LAW FIRM MARKETING AND THE INTERNET
Blog posts reinforce your expertise and reputation
I found this article on CNN’s website: ‘How can small companies make money from social media?’, and it made me start thinking about whether social media is a business for law firms.
I joined LinkedIn and SunZu (f.k.a. Ecademy) back in 2004. I was among the 1st million members of LinkedIn: member number 952,524 in fact!
I now have profiles on Xing, Facebook, Eleqt (f.k.a. Elysiants), Legal360.nl, Martindale-Hubbell Connected and several other sites too. Joining these sites has been an important step in improving my networking activities, creating my own business environment and being part of the world wide community.
In order to create awareness and increase the brand reputation of a law firm it is also necessary to share information or content. I started this legal blog in May 2005 for that very reason. On the 1st of June 2010 we will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of this weblog. As a law firm we are obviously not selling cookies but high quality services which only a limited number of people and organizations require. The mere fact that people know us is not sufficient: they have to trust us too, to which end I believe that sharing information is key.
As far as networking is concerned, you need to be focused and know that without effort you will not get results. It is certainly worthwhile investing time and money in a legal blog, especially in difficult economic times. Posting on your blog and sharing the content through social media like for instance LinkedIn and Twitter is easy and enables you to reach a fairly large audience around the globe. It is of utmost importance however, that whatever you are disseminating is of value to your audience.
The revolution we call the Internet has just begun. Law firms are not front runners, but eventually they will learn how to put these great communication tools to good use.
Karel Frielink
Attorney (Lawyer) / Partner
(24 April 2010)
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