As I continue to take my chiropractic business online and to the social web, I am always mindful to ask, who will be on social media that is my target client and how can I provide them with something of value to help them in their life?

Thankfully, I have a consultant for social media and online marketing who gets these principles, so I don’t feel like I’m being told what I NEED to do, but rather have someone helping me strategize best practices to use.

Thank you for this good reminder.

Lawyers Should Ignore Social Media Marketing Experts – Avvo Blog…

The times they are a changing and nobody knows all the answers. So you develop a strategy and see what happens. It is easy enough to link, but link to where? The route and destination are different for everyone. So you experiment.

Yesterday I sent out an email newsletter containing a tweet I had posted on Twitter to promote a post on my blog. It had turned up in a Google Alert and when I clicked on the url, I thought the way Twitter displayed the Tweet was so nice that I wanted to share it with my friends. So I converted it to an email and sent it to about 100 hand-selected people from my address book. You may have noticed, since you were one of them.

Every person who received it knows me and most of them have never hired me or sent me a referral. But I thought they might be interested. I’ve sent similar email promotions several times and it has always led to something — the exact something is unpredictable.

A small firm or solo practitioner can figure out affordable ways to get attention and promote the brand using social media without hiring a consultant.

Oh yes, what was the tweet? Find it at:

http://twitter.com/PittsburghLegal/status/15127836900

CLT

The section that rings the most true to me is this: “How many people want to fan their DUI lawyer on Facebook? How many people retweet the 140 character quips from their Divorce attorney?” People expect a certain service from their lawyer and don’t have much of an imagination that a lawyer would surpass this purpose. This has been a dilemma for me, while trying to jump start the Twitter and Facebook pages for the civil litigation firm I work at.

I think the key is not to flood social media with quips about your firm’s success or self-serving blog posts about the virtue of whatever type of law you practice. But for each type of law, there are real-world issues that people really care about. If you’re a personal injury lawyer, for example, link to articles about consumer safety on your Twitter and Facebook pages. If you practice divorce law, link to pieces investigating trends of divorce over time, or studies on the impact family splits has on children. When it comes down to it, it’s possible to engage in social media without being boring or self serving.

The only question is if lawyers are wiling to try, and if non-lawyers are willing to listen.

I’m a marketing and business development professional for law firms with over 15 years of experience in the trenches – 13 in-house. A little over two years ago I opened a boutique digital media agency to serve the legal industry as it transitions from the static web to the social web. From day one I was clear with everyone I spoke to and every article I wrote or speech I gave (obviously you weren’t in the audience) that social engagement on the web was not a silver bullet, not a short cut. That it took the same stuff as always to develop new business. The good news was these tools were changing the scope, especially where marketing (exposure) was needed.

I recently wrote a book for Thomson West, social.lawyer, and the first 4 chapters are devoted to fundamental business development and marketing principles. It has always been my belief and that of other marketers I know that the tools are just tools until their in the hands of a skilled operator. No use adding them to your program if you don’t see a need or know how to make them work.

It bothers me that you have lumped social media experts into this snarky mold. (Is it to make you look smarter than everyone?) Well, I happen to know a number of social media experts both in house and with their own consulting businesses that are true business developers, know the fundamentals and do not sell snake oil.

I can assure you that there are legitimate reasons to hire a social media consultant. I can say that my clients are very pleased that someone is out there in the social space experimenting with the new tools and helping them transition. Someone with a strong marketing and biz dev background. It cuts their time in half to have someone who has vetted the process and gleaned tools that can help them do what they already do only further, faster and better.

Please do not take this comment as a suggestion that there are not self professed “gurus” out there selling fantasies of easy pickins. I am saying that there are a host of biz dev, marketing and PR professionals, as well as lawyers turned social marketers, who know the territory. I can say that I know first hand the stress of balancing a practice and marketing and I always take this into consideration when advising my law firm clients and often include helpful tips in my presentations.

Best regards,
Jayne Navarre, LawGravity.com

It’s not about the numbers. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s about connecting with others and building relationships.