Legal Marketing & PR

Should You Pay Attention To The Social Networking Craze?

By Tom Kane

Most everyone who has heard about the Internet, or has a child capable of educating them, has heard about social networks like MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, etc. etc. etc. The “etc’s” are part of my point. There are new ones springing up almost every day. There is some question as to which one or two will be the ones most helpful to the legal profession for business development purposes. Time will only tell (now there’s a cliché my mother loved).

I haven’t been sold on the legal marketing ROI relative to these sites generally, nor have I heard that they currently produce serious amounts of work for law firms. Yet, I’m definitely coming around to the point of view that they will become one more important tool in the marketing toolbox. Not sold completely, but moving in that direction. 

One reason is that my blogmaster (Kevin O’Keefe and his gang at LexBlog) conducted a webinar for their clients recently, primarily focused on LinkedIn (but I understand a follow up broadcast will address others in more detail). It was enlightening for me to say the least, and so I’m working on beefing up my LinkedIn biography. I don’t know if it will be the leader for the profession, but it seems more lawyers are joining it than other networks these days, according to Kevin.

Also, John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing concurs in the importance of social networks in reporting on a survey by Universal McCann that shows the popularity of social networks, RSS feeds and blogs. It does seem clear that a web site is no longer enough of an Internet presence. As John puts it “And that means if you’re not participating in social media, you’re not really online.”

It does appear that social networking is not just a craze, and will likely become an important tool in developing business for lawyers. Have you signed up yet?

Full post as published by Legal Marketing Blog on August 19, 2008 (boomark / email).