Does Social Media Do Any Good At All In Marketing?

Technology columnist Jeff Bennion walks through the different social-media platforms... and expresses skepticism.

The internet has changed the way we communicate and the way we advertise to bring in new clients. It’s also made advertising a lot more competitive. Before there was only one back cover to the city’s yellow pages, but now, there are a million things out there to get potential clients’ attention and there is this pervasive idea that more is better in social-media advertising. So, I’m asking the question, “Does it do any good at all?” I’m asking because I don’t know, and I’ve heard a lot of marketing gurus say it does, but all of my common sense tells me that it does not.

Let me just start off with a caveat. What works for one area of practice might not work for another area of practice. I resisted using social media for a long time in my solo practice. I saw it as a distraction and I did not understand how it would help me get new clients. To some degree, I still feel that way. It certainly has helped me expand my network and online presence, which will probably have some long-term benefit to my client base. But, building a social media presence is not free – it takes time and resources away from other things I could be doing to build a client base, such as working to get good results on my current clients’ cases or face-to-face networking. So, with that in mind, is social media worth it?

A lawyer should have two goals with their online presence – to let people know that they are out there, and to convince them to hire you when they see that you out there. The goal has to be to achieve both of those things. You can’t just get people to know that you are out there by posting a bunch, but not have anyone actually hire you.

The Problem

Every second you spend on marketing is a second you are not spending on your clients’ files. I agree that you need to have a balance between working on the future and the present if you want to have a long-term business, but you can’t go to the bank to get a line of credit and tell them, “I don’t have any ‘clients’ per se, but I do have 4,000 tweets, a bunch of Facebook posts, and a half a blog started…”

So, let’s say that I am a wealthy industrialist looking to open a silver mine in Peru, and I need a lawyer. Somehow I come across your lawyer Twitter profile and I see that you have 30,000 tweets, most of which are made during the day throughout the day, every day. That lawyer is probably sitting in his or her office, half way done with a two-page motion in limine that has taken all day, thinking, “Oh wait, I just thought of another tweet. Man, I am just killing it with my marketing today.” As the potential client, I am probably looking at that and thinking, “How could this person possibly draft a competent contract for my mining business if they need to take a break every 30-45 minutes to tell the world what they are thinking about?”

So, if I’m looking for someone who will work hard on my case and stay focused, and I am looking through profile after profile of people who spend 1-2 hours a day on their online presence, am I going to find that person?

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LinkedIn

For those of you who don’t know, you actually have something like a Facebook wall on your LinkedIn account. People can post updates to their profile, or post links to articles. I have been told that LinkedIn is the richest source of referrals out of all of the social media platforms and that is mind-boggling to me. I think most people go to LinkedIn because they got a LinkedIn request or a private message, or because they need to update their profile. I can’t imagine how bored someone would need to be to go to LinkedIn to scroll through pages and pages of self-promotion links of people they only kind of know. It would be like going to a website and turning on a reverse ad blocker to see just the ads.

Facebook

Facebook is interesting because it started out as a way to connect with family and friends and, although you can open fan pages or business pages, a key component is connecting with family and friends and posting personal things to them.

Twitter

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Unlike Facebook, Twitter is more about connecting with strangers and it’s more acceptable to spam all of your thoughts on Twitter than it is on Facebook. Looking at anyone’s Twitter account, you can see how many tweets they have, like it’s some kind of badge of honor to have a really high number of tweets.

Does Any of it Work?

For those of you who get clients through social media, what works? How do you know it works? What does not work? What else have you tried for marketing? What do you recommend? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.


Jeff Bennion is Of Counsel at Estey & Bomberger LLP, a plaintiffs’ law firm specializing in mass torts and catastrophic injuries. Although he serves on the Executive Committee for the State Bar of California’s Law Practice Management and Technology section, the thoughts and opinions in this column are his own and are not made on behalf of the State Bar of California. Follow him on Twitter here or on Facebook here, or contact him by e-mail at jeff@trial.technology.

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