Whether lawyers like it or not, social media tools such as Twitter are now vitally important to enhancing professional reputation and winning business. This applies to both individual lawyers who are trying to build their own personal brand and law firms who are seeking to build their commercial brand.
You only have to look on news websites (where Tweets can be reported as part of news stories) or listen to radio and TV to understand that Twitter is now firmly embedded in the national psyche.
So, here are some of my top tips for increasing your law firm’s following on Twitter:
- Let’s face it, law firms are never going to be in the same league as Barack Obama, Katy Perry or Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to Twitter followers (they each have over 100 million). But the aim should be to have as many relevant followers as possible in order to maximise exposure to appropriate audiences such as clients, referrers, the media and potential employees. Having more than 1,000 followers is an achievable aim, it will look impressive and will increase your firm’s credibility.
- By following your network of contacts on Twitter you can increase your own following easily and cheaply. Lawyers in law firms all have multiple contacts. If just a fraction of their Twitter accounts were followed, this may lead to those contacts reciprocating and following your account.
- In order to engage with the media and build relationships with journalists, firms (and teams within them) should be following those they would like to have links with or secure coverage in.
- For example, if you are law firm with a focus on construction, follow Building magazine (@Building_mag) and Construction News (@CNplus). Likewise, a private client or family lawyer should follow personal finance reporters on papers like the FT and The Times. A personal injury lawyer should follow health correspondents. By doing this you and your firm will become more familiar to journalists who may then be more receptive to an email with a comment or a feature idea.
- As with all social media, you need to be able to post regularly and prevent content going stale. It only takes a few minutes to draft a tweet but putting in place robust internal processes for who and when is going to tweet on behalf of the firm is vital. If you don’t have the resources to do this internally look at good value tools such as Buffer or Hootsuite – the key is to get the content out there regularly.
- Getting your tweets re-tweeted is the best way to increase your coverage for free. If you use # in your tweets they are more likely to be shared. Anything between 3 and 5 hashtags will work – but keep them short and relevant to legal business.
- Keep it interesting if you are hoping for re-tweets! A tweet of obscure, dry legalese won’t cut it. Use images as much as you can – both photos and videos – to make your Tweets more attractive.
- Law firms’ profile pictures are often just a logo which can look sterile and stand-offish, so try and make it more human by using different images to give your law firm more personality.
Take a look at some of my other blogs for further guidance on legal directories and other tips on profile raising:
Top tips for getting a broadcast interview right
Five magic PR ideas for law firms this Halloween
Top tips on how to make the most of a legal directory ranking
Legal PR: what’s a news hook and why does it matter?
Need some help with PR? Feel free to drop me an email to arrange a 30 minute complimentary call or take a look at some of the packages I offer law firms, accountancy practices and other b2b businesses.