Legal brands ‘missing out’ on social media
Top legal brands are missing out on ‘vital’ customer interaction by failing to set up social networking sites, according to research seen exclusively by the Gazette.
A report on the legal sector by internet consultants Greenlight said that many of the most visible legal websites do not yet have a presence on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
However, the report found that some legal websites – such as that belonging to national marketing network QualitySolicitors.com – are making intelligent use of social media.
QualitySolicitors has used its Facebook and Twitter accounts as a point of contact for customers to ask legal-related questions, the research said. It produces 25 tweets per month.
However, other legal-related brands with a powerful internet presence, such as National Accident Helpline and Contact Law, do not currently have official Facebook or Twitter accounts, and so are ‘missing out on vital interaction with social media customers’, the report said.
Greenlight’s ‘social media popularity index’ ranked the top 15 brands for legal search results, according to their social media performance. The best performing website was Wikipedia, followed by information site justanswer.com and graduate careers site Prospects. The Law Society’s website ranked in fourth place, followed by QualitySolicitors.
Comments
Who will tell us what Intelligent use is?
How are we to measure intelligent use?
No doubt the "specialist SEO and PPC consulting and technology firm, which helps businesses dramatically increase their sales and profits." who carried out the report and showed it exclusively to the Gazette, will be able to advise further.
This is just an advert, isn't it?
Low hanging fruit ... daft to ignore it
Neil's comments aside, I think there is a really simple point here.
Let's assume I'm in Lancashire and someone has mentioned the law firm Marsden Rawsthorn to me.
Are they accessible other than via the phone or via the 'Contact' page on their own website?
Vast numbers of people, notably business people, use social networks and find them a useful way of reseaching the people/organisations that they may want to work with. I know that my company BHP Information Solitions certainly does.
I've just put the name Marsden Rawsthorn into Twitter. It comes up with their Twitter account, @uksolicitors. Hmmmn, way better than usual, this looks like a really progressive firm. As an outsider, you would guess from this one piece of 'evidence' that they are practical, forward thinking, client-focused, unstuffy. If you check out their website I'm sure you will find that they are also 'a leading law firm, etc etc', ie the usual reassuring marketing identikit stuff.
Social media for a law firm should only require a very small investment in time. Setting up and maintaing a presence on LinkedIn and Twitter is no big deal. It's cheap, it works, it's simply part and parcel of the modern marketing mix. 56% of US attorneys already have a presence on LinkedIn ... I don't see why it does not make sense for our solicitors to make themselves accessible in the same way.
Unintelligent Consultants
This article quotes supposed internet and social media consultants Greenlight. However, if you look on their website you will see no link to any twitter url/feed. I am tempted to think they are new to the social media game and don't quite know what they are doing.
They use qualitysolcitiors.com as an example of good use of web networking, but "25 tweets a month" does not sound intelligent to me. I have seen quality solictiors use of social media myself and they are pretty 'green' when it comes to using twitter, although they are probably learning. There are many individual lawyers who are listed far more than the 14 lists that the 'national brand' quality solicitors appear on. They need to be better advised.
Anyway, if you really want to succeed in web media, you need to get individuals engaging and communicating. Like in real life, I tend to ignore the branded twitter feeds and communicate directly with individuals - genuine people who can think, talk, make decisions and who you can do business with.
http://twitter.com/jonathanlea
We don't want to 'interact'
We don't want to 'interact' with the clients, we just want to provide legal services to them, and I assume the vast majority of clients would feel the same. I don't want to hear about my lawyer's views on Federer's exit from Wimbledon or the latest proposals for hedge fund regulation from the EU.