Online Social Media Strategy for Small to Medium-sized Firms

In a few minutes, I will head to the airport to fly to Denver, where I will attend the Legal Marketing Association 2010 Annual Conference. Among the sessions on Thursday, March 11, I will join Jayne Navarre and Heather Milligan to discuss how firms who have small marketing departments can enter and use the online social space.

Below you’ll find links to my handouts for this session and a few other resources I think are helpful.

The basic premise for the plan at my mid-Atlantic regional firm , Sands Anderson PC, hangs squarely on the lawyer’s biography and this page on the internet becomes the centerpiece for the social media utilities we use. The plan focuses on two elements, which are strictly traditional from the professional services marketing perspective, but useful nonetheless in their internet forms.

Networking, the process of coming into contact and staying in contact with people who need legal services or can recommend a lawyer, is expressed in the LinkedIn and Martindale-Hubbell Connected profiles. We use a combination of strategic keyword selection and use, and profile congruence to reinforce the relevance andf visibility of the biography URL.

Knowledge demonstration, the extension of the experience of a lawyer through personal discussions and public appearances, is expressed through blogging and Twitter. Here we enable lawyers to expound on issues within identified niches of law practice or industry, as well as to offer commentary and direct followers to sources of useful content.

Because we have undertaken an aggressive social media posture, we are encountering a great deal of information on the appropriate and effective use of the tactics. A part of our firm’s culture has always been strong participation in professional education and Bar groups, so we have started a specific Twitter stream, SocialLawyers, to broadcast our participation and discoveries for the benefit of other lawyers and firms who are interested in or starting to use these media and utilities. I invite you and your lawyers to follow us there.

Please feel free to take these elements and use or customize them as you require:

Catalog of well-developed online social media sites and utilities
Basic schema of the Sands Anderson PC social media plan
Worksheet for social media planning

Some links to visit:

Post on Andy Bea’s Marketing Pilgrim about social media policies
Post on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim about social media strategy flowcharting

A good presentation on Slideshare by Spur Interactive on social media strategy:

Let me know what more you’d like to know and follow the conference Twitter stream with #LMA10.