Legal Practice Pro» social media marketing for lawyers

5 Flickr Legal Marketing Tactics

Jay Fleischman — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:00:41 +0000

A few days ago I posted about what I’d do if I wanted to start a bankruptcy law firm today. One of the things I mentioned was the use of Flickr.

A photo-sharing site to market a bankruptcy practice? How does that make an ounce of sense? So here are some ways to use the power of a photo-sharing site to market your law firm online:

Take pictures of staff members being real people, not stuffed-shirt lawyers in front of a bookcase. Title the pictures with the staffer’s name so that when a search is done for their name, the picture shows up. This will help people get to know the people who work in your firm as human beings, not as automatons. Plus, it’s fun.
Tag your business photos with your firm name and address along with other relevant information. This way, when someone searches for your firm name and address in image directories (yes, they do these things already) they will be able to see what you’re all about.
Take pictures of local businesses and landmarks. When people travel or are looking for a local business, they often do an image search so they know what they’re looking for. Why not find your handiwork?
Make your photos Creative Commons licensed with attribution. Creative Commons is a type of copyright that allows the owner to dictate how something is used. For example, you could make your photos Creative Commons licensed and require that the person using the photo attribute ownership to you through a backlink to your website or blog. You know that backlinks are the best currency in your search engine optimization efforts, so why not leverage?
Comment on other photos you stumble across on Flickr. If you search Flickr you’re sure to find photos of your area, your high school, a local business that’s gone under in recent years, and other things that are near and dear to your heart. Leave a comment for the person who took the picture to let them you know enjoyed their handiwork. Maybe you’ll strike up an conversation and find out you’ve got more in common than just a love of the town square.

To be sure, none of these tactics is going to result in 1,000 new bankruptcy cases in your office this month. But by using this free service and an inexpensive digital camera you can significantly raise your personal and professional profile.

Photo courtesy of recompose.

Evangelize Or Fossilize When Marketing Your Law Practice

Jay Fleischman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:30:03 +0000

I was driving to a conference a few weeks ago and had a chance to listen to the radio for the first time in awhile. The iPhone connection to the radio was working, but I couldn’t be bothered to fiddle with it to get my favorite podcasts. Instead, I decided to see what the local stations had in store for me.

My fingers stopped at an FM station with an evangelical preacher of some denomination. Usually I would flip to something with fast, poppy music but this guy’s voice kept me from going anywhere else on the dial. No clue who he was or where he was from, but he was a pretty smart guy.

He was talking about how it was his role to be a good (whatever he was), and that this role included spreading the word of (whomever’s word he was spreading). He talked about how true believers should not keep their beliefs bottled up, and how a failure to spread the gospel of X would cause the denomination to wilt and, ultimately, disappear.

One thing he said almost made me drive off the road and start writing.

Evangelize Or Fossilize

It made me immediately think about the implications to the legal profession – and to the bankruptcy bar specifically. Bankruptcy is needed by so many people, yet they run from it as a result of years of misinformation and disinformation. Consumers think bankruptcy is the end of the world, and that they’re branded as failures forever.

Bankruptcy lawyers know that isn’t the case, and that bouncing back from a bankruptcy filing can be (relatively) quick. But we sit behind our desks and take the defensive stance rather than evangelizing our position in public.

Why is that the case? Do we not believe in the power of our solution? Do we think of ourselves as snake-oil salespeople? Unlikely.

No matter what the reason, it’s incumbent upon us to go out there and educate the world about the truth of bankruptcy. We need to blog about not only the mechanics of bankruptcy but also the human element – the people who need it, the solutions they get, and help we provide.

We need to use all available social media tools to reach an audience who would otherwise be subject to myths.

We need to speak with reporters to tell them about how people who file for bankruptcy are able to re-enter the stream of commerce and contribute to society more readily than those who are swamped by overdue bills.

We know the truth about bankruptcy. We must spread the word. Not one person at a time, but one block at a time. Not because it’s right for everyone, but because the American consumer has been lied to by every major financial institution and deep-pocket lobbying organization.

We market our bankruptcy practices, but we fail to evangelize. We fail to educate. We fail to change opinions about what we do for people.

If we do not evangelize, we will fossilize.

What do you think?

Photo courtesy of D G Butcher.

Using Facebook Comments To Hone Your Legal Marketing Message

Jay Fleischman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:57:33 +0000

Over the past few months I’ve noticed that when I post a link to a blog post to Facebook, I tend to get a number of comments. Often, these comments turn into full-fledged conversations among 2, 3 or more of my Facebook friends – many of whom have never met one another. I usually sit back and watch these discussions unfold without getting in the way, enthralled with the back-and-forth going on in front of me.

In the process I often learn a few things. Maybe a nuance in the law I didn’t previously see, but more often it’s a concern that someone has about bankruptcy or consumer protection laws. Seeing the issues through the eyes of my audience in real-time is invaluable, as it enables me to continue the process of education and, from time to time, hone the way I provide information so it’s more valuable to the world.

In a recent post, John Battelle (On Facebook, Comments, and Implications) noticed the same phenomenon. Like me, John posts to his blog and has that link sent automatically to Twitter. Facebook, in turn, picks up the Twitter status update.

John claims that Facebook is the defacto leader in distribution of attention, and likens it to Google in 2004-06. And though I’m a huge Twitter supporter, I’m inclined to agree for a few reasons:

With Twitter you’ve got 140 characters. That’s enough for a retweet, but not much commentary. In order to add anything to the conversation you’ve got to create your own blog post in response (or a video, or podcast) and send THAT out there as well. Takes too long, not practical. The back-and-forth of 140 characters is liberating in some ways, constraining in others.

On Facebook, interaction is made simple using the “Comment” feature. Click a button, put down your thoughts, and you’re done. It’s the simplicity of content creation that makes it so compelling.

When commenting on a blog, you’re able to hide behind relative anonymity. On Facebook, you get to show yourself for your friends to see. In doing so, you can strut your stuff and show that you are interested and have something to say.

On Facebook, your comments are shown to your friends as well as to the friends of the original poster of information – not the whole world. There’s relative safety there, not having to worry so much about millions of strangers reading every word you utter.

Why is this important to you, the lawyer? Because it’s giving you a window into your audience – the human being who either now does, or may in the future, need your help solving a problem.

When you’re on Facebook you get to put your ideas out there and see what resonates. More to the point, you’re able to get gut reactions from people. And when that happens, you can more easily hone your marketing messages for maximum effect.