Social meejah - just for kids? - new blog post from Nick Holmes regarding law firms and social media:
Head on over to Stem where Jordan Furlong is penning a series of posts on Social Media for Lawyers.
He kicked off with Facebook for law firms.
And has followed that up with Twitter for law firms.
These look at how law firms can use social media effectively to promote the firm. No journalistic hype or platitudes here: Jordan brings a wealth of experience to bear.
By Nick Holmes, 9 April 2010
Jordan laments that the following is what a typical law firm Twitter account contains, and to some extent, Law Schools (if they use social media, do the same):
- copied-and-pasted headlines from the firm’s press releases, with a link thereto;
- copied-and-pasted headlines from the firm’s newsletters or blogs, with a link thereto;
- news that a lawyer at the firm has appeared in a media outlet, with a link thereto;
- news that a lawyer at the firm has received an award or designation, with a link thereto;
- news that the firm has successfully completed a client engagement, with a link thereto.
His plain and simple advice is to keep two things in mind: (1) it’s all about the clients, and (2) it’s not all about the firm. Updates deliver breaking news of interest to the firm’s clientele, or provide links to reports of interest and importance to clients’ industries, or spread the word about upcoming events and opportunities that could deliver value to clients.
This may be sound advice for the law school and universities in general. I follow my university's twitter feed, but it contains much the same as the weekly news bulletins that staff receive via email, and pretty much the same things that Jordan Furlong rejects for law firm tweeps. I suppose this rather much depends on the intended audience that each group wishes to attract.
I follow quite a few law firm tweets, but mainly for the news headlines, PR hype and other news that I would otherwise not find unless I browsed their website directly, and regularly. I'm not a client of the law firm, so do I agree with this approach? In a way, yes, because I will only follow a feed if the content is of interest and importance, and I get value from the news or links within - so therefore I fit within Jordan's plain and simple advice. Even though I'm not a client receiving legal sevices, in a way I am a client of their twitter feed so this definition of content should apply to me.
On the other hand, universities may have a variety of clients - including the ubiquitous student. Do they wish to follow a twitter feed from their alma mater? Whether they do or not is another matter entirely, but a twitter feed should be able to accommodate such a diverse audience, and the content should perhaps follow more closely Jordan's second rule of not always being about the firm/university.
So, perhaps social meejah is not only for the kids, but should include 'clients' in the widest sense!
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