A little bird told me...

Large UK law firms
are ‘more effective’ at social media than their US counterparts according
to research by The Social Law
Firm Index, a new study by Good2bSocial and Managing Partner. But what about smaller firms and social media?

While the three UK law
firms ranking highest overall
for social business usage were DLA Piper, Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance, also in the top three by reach, (the number of people who could have seen a story, or followers), engagement rankings followed a different pattern.

So say Guy Alvarez, Joe Lamport and Robin Sosnow in their Managing Partner article ‘Social value’. “Firms like Brodies, Mishcon de Reya and Freeth Cartwright have had significant success, even though they
are smaller firms compared
to the others,” they said.

“What this shows is that a
law firm, regardless of size,
can effectively compete with
larger firms in creating
valuable and useful content.”

This is encouraging stuff
for smaller firms such as mine. Like many, I was a little wary of social media at the outset. Sure, I was on LinkedIn but I didn’t really understand it or know how to use it properly.

As for Twitter, that took
some encouragement from individuals who had rolled it
out across their firms very successfully.

Every tweet counts

It was with trepidation that I joined Twitter in January 2011.
It did not take me long to realise that every tweet can show up
on a web search. With scope for 140 characters, I began to write in a much more pithy fashion. Any skills you might have as a sub-editor come in very handy.

I have tried to avoid talking about what I have had for breakfast. As a family law solicitor running a niche firm
of specialists, I aim to focus on related topics, recent judgments and practical tips.

Some Twitter accounts are
run very efficiently by law firms’ marketing teams. It is often
all too apparent. Hands-on tweeting by an interested
lawyer in the team is so much more compelling – one’s own personality has to be in there
as well. I have also steered clear of undiluted advertising, which is a complete turn off.

On behalf of the Law Society’s small firms division, I spoke at the recent Law Management Section conference, along with Paul Bennett of Aaron and Partners. We focused on maximising the strengths of smaller firms and punching above our weight.

Social media is a very cheap, easy and effective method of getting your small firm ‘out there’. Twitter, especially, shows no discrimination to the smaller firm: you are the size of your Twitter presence.

Different platforms can be interlinked, with or without particular apps. The more tweets sent, the more traffic can be created to your firm’s website.

Finding the time

How does one find the time?
This is a question I often get asked. The answer is that, like
any form of marketing, social media should be naturally
built into the working day.

What about the risks of social media? Relatively early on, in December 2011, the Law Society of England and Wales published a very useful practice note.

Its introduction reads: “One of the fundamental considerations that those participating in social media activity should take into account is the potential blurring of the boundaries between personal and professional
use, and the importance of recognising that the same
ethical obligations apply to professional conduct in an
online environment.”

In May, the International Bar Association (IBA) adopted and published its international principles on social media conduct for the legal profession.

The IBA says that its set of six guidance principles encourages bodies around the world to
take affirmative steps to promote social media conduct within the legal profession in accordance with relevant rules
of professional responsibility and considerations of civility.

Their introduction followed a global benchmark survey of 60 member bar associations from 47 legal jurisdictions, over 90 per cent of whom identified a need for bar associations, law societies and councils, or alternatively the IBA, to develop guidelines about using online social media in the legal profession.

Social media is clearly serious stuff. Its appeal, however, is that it is fun too, whether your law firm is large or small. SJ

Tony Roe is principal of Tony Roe Divorce and Family Law Solicitors 

@tonyroedivorce