What Should Lawyers Listen To Using Social Media?
As a lawyer looking to use social media to attract more clients, one problem you may be facing is trying to figure out what tools to monitor anything you do and, more importantly, what you should actually be monitoring.
I have talked in the past about the need to listen to the conversations your prospects are having in order to understand what information they are specifically looking for and their desired outcomes.
However, there is a danger that you could easily end up with a very myopic social media listening strategy that does not give you the answers you REALLY need, but gives you ones that you simply LIKE.
Let me explain what I mean...
There are two types of social media listening tactics you can employ - those that are law firm-driven and those that are issues-driven.
The first tactics aim to assess what people say about your firm and the messages you have provided.
They are important because they allow you to assess the perceptions people have of you and give you the chance to respond to specific problems that relate to your message or service.
Issues-driven monitoring goes beyond that and is, unfortunately, more difficult to plan for and turn into actionable client attraction strategies.
Here, you have to look beyond the conversations going on that are specifically about you and start monitoring those that include the following:
Given the fact that it is hard enough convincing many lawyers to actually get social media programmes up and running in the first place, we should not be surprised that most monitoring is law firm-driven - as that is easier to track and respond to.
To be honest, it is probably a good place to start.
But for any monitoring to be really effective, it then needs to evolve to include the issues-driven metrics.
Once this happens, you can be more proactive in the way you evaluate insights, find channels to influence with content or commentary that you might have missed before, and make sure your client attraction efforts become more tuned to the wider commentary related to your law firm.
I have talked in the past about the need to listen to the conversations your prospects are having in order to understand what information they are specifically looking for and their desired outcomes.
However, there is a danger that you could easily end up with a very myopic social media listening strategy that does not give you the answers you REALLY need, but gives you ones that you simply LIKE.
Let me explain what I mean...
There are two types of social media listening tactics you can employ - those that are law firm-driven and those that are issues-driven.
The first tactics aim to assess what people say about your firm and the messages you have provided.
They are important because they allow you to assess the perceptions people have of you and give you the chance to respond to specific problems that relate to your message or service.
Issues-driven monitoring goes beyond that and is, unfortunately, more difficult to plan for and turn into actionable client attraction strategies.
Here, you have to look beyond the conversations going on that are specifically about you and start monitoring those that include the following:
- What regulators, government spokespeople and industry leads are saying about the legal services industry;
- The topics industry analysts and the press focus on that impact your business;
- Key issues competitors and other leading law firms are driving or commenting on;
- The economic impact on the perceptions your prospects might have of the legal services industry and what they increasingly expect from law firms.
Given the fact that it is hard enough convincing many lawyers to actually get social media programmes up and running in the first place, we should not be surprised that most monitoring is law firm-driven - as that is easier to track and respond to.
To be honest, it is probably a good place to start.
But for any monitoring to be really effective, it then needs to evolve to include the issues-driven metrics.
Once this happens, you can be more proactive in the way you evaluate insights, find channels to influence with content or commentary that you might have missed before, and make sure your client attraction efforts become more tuned to the wider commentary related to your law firm.
