Leveraging social media and marketing for your professional service firm.

1. THE LAW OF
ATTRACTION
LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING
FOR YOUR PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRM

2. “Within every brand is a product,
but not every product is a brand”
- David Ogilvy, Founder, Ogilvy & Ogilvy

3. FIRM STRATEGY
• Branding
• Social Media
• Content Distribution
• Public Relations
• Networking (formal and informal)
• SEO
• Directories

4. WHY BRANDING?
• Strong brands ensure client retention and acquisition
• Products and serviceshavelife cycles—your brand
outlives these
• Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility and
experience.
• Brands have real value—many companies include
this value on their balance sheet

5. BRANDING
• Establish your brand
– Company philosophy and mission statement
– Message and tagline
– Logo
– Marketing Materials
– Unique selling proposition (USP), in other words, what
makes you different?
– Delivery of brand promise

6. BRANDING
• Website
– Linked to allyour social media networks
– Conveys your brand message
– Client testimonials
• Marketing Materials
– Downloadable from your website
– Cohesive and conveys your brand message
• Logo
– Review your logo with an experienced Creative/Art Director
– Have multiple logos for varied uses (with tagline, w/o tagline,
B&W)

7. SOCIAL MEDIA
• Focus on social media platforms that deliver the
greatest ROI:

8. LINKEDIN
• Update LinkedIn info for individual lawyers and firm
• Join LinkedIn groups
• Share expertise and help other LinkedIn members
• Network within LinkedIn communities

9. FACEBOOK
• Create a page for firm and profiles for individual lawyers
– Use WildFire’siFrame for Pages to create custom Facebook tabs
– Use “Events” to invite fans to upcoming firm events
• Post engaging content (don’t always sell and avoid
spamming)
– Trends, Research, articles, photos and videos
• Update and engage often
– Once or twice a week is sufficient, Monday is the best day to
update content

10. TWITTER
• Create accounts for the firm and individual lawyers
and link to the same Facebook accounts
• Tweet: announcements, news, events, interesting
information
• Include links to information in your tweets
• Use hashtags “#” to make topics easily searchable
• Engage legal Twitter communities: LexTweet,
TweetLaw and Justia Legal Birds

11. YOU TUBE
• Create a branded channel for your firm
• Upload client testimonials
• Upload useful webinars

12. BLOGS
• 51% of internet users in the U.S. (over 91 million
people) read blogs
• Tag keywords to make content more visible in Google
searches
• Discuss cutting edge topics and current events (e.g.,
tax issues in cloud computing)
• Publish blog posts constantly (2-4 times a week)
• Enable RSS feed on blog so readers can follow you

13. BLOGS
• Register your blog in directories
– Technorati
– Blograma
– BlogHer
– Bloghub
• Blogging platforms
– Blogger
– Tumblr
– Wordpress
– Lexblog (made for lawyers)

14. CONTENT DISTRIBUTION

15. CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
• Blogs
• E-Newsletter
– Once a month is sufficient
– Constant Contact, iContact, Mailchimp
• Articles
– Post on your website and blog and with other industry
related websites and blogs
• White Papers / Research
– Share on JD Supra, Scribd, slideshare

16. CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
• Video
– Content, content, content
– Professionalism
– Focus on target audience
– Post on YouTube and Vimeo
• Webinars
• White Papers / Research
– Share on JD Supra, Scribd, slideshare

17. PUBLIC RELATIONS
• Press Releases
– Search engines loves press releases
• Considers them an authoritative source
• Ranks them high for search results
– Good way to show firm success without overpromising
• Avoids ethical issues
– Press is more meaningful than advertising

18. PUBLIC RELATIONS
• Press Releases (continued)
– Distribute at least one release a month
• More if you are a new practice
– What to write about?
• Commentary on current news events
• Legal decisions that potentially affect your community
• Results of a poll or a survey you conduct among clients
• Firm news such as awards, community involvement, new hires,
etc.

19. PUBLIC RELATIONS
• Send release through a newswire service for
maximum visibility in the media
– PR Newswire
– PR Web
• Use a media list company to find media contacts in
locally, nationally and internationally
– Burrelles Luce
– Cision
– Vocus

20. Remember…
Advertising is what
you pay for,
Press is what you
pray for.

21. NETWORKING
• Attend industry events
– Making impressions with a few key people is better than
not being memorable to many
– To build relationships with potential referral sources NOT
to get new clients
• Sponsor events in your industry and industries where
you want to target clients
• Join Meetup.com groups related to your industry

22. NETWORKING
• Speaking engagements
– Join panels as an “expert” in your field
– Get the attendee list from the event organizer
– Have a follow up strategy (e.g., offer, consultation, monthly
newsletter, etc.)

23. SEO
• Content, content, content: develop, maintain and
distribute content through blogs, YouTube, press
releases, articles, etc.
• Ask industry related websites to link to your website
• List your companies in as many directories as
possible
• Analytics
– Monitor your visitor activity (demographic, time of day,
geography, page views)

25. DIRECTORIES
• Martindale Hubbell Connected
• Legally Minded
• Legal OnRamp
• Hubstreet
• JD Supra
• LawLink
• Avvo
• Justia

26. CHALLENGES AND ETHICS
FOR LAWYERS
• Make sure online content matches firm’s prevailing
culture
• Be professional—whatever you post stays online
forever
• Preserve the security and privacy of online
relationships
• Protect firm name—secure online user names

27. CHALLENGES AND ETHICS
FOR LAWYERS
• Maintain ethical standards per local and model rules
– Client solicitation
– Attorney advertising
– Communicating with jurors, judges, witnesses, etc.
– Legal advice

28. CHALLENGES AND ETHICS
FOR LAWYERS
• Maintain separate professional and personal
identities
• Manage negative sentiment—address comments and
posts, don’t ignore
• Google your company and employees; be proactive
about clearing up outdated, negative and incorrect
information
REMEMBER….

29. YOUR BRAND ISN’T
WHAT YOU SAY IT IS.
IT’S WHAT GOOGLE
SAYS IT IS. IS.

30. www.rroyselaw.com
Palo Alto Los Angeles
(650) 813-9700 (310) 481-0125
1717 Embarcadero Rd. 11150 Santa Monica Blvd.
Palo Alto, CA 94303 Ste. 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90025
San Francisco
(415) 421-9700
135 Main St. 12th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105