Associate Insight: Lawyers and social media

There was perhaps a time when social media seemed like an annoying trend that might disappear. Increasingly, though, professional services firms are realising that it has become deeply embedded into everyday life. To ignore social media is a bit like going to a party and spending the entire evening in the corner avoiding eye contact with everyone.

Last year, Passle's research among the UK's top-200 law firms demonstrated that they still had a long way to go. Collectively, the top-200 firms had fewer than 360,000 Twitter followers. By contrast, the one-year-old nephew of One Direction's Niall Horan has more than 500,000 followers.

Passle was interested in knowing whether this wake-up call had any effect on the lawyers themselves - in particular, whether management might have reached out to their staff, to encourage and train them to use social media. The company therefore surveyed 245 UK lawyers on their social media habits.

We found that 38% of the lawyers surveyed had never been asked to include social media in their work and 25% only use it occasionally. These findings would suggest that the use of social media is still underestimated by decision makers, who in turn neglect to train or encourage their staff to use it.

Consulting company i-scoop has stated that "the lack of an overall strategy is the top barrier impeding the use of social business within an organization". It's no surprise that 87% of the lawyers who never or were only occasionally asked to use social media in the workplace did not see it as a powerful lead generator.

On the other hand, the survey's results are brighter for lawyers regularly making use of social media channels, with 31% claiming to have found clients directly through it and 55% overall perceiving it as a successful lead generator.

The most popular social media channels proved to be Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, with newcomer Mootis making waves with 9% of lawyers claiming they preferred to use it.

The onus continues to be on the young, with 66% of 35 to 44 year-olds having often been asked to use social media in the workplace. In contrast, 80% of 65+ year-olds claim to have never been asked. Yet, a successful social media strategy should involve everyone in the law firm so that its online presence reflects the diversity of its voices.

Ultimately, people want to work with people, not a faceless organisation. Encouraging your lawyers to share their knowledge online is the fastest and most effective way to demonstrate to potential clients that they are the experts they need.

More social media advice for professional services firms can be found at https://professional-services-marketing.net/.

To see how they benchmark against competitors on each of the seven criteria, as well as to obtain their overall score and ranking, the top-200 firms can request a free report at www.rankmyfirm.com.