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This semester I’m teaching a course at Emerson College in Boston entitled Social Media and Marketing. If this topic interests you, there are many ways you can participate. The easiest is joining our Facebook fan page, “Why Social Media Matters.” My goal is to contribute to meaningful discourse about the role of social media in our lives and our businesses. Feel free to drop on by and stay for a while. I’m going to blog quite frequently about it as well.

One of the things I love about social media is how simple it can be. Sure, you can make social media complex. You can measure metrics, use social marketing models and chart the growth of communities over time. However, you can also create one powerful idea. An idea that doesn’t require anything but others willing to play along.

Take the idea of Follow Friday for example. Hundreds of thousands participate weekly in nominating their friends to be followed on Twitter. The concept is simple, and the participation is contagious. To play, you just need a Twitter account. What if we applied the concept of Follow Friday to our lives? Maybe we’d call it “Have you met” Tuesdays. And we would share the great people we know with others we cared about.

Why does social media matter to you?

If you work in midtown Manhattan, you’re likely to know the food cart I’m talking about. It’s the one on 53rd and 6th with 30 people waiting in line. They’re waiting to eat middle eastern food sold from a cart the size of a mini-copper. And they wait at all hours. When I passed by at 10 pm at least 50 people were in line. When I asked them if the food was “that good” to merit the line, they responded, “well, I saw the line, so it must be.”

I believe the same psychology of lines applies to Twitter. So often people use following / follower ratio to determine who they want to follow before actually “trying the food.”

There are many ways to cause lines to form, yet far fewer to cook a great meal.

A few weeks ago I presented to a room full of litigators at a local law firm. The topic of the presentation was how they can use both social media and interactive marketing to effectively communicate with existing and new customers and grow their business. Around that time, I started following Kara Smith on Twitter. Daily, she posts informative links on social media PR for the legal community.

Prior to starting Karasma Media, she worked in Human Resources at Goldman Sachs and with their Equity Derivative attorneys. She received her MA in Media Studies while working as a marketing manager at TIAA-CREF. Her company, Karasma Media, works with legal marketers to create a more clearly defined focus and distinctive business strategy that will provide them with a competitive advantage for new business, higher reputation recognition, and enhance their ability to attract, win, and retain the clients they really want.

We spoke with her recently about her perspective on social media for the legal community.

1.   Does a law firm have to have an open culture for social media to work?

If by “open culture” you mean, “have a willingness to be transparent”, then yes. In today’s business paradigm, we as consumers are not longer tolerating hidden or miscellaneous fees, and the anonymity of those managing the organizations we spend money with. Communication is key.  While the legal industry may have considered themselves immune from the expectations of corporate business in the past, clearly this is no longer the case. So, now more than ever before, open communications and transparency is necessary for firms to gain and retain their clients.

2.   What are some common objectives you receive from members of the legal profession regarding using social media?

Quite simply, like everyone else, they want to know how they can use social media to increase their bottom line.

3.   What do you wish more lawyers knew about social media?

1) They had a clearer comprehension of how incredibly important it is for them to be actively using social media to communicate with their current clients, and attract new ones. Using social media, prospective clients who call them will be the ones that they want, and be ready to do business. There’s no better ROI than that.

2) I wish attorneys had a greater comprehension of how social media works. The more they understand how it works, its cost effectiveness and the time saving techniques available to them, the more satisfaction they’ll have on multiple levels. Mastering how to utilize it and being able to attract the kind of clients they want took me years of study and ongoing personal communication. And what I do for myself, I do for my clients.

4.   What makes social media for law firms different from social media for other professional groups?

The most prominent differences are due to the history of the legal industry and the nature of their business. For one thing, lawyers have been marketing their services for the last 100+ years the same way, and until very recently, have been doing so very successfully. Secondly, the legal industry is extremely comfortable using online platforms like FindLaw.com, LegalOnRamp, JD Supra, and Plaxo that are “closed to outsiders” and cater specifically to their industry.  Once they step outside of that comfort zone, social media moves away from being simply a networking tool to being a public relations outlet.

It’s understandable that because their business is law, many attorneys are cautious about making themselves available on a platform that they perceive to be “open to public scruitiny”.  The truth of the matter is, if you are not at the forefront of your online conversation someone else is going to be. Holland and Knight learned that the hard way to be sure.

5.   What is the least intuitive aspect of social media for the legal profession?

It’s important that their target audience be narrowed down as much as possible, and this is a difficult concept for many firms to grasp. Today’s consumer is savvy, very aware of his options, and extremely customer service conscious.  In order to stand out from their competition, it’s mandatory for firms to satisfy information needs, and address concerns directly.

Once the audience is identified, a blog should be created that’s specific to that audience. The blog’s content should be made up of useful information and resources; build relationships and trust, along with positioning the firm’s principals as experts among your target group.

They’ll continue expand their firm’s online footprint using other new media tools such as eNewsletters, online surveys/polls, traditional and new-media public relations, presentations, downloadable whitepapers, YouTube, and article marketing.

In order to be successful, they need to understand that motive matters, these tools need to be used correctly. Also they wont be effective unless they are used consistently.

When other firms are cutting back, there is no better opportunity to pick up new clients, increase your agency’s profile and market share. You can do more online with a fraction of the cost of any other advertising of PR campaign.