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Lawyers Should Use Social Media

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Since right about the beginning of this century, the practice of law has rapidly and dramatically been changing in the United States and everywhere else in the world. With thousands of people now going to the internet every day to look for lawyers and legal information, a substantial web presence has become an imperative for any successful law practice in the 21st century. Thousands of attorneys have learned – and many are still learning – to build a successful law practice with an impressive online presence. In fact, legal marketing has undergone a complete revolution. In the old days, you bought an ad once a year in the Yellow Pages, printed up a business card, and hoped for good publicity in the local newspaper.

Today, the Yellow Pages and a business card are only the beginning of marketing. If you are an attorney, pretend for just a moment that it’s 1966 again. Across the city from you, a 16-year-old girl has been severely injured by an intoxicated driver, and at the hospital, the girl’s father realizes that he’s going to need help from a personal injury attorney. In 1966, if it’s a Friday night, he’s going to have to wait all weekend – even answering machines were rare back then. Today, all the father has to do is find you online with his personal mobile device and email you or complete an online contact form. You check in with your office, and you give him a brief call on Saturday morning. A family is reassured and relieved rather than worried and anxious all weekend.

The Story You Must Tell

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The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is composed of stories, not of atoms. That may not be literally true about the universe, but it’s true about the internet. You have products and services, but you also have a story, and you need to tell it. Maybe it’s how you turned a love for flowers and plants into a successful nursery business, or how you turned a burning desire for justice into a successful law practice. With so much available to read on the internet, you must provide more than a list of services and products. You must give readers something compelling, something that moves them from one sentence to the next. An internet marketing agency can help you craft, tell, and share your story.

If you are an attorney or a real estate agent, your competition constitutes a lot more than the attorney or agent down the block. On the internet, your competition is everyone competing for the attention of internet users – everyone who’s telling a story. To tell your own story effectively and compellingly, determine first what it is that you want to be known for. It might be the most beautiful arrangements in the city if you’re a florist or the most luxurious mansions if you’re a real estate agent. Next, determine what the concerns of your typical reader are. While telling your story you should not only address those concerns – you should also show how you are already addressing similar concerns for clients or customers. Finally, you need to create and post compelling content. Whether you are explaining the process of a personal injury lawsuit or how to plant and grow a spectacular flower bed, provide something useful, toss in some humor, be creative, and keep it as simple as possible.

You’ll know that you are telling your story effectively when you’re attracting customers or clients and your bottom line rises. If you don’t have the time for extensive online marketing or if you don’t feel especially creative, an internet marketing agency can provide any or all of your internet marketing needs. Let some internet marketing professionals help you tell your story. Make the call promptly.

Does Your Blog Need A Boost?

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Most professionals today – attorneys, financial advisors, and real estate agents, for example – already have a presence on the internet and aren’t that hard to find. However, it’s what happens after you’ve been found by someone seeking professional services that’s critical. When a potential client or customer begins reading your blog, that’s probably when and where the buying or hiring decision will be made. A high-quality, well-written, attractive blog is imperative. You really must grab the reader’s attention right away. An internet marketing agency can help.

Many professionals could genuinely enhance the appeal of their blogs. For example, if you are a personal injury attorney, don’t let your blog simply recapitulate news stories about car crashes and accidental deaths. If you’re a real estate agent, a listing of this quarter’s regional statistics and percentages may not be the most engaging content that you can offer. There’s nothing wrong with looking at other blog sites to get ideas, but primarily what your visitors are looking for is fresh, engaging, and practical content. When you work with an internet marketing agency, you’ll have the services of experienced researchers and professional writers who will work with you to create and supply the content that meets your unique marketing and blogging needs. You can order blog posts on specific subjects and make or request revisions to any text, but the burden of writing every week will be off your shoulders.

Any blog post that you write or publish may be your only chance to turn a reader into a client or customer. Don’t fumble that opportunity. If you simply don’t have the time to write blog posts, the interest in blogging regularly, or the confidence in your skills as a blogger, call and arrange a consultation with the professionals at an internet marketing agency. You’ll be pleased and surprised by the marketing tools and services they can offer you, so make the call promptly.

Get More Bang For The Blog

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Most attorneys and real estate agents are now active social media marketers, and that’s a good thing. A number of studies show that consumers looking for lawyers or realtors now seek them predominantly through the internet rather than the yellow pages. Many attorneys and real estate agents already have a good-sized footprint on the internet; they’re easy enough to find. But when a potential client lands on your blog, that’s where the rubber meets the road, where the consumer will make his or her choice.

Frankly, some of the blogging attorneys and real estate agents could enhance the appeal of their blogs to prospective readers and clients. The blogs of several personal injury attorneys, for example, sometimes read like a never-ending litany of disasters: car crashes, sudden accidental deaths, medical malpractice nightmares, and so forth. Recaps of old news headlines don’t do much to increase an online audience or attract new clients. Attorneys could instead use their blogs to explain the legal matters most likely to impact their readers. Explain the legal definition of personal injury, property liability, and DUI. Explain what will happen if a reader is sued or arrested. Explain how new laws will affect your readers. Make it interesting. Legal blogs, more than any others, are notoriously humorless.

Real estate agents, on the other hand, often make the mistake of blogging too much about inside baseball. Those looking to buy or sell a home want to know about the neighborhoods and communities where you work. Are there good schools, hospitals, malls, parks, restaurants? Too many real estate agents simply blog about current market figures; sales were up, for example, 2.6 per cent over the same quarter last year. Most homebuyers just aren’t that interested in a 3.1 percent increase in new construction starts. Draw pictures for your readers. Tell them why they should buy a home in your community and from you. Offer practical tips for buyers and sellers. Meet your potential clients where they are rather than where you are.

A blog post may be your single opportunity to reach out to a reader and turn that reader into a client; take advantage of that opportunity. It’s perfectly okay to get ideas for blog posts by surfing the blogs of other attorneys or real estate agents. And if you simply don’t have the time (or the confidence in your ability as a blog writer), consider hiring a social media marketing firm to create and coordinate your social media marketing content.

Time For An Update

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Your website needs to be updated, probably now. In fact, it might need a complete overhaul. If it’s been two or three years (or more) since you’ve updated the site, it probably even looks old. It takes a lot of energy, time, and thought, and it’s something that easily gets set aside to do “later.” The only consolation is that you’re not alone.

If you’re an attorney (and this holds true for other professions as well), you probably already know that the internet is by far the top place consumers go when they seek legal help. In the 21st century, your website is analogous to your law office’s front door and lobby. It must be attractive, up-to-date, and meet the expectations of 21st-century consumers. Here are several strong indications that it’s time to have the website brought up to speed:

1. Does your website look like a museum piece from the 1990s? A page counter or a blinking .gif is a sure giveaway. But even if you’re clearly in your own century, if it’s been more than a year, update. Your clients will be appreciative.

2. Did you start a blog and never pursue it? Scores of legal websites have a page that says something like “Welcome to our new blog” with a 2009 or 2011 date and no actual blog entries (or several outdated ones). Get that blog working for you; a freelance writer or a social media marketing firm can help you create regularly updated blog content and eliminate that embarrassment on your website.

3. Website navigation should be user-friendly, and information on the site should be thorough and accurate. Organize the site logically, and make sure it appears properly on mobile devices.

4. Do your website’s attorney bios sound like they were written by a criminal defense attorney? If you’re an attorney, you already know that potential clients are more interested in your last ten years than in what you did in 1973 or which state Supreme Court justice you worked with in the 1980s. Will you return calls? What kind of cases are you really good at winning? What do your former clients say about you? And watch it with the adjectives and adverbs; after three or four paragraphs about being “exceptionally skilled” and “extremely knowledgeable,” you sound like you’re trying too hard.

5. Consumers expect social media integration. Make it easy for visitors to find you on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites. A social media marketing firm can help you create and coordinate your marketing across the web.

Local Search

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“Local search” allows search engine users to locate businesses and services in their own communities. For potential local customers and clients to find you quickly, your site should be fully optimized to take advantage of local search. Local searches are “explicit” or “implicit.” A search that includes a location, such as “San Francisco attorney” or “southern California real estate” is an explicit local search.

A search for products or services that are available locally, such as “criminal defense lawyer” or “auto parts retailer,” is implicit. Local search lets you precisely target those closest to you who are seeking your products or services. A website optimized for local search is one of the surest ways to help new clients locate you. Here are several ways to help optimize your website for local search:

    • Include your NAP (name, address, and phone number) on every page of your website.

Printed information included in an image doesn’t count; contact information has to be text so that search engines can “crawl” it. Identify your location in your title tags and text. Your title tag should be something like “Grand Rapids Personal Injury Attorney” or “Orange County Real Estate Broker.” Text somewhere on each page should include that same phrase.

    • Establish a business page on Google+.

This helps Google establish your identity and rank you in local search results. Be sure you’re listed at your professional or trade association’s local site and on local Chamber of Commerce websites. They provide “local citations” that Google uses to improve local search.

    • A consistent NAP across the web is imperative.

Your contact information should be identical on your website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Angie’s List, and everywhere else on the web. A good social media marketing firm can help you maintain a strategic, consistent, and up-to-the-minute marketing campaign across the internet.

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