Yoda position

Social media is not yet fully defined '“ it seems to have different meanings depending on who you speak to. Some see it as communicating across the spectrum of many to many. Others see it as viral marketing, also known as dandelion marketing, and others simply see it as another form of online networking.

Currently, there are two distinct camps around social media: those who want to wholly embrace the technology and platforms, and those who can't see the point and have no wish to engage.

Rapidly expanding

Over time '“ probably in the next 18/24 months '“ I believe that all firms, of whatever size and specialism, will have little choice but to incorporate social media into their business development and marketing activity. This is not to say that firms will ditch their offline activity '“ sponsorship, attending or hosting events and producing brochures '“ but, by then, there will be an overwhelming body of evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media over its more established sister, outbound marketing.

Hubspot's latest report, 'The State of Inbound Marketing 2010', is quite definite : 'This report is based on a survey of 231 professionals involved or familiar with their business' marketing strategy'¦ Three of the key takeaways are:

(1) Inbound marketing channels continue to deliver dramatically lower cost per lead than outbound channels do.

(2) Social media and blogs are the most rapidly expanding category in the overall marketing budget.

(3) Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs.'

The report is well worth reading and although it is not solicitor-specific it is not so amorphous that it can be dismissed out of sight.

From an ROI perspective, the Hubspot report says that the average cost per lead with outbound dominated marketing activity is $332 and with inbound marketing activity $134. These figures alone should be enough to convince the naysayers to start building a bridge to the adopters.

Yes, this is going to take time that, at least for now, you will say you simply don't have: fee earning, people management, risk management, looking after clients to ensure the highest level of service delivery, considering the latest SRA/Law Society releases and keeping up to date with your practice area etc. '“ an (almost) impossible task. But you find time for business development and other marketing activities, and what you will need to decide is how much of this time you are prepared to commit.

Preparing a plan

Within the profession most of the commentary appears focused on the best social mediaplatforms, whether that is LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and to a lesser extent YouTube and Flickr. Less so the need for or the adoption of a social media policy; but, importantly, there has been hardly any attention focused on the purpose, objective or need for the adoption of social media. Technology is only part of the solution and it will be imperative to prepare your firm by developing a strategy, identifying the key drivers of success and analysing how this will fit in with your existing marketing plans and budget. The plan should look at:

• Identifying your sectors or client markets suitable for social media. Possibly not all sectors will for the moment be engaging in social media.
• Are your clients online?
• Where are your clients online?
• What are your clients' social behaviours online?
• What are they saying about you or your competitors?
• What social information or people do your clients rely on?
• How do your customers use social technologies in the context of your services?

It is vital that you start at this point because otherwise you could spend a lot of time entering into an area where your clients simply do not go. Do not assume that because you have commercial clients that you should be on LinkedIn. You will find that there are still a lot of businesses that have no meaningful presence on LinkedIn.

You will also need to think about a social media policy which may be an extension of your internet policy. You should look at it before you start from scratch. In addition to the internal position, you also need to figure out how you handle negative publicity, does your existing professional indemnity policy cover you, will you moderate everything and who is going to facilitate the integration across the firm?

Once you have your plan you must remember one simple message: 'You need to unlearn what you have learned,' as Yoda says in Star Wars. This relates to how you deal with your inbound marketing efforts '“ the use of blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. This thought process is taken from marketing strategist David Meerman Scott. Adopting this approach allows you to think about things from your buyer's perspective; ask yourself: 'Why would I bother to read that?' If you don't know the answer then it probably means that the latent potential doesn't exist for it to go viral. There is nothing worse than spending hours preparing a blog only to find that no one reads it!

Social media can and should revolutionise the way you do business but you need to be clear about what your objectives are. You need to take a holistic view and consider the brand, your reputation, PR, marketing, business development and the internal message.