Do you believe in social media?
When I was a kid I lived down the street from John Denniger. He was an expert on monsters.
“How do you kill a werewolf?” He quizzed me.
“Silver bullet.” That was an easy one.
“What about Dracula?”
“Wooden stake to the heart.” These weren’t even a challenge.
“How do you make The Blob (a large monster in the shape of you guessed it- a blob)?” This time John had me stumped, I had no idea.
“How,” I asked.
“All you need to do, is put a whole tube of toothpaste on the sidewalk, then add water with a garden hose.” He explained. I didn’t think to ask, but why didn’t bathroom water create The Blob in the sink, or why weren’t their thousands of Blob monsters in the sewers now? I just trusted him, and a full tube of toothpase later, I realized that I couldn’t create The Blob. John Denniger’s credibility took a serious hit.
Has social media failed to live up to the hype for you in the same way John’s advice on monsters failed me? Is social media for lawyers the new snake oil? Can it really help bring in business? Or is social media just a waste of time?
Online personalities love to talk in superlatives. Social media sucks, or social media will make your business explode. So which is it?
Scott Greenfield warns that social media is not the silver bullet, and that listening to legal marketers on the subject will do little more for you than lighten your wallet. Scott obviously believes social media is worth your time as evidence by his multiple blog posts each week. He also has reaped the rewards of the increased exposure from his blog, having been asked to speak on numerous panels and even landing a “big” client through social media (a fact that he loves to minimize.) It isn’t a major source of business for him though, at least not directly- but it has certainly opened doors for him.
You see, even the biggest opponents of social media are users and they are using the same blogs and social media tools they ridicule to spread the warning.
Lawyers from Scott Greenfield’s camp are protecting other lawyers from social media help, because they didn’t need it. They pulled themselves up by their boot straps to learn social media and blogging, so why shouldn’t you? It’s so easy a caveman could do it. You get the idea.
This argument resonates with their online community, because the vast majority of them have learned social media by simply doing it.
If you are passionate about learning how to use social media, jump in. Read the blog posts, follow the Twitter feeds of people you respect and learn by doing. This is a great way to learn anything. But if you are reading this post, you have most likely already figured that out- you understand the power of sharing knowledge and the impressive resources that are at your fingertips through social media. You get it. If you are like me, there was a moment in time when a switch was flipped in your mind and you went from being a skeptic to a believer.
What does it mean to be a believer in social media?
To believe in social media is to comprehend the awesome power these tools have to connect total strangers in a meaningful way. Separated by geography, ethnicity and even socio-economic status- social media creates communities of like-minded individuals.
Will social media make you a rainmaker? Sadly, no. It takes a certain skill set to bring in business- and proficiency in more than just tweeting. You have to be able to set goals, take conversations offline, follow up and have the experience to close the deal. Social media however can be a powerful tool to facilitate business development. It is all about access, and social media will open doors to access people that before would have been protected by far too many gate keepers.
When I unexpectedly lost my job as an attorney almost 15 months ago, as I explain in my book, two weeks later I had a signed job offer- but I turned it down. The opportunity to be a part of such a massive shift in the way people communicate was just too compelling. The era where social media was considered a novelty is coming to a close – over the next 24 months law firms will become big believers in social media and unleash the true power of these tools by allowing all of their attorneys to participate.
We aren’t there yet, not even close. That is what makes this so exciting, to see it coming. To really take advantage of social media, large firms need to take advantage of their strength in numbers. The AmLaw 200 was recently praised for having more than 297 blogs. Over 100,000 of the best and brightest attorneys and they have come up with a measly 297 blogs? Imagine when a single large firm, like perhaps Baker & McKenzie (3949 attorneys) sees the real vision of social media and has 10% of their attorneys blogging? They would have more blogs than all of the rest of Biglaw combined. We aren’t there yet, not even close, but the day is coming.
Would blogs and social media make all of those attorneys into rainmakers? Certainly not, but would it give Baker & McKenzie substantially more exposure? Absolutely. It would be monumental. They would be part of online discussions in every major practice group, top the Google searches for novel practice areas and they would be seen as the leading innovators when it came to technology use by a large firm. We haven’t seen large law firms successful integrate social media at anywhere near that scale, but it is coming.
Social media isn’t the silver bullet that will save your practice, and toothpaste won’t help you create The Blob, but don’t deny the power of social media. The growth of social media has only just begun, and it will remain long after the monster myths of John Denniger are forgotten. Do you believe in social media? What does that mean to you?
This Friday Hubbard One Marketer of the Year Andrea Stimmel from the mid-sized firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle will be joining us to discuss how their firm has made social media pay. Join the discussion at 12pm EST this Friday. Click here to sign up for the call.
Facebook for Biglaw? Believe it.
Three weeks ago there was a game changing survey released by Green Target in conjunction with ALM showing that in-house counsel are not only using social media and reading blogs, they are trusting it for their news.
The survey has been covered on everything from Above the Law to Mashable, but most of these outlets have failed to note the significance of the findings when it comes to Facebook use in-house. (Complete survey can be viewed at http://greentarget.net) These two statistics from the survey with regards to use of Facebook by in-house counsel were particularly surprising.
37% of in-house counsel ages 30-39 used Facebook for PROFESSIONAL reasons in the last 24 hours.
28% of ALL in-house counsel for companies ranging from $1-10 Billion in revenue used Facebook for professional reasons in the last 24 hours.
What does this mean? It means that what law firms think about Facebook is wrong. In fact, what I thought about Facebook was wrong. Biglaw needs to start paying attention to Facebook, not because that is where in-house counsel is headed, but because that is where they are spending their time now.
As of March 2010, only 31 firms from the AmLaw 100 had Facebook pages, but suddenly due to an agreement between Facebook and Wikipedia if your firm has a wikipedia entry, it also has a Facebook page. Read more about this at “Firms No Fan of Facebook Pages.”
Facebook is pulling in information from Wikipedia to populate your firm’s community page whether you like it or not. LinkedIN does a similar thing for Company pages, populating the company page with information entered by the past and present employees.
What does this mean for the legal industry? Will firms now turn their focus to Facebook? Not immediately, is my guess, but joining us tomorrow at 12PM EST to talk about it on the Weekly Voir Dire Conference Call will be John Corey, President of Green Target to discuss the findings of this survey and how it is shaking up the legal world. Please join us for what is sure to be a great call. You can email questions for him to info@adriandayton.com.
Click here to sign up for the call.
Digital Marketing for Global Firms w/ Anthony Green (podcast)
This past Friday I had the pleasure of welcoming on the program Anthony Green, President of Concep. Anthony’s company has worked with some of the biggest firms in the world from Clifford Chance to Baker & McKenzie to develop effective digital marketing campaigns.
Listen in to this 32 minute podcast to hear Anthony explain:
-The key to building high value relationships
-How to measure the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns
and
-The achilles heel of most large firms when it comes to business development (the answer will surprise you.)
This next Friday join us as we speak with John Corey, President of Greentarget about their Social Media Survey for in-house counsel.
In-House Counsel Have Arrived
There is a certain art to knowing when to show up to a party. Arriving right on time- that could be risky. You don’t want to be the first one there, or you could seem over anxious. Getting to the party late, you could miss out on the action and alienate your host. Fashionably late- now that is what you are going for. Law firms are having the same dilemma in deciding when to start using social media. ”None of our clients are using social media,” is a common concern voiced to me by lawyers. “I just can’t imagine in-house counsel spending time reading blogs,” is another I hear frequently. Not too long ago law firms would have been justified in these concerns, but that time is past. The party has started, in-house counsel have arrived at the social media party and they are looking for dance partners.
How can you know if in-house counsel are using social media? Just ask them. Greentarget has done that very thing in a recent survey with ALM Legal Intelligence, and Zeughauser Group. The findings suggest not only that in-house counsel are using social media, but that blogs matter to them.
27% said blogs published by lawyers are among the “most important” factors in their hiring decision.
43% of in-house counsel turn to blogs as a primary source of news.
50% agree or somewhat agree that in the future, high-profile blogs authored by law firm lawyers will influence the process by which clients hire law firms.
This is a snapshot of where in-house counsel is right now, but much more powerful are the trends revealed by the 30-39 age group. “A lot of these younger counsel could be at very influential businesses in just a few years,” explained John Corey, President of Greentarget. Or in other words, these are the future GC’s of major corporations and many of them are power users of social media.
47% of this 30-39 age group used LinkedIN in the past 24 hours.
35% used Facebook for PROFESSIONAL reasons in the last 24 hours. (A whooping 68% used Facebook for personal reasons in the past 24 hours)
35% visited a blog in the past 24 hours, 54% in the past week
Although the younger attorneys surveyed were consuming far more social media than the older cohort, older attorneys (ages 40-49, and 50-59) are still using social media and blogs in significant if not surprising numbers.
25% in 40-49 age group cited social media websites (LinkedIN, Facebook and Twitter) as among their leading source of news and information.
24% in 50-59 age group cited social media as their leadings source of news and information.
“It’s a wake-up call to law firms,” John Corey, president of Greentarget explained on Law.com. The party has started, and those firms waiting until the very last minute to arrive risk missing out on all the action.
You can download the complete survey HERE
Or see other coverage of the survey:
This Friday at 12:00 PM EST John Corey, President of Greentarget, will be joining the Weekly Voir Dire Conference Call to discuss the survey in more depth and answer any questions people may have. To receive call-in information CLICK HERE.
Large Firms React to a Seismic Shift in Communication
If you’re talking to the right people, at the right time, about the right stuff you’ve got effective communication. Digital doesn’t change that, it makes it more powerful.”
-Concep
How are the biggest firms in the country dealing with the biggest shift in technology since the inception of the internet?
How are firms like Baker & McKenzie, Clifford Chance and DLA Piper unlocking the power of digital communication while still controlling the message?
Are they dipping their toe in the waters of social media, or are they taking the plunge?
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This Friday afternoon at 12 PM EST we have a special guest in Anthony Green, President of Concep US and digital marketing expert. Anthony was a founding member of the Internet Advertising Bureau, lecturer for the Institute of Direct Marketing, and is extremely active in both the LMA and LSSO. Handling digital communications for the likes of Ernst & Young, Jones Day and White & Case, Anthony has some unique insights. Come join us for a rapid-fire-discussion outlining how the biggest firms are making the most of digital communication.
If you have any question you would like to ask Anthony or myself, feel free to email them in advance to info@adriandayton.com
Call is at 12 PM EST, CLICK HERE to sign up for the call.
