Articles Directory | Free Articles | New Articles Daily | How Should A Law Firm Go About Developing Its Social Media Brand Footprint?

OK, so first let's define what we mean by "social media brand footprint". There's a lot of social media out there and only one brand " yours. Your social media brand footprint is the way that your law firm straddles the various avenues of social networking. The more places you pop up in, the bigger your footprint is.

That doesn't mean that you should be haphazard in your social media promotion. The whole point of social media is that it regiments people and businesses into predefined catchment areas " places defined by your interests, or the nature of your business. It's all about putting balancing people and organisations together.

There's one major key strand to all social media presence - a place to start, if you like. That's with personalities rather than corporate faces. Social media is social and while it has been hijacked by corporate marketing speakers, who pile on post after post that says nothing and does nothing except fill the ether with marketing messages, its users are neither dumb enough nor involved enough to follow blog posts about nothing.

No, your social media path begins with one person. You. Or a lawyer in your firm. You need to start using the individual knowledge, skill and expertise of your lawyers to become agent not of your firm but of themselves: their followers and contacts in the social sphere will ultimately derive business for your firm.

I'm talking about learning to derive business as a secondary effect of a social media occurrence. That sounds counter intuitive for any company investing money in its social media presence " but then social media itself is odd from a marketing point of view, so it's really natural. I'll say it again: promote a real person and leave the firm out of it. Business will join once that person has gathered a loyal following for his or her blog.

Here's the key. Your law firm is ultimately made up of individual lawyers. What they do is the baseline of all your ROI. They win cases, you get a better standing, you get more clients. They pop up in the blogosphere as an authority on their area of legal expertise and deliver a series of really interesting, informative blogs " and their profile grows, taking you with it.

Your social media footmark, of course, covers more than simply blogging " and this is where you get to engage in more traditional marketing, paying for advertising slots where they make the most sense. Facebook sells marketing slots based on interests and even keywords in status updates.

LinkedIn allows you to pay for business to business exposure. perfect for collecting new referrals, LinkedIn is effectively a business oriented version of Facebook. Neither should be mistreated when attempting to straddle all the most fruitful channels of social media. But don't forget " even here you need your bloggers' individual personalities to back up your ads.