find there.
This trend is especially true in the under 30 age group. In fact, many social media experts are starting to point to Facebook as the new Google! Tens of thousands of searches are conducted every day on Facebook for resources and reviews of products, services, and service providers.
As Bob Burg points out in his excellent book, Endless Referrals, all things being equal, people buy from people they know, like and trust. By extension, people trust their personal networks to point them in the right direction more than a generic Google search.
When you think about it, this is common sense. When you are looking for a recommendation, who would you trust more-a Google search or one of your friends who personally vouches for a specific service provider?
This long-time phenomenon of asking your friends and colleagues for a referral has simply gone viral and online. Social networks are quickly multiplying the number of connections a person can ask when seeking a referral to a trusted advisor.
Smart law firms are starting to see the importance of "going where the fish are" instead of trying to drag them to their office or by using interruption based marketing like television ads or billboards.
Third, you can use social media as a very cost effective business development tool. Below is a description of steps you can take. (This is how we are using social media to build our business):
1. Set up a targeted landing page. If your target market is people looking to save their home from foreclosure by filing for bankruptcy, your landing page should discuss their specific need
2. On the landing page offer them something of value. You could offer web visitors a free special report, audio CD or white paper on a topic of interest to them. For example,
The Top 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Divorce Attorney
The 7 Deadly Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Personal Injury Case
The 5 Reasons Why Business Owners Get Sued and How to Avoid Them.
3. You drive traffic to your landing page by promoting it via your social media outlets. You can announce your free special report on your Facebook fan page or promote your complimentary audio CD by including the link in your LinkedIn account.
4. When they visit the landing page they can only obtain your valuable information if they give you their contact information (name, phone and email address) and by agreeing to opt into your database and be contacted by your law firm for further follow up.
5. You use their contact information to follow up with them either by letter (good), an email (better), or a phone call (best). When you connect with them you qualify them to see if they are a good prospect for you and then offer them a complimentary consultation, if that's part of your business model.
Here at The Rainmaker Institute, we have successfully used this exact process with attorneys across the country for over 3 years. During this time we have generated thousands of qualified leads, for our company directly from our social media efforts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter!
In fact, if you would like to see a few of our landing pages and get one of our free marketing reports click on the links below:
"8 Reasons Why Small Firms and Solo Attorneys Should Publish an E-Newsletter and 3 Steps to Get you Started Immediately"
We also have a phenomenal Automated Blogging and Social Media Program that we will set up, manage, and implement for you right away. Having a blog and social media presence is not just a good idea, it is a CRITICAL component of your law firm marketing plan.
Do it yourself, delegate it to a staff member or contact us and together we can make sure that you are part of the Social Media Movement and that you won't be left in the dust. | 
