Social media for lawyers

By Colin Yeo

About ColinSee about.me/colinyeo

Blogging since 2006

2,736,646 blog hits

Over 25,000 unique blog visitors per month

3,403 Twitter followers

Be generous, add value

Be aware of opportunity costs*

*i.e. don't waste your time!

What is social media?• Media that are social…

• Means of broadcasting?

• Means of sharing

• Means of engagement

Main platforms

• Blogs

• Facebook

• Twitter

Niche platforms

Why bother?

Why should one do it?

Why you?

Why should you do it?Have you got anything to say?

Can you add value?

Do you enjoy it?

Can you write well?

Are you willing to learn?

Have you got time?

Can you keep it up?

Strategy• Decide why you want to do it

• Stick to it

• Re-focus periodically

• Think long term

Distractions

Dangers

Benefits• Attract clients

• Attract attention

• Make contacts and friends

• It’s fun!

Pick your platform(s)

Twitter• Short form: 140 characters

• Micro blogging platform

• Follow and be followed

• Share links

Twitter do• Easy and simple to use

• Widely used

• Easy to be generous

• Feedback readily available

• Not too time consuming

Twitter don’t• There is a culture

• Hard to impress in 140 characters

• Hard to target pro and lay audience at same time

• Frequency difficult to judge

Facebook• Walled garden

• Can have a company page as well as a personal page

• Now has good mobile apps

Facebook like• Very widely used

• Company pages produce stats

• Powerful recommendation engine

• Key to success is ‘virality’

Facebook not like• Difficult to know how content is

consumed

• Company pages produce stats

• Powerful recommendation engine

• Not good for pro audience?

Linked In• Facebook for professionals

• Good for reaching professional audience

• Simple

• But a limited and restricted user base

Google+

TumblrHard to do well…

Tools

Platform management

Tweetdeck

Yahoo! Pipes

Stats and metrics• If serious, need to measure success - what

are you doing right or wrong?

• Integral stats like follower count, re-tweets

• Stats packages e.g. Wordpress built in, Google Analytics, Facebook

• For a blog look at unique visitors, views per visitor

Unnamed boutique immigration law firm:

Fake: 25%, inactive: 50%, good: 25%

Lessons learned

What is in a name?

UK Human Rights Blog 1 COR Blog

Nearly Legal Anthony Gold Blog

Free Movement Garden Court Blog

UK Supreme Court blog HJT Training Blog

Clear aims

• to help the editor and other contributors think through new developments and also

• to provide updates, pointers and links for the benefit of other immigration lawyers

• and for migrants researching their own position.

Authentic voice

• Not necessarily your normal one

• Humanises and engages

• Provides interest to readers

Medium• Language, grammar, sentence structure, post

length is all crucial

• Style matters

• Use of links and sources

• Internet is a visual medium

• Humour or at least humanity important

Building an audience• Write for your intended audience

• Write regularly - at least twice a week

• Comment on other people's blogs

• Be generous with your praise and links

• Improve your offering

Don't do it unless...

• You can write well and clearly

• You have time and will continue to have time

• Willingness to learn a bit about technical side

• You are a weirdo / nerd / geek / suffer OCD / all of above

What did my blog ever do for me?

• Original aims still being met

• Platform – ego and altruism

• Profile

• Cold, hard cash - some but not a lot!