10 Tweets of Advice: Social Media Lawyer Marketing

If you're still new to lawyer tweeting, why not turn to the City by the Bay for some tips?

The San Francisco Bar Association recently hosted a social media seminar -- on Twitter, of course -- to share tricks of the trade for maximizing your impact across social media platforms. And since Twitter calls San Francisco home, we suspect the City's lawyers know thing or two about tweeting.

Here are 10 (modified) tweets of advice from the SF Bar, with lots of expert social media/lawyer marketing advice from consultant Lydia Snider:

1. People are spending more time online. If you aren't there, you can't reach them.
2. Why should lawyers care about social media? It's a good tool for branding yourself and/or your company.
3. A professional brand is an essential part of legal career success, and at the very least, of career survival.
4. Twitter is a great place to get breaking news in your industry.
5. Twitter exercise: write 200 tweets. this will help you hone your message. Use a free tool like hootsuite to schedule the tweets.
6. Engage: share/RT posts, (but not those from your competition). Reply and comment. Post comments on expertise sites like WSJ.com, Quora, etc.
7. Social media strategy: use terms in your posts that your potential clients know and would use in searches for your services.
8. Social media can be a great place to get referrals. Are you making it easy for people to refer you?
9. Consumer decisions are increasingly driven by opinions of exponentially larger, global pool of friends/peers/influencers.
10. On average, you need 8 to 10 interactions before someone might consider hiring you. With social media, you have additional opportunities to reach potential clients

Even if you're eager to make a name for yourself online, managing profiles on every platform may not be the best idea. Forum participants recommend starting small with a single social media strategy before expanding. For more social media tips from the SF Bar, search for #sfbartech on Twitter.

Related Resources:

• FTC Settles Twitter Privacy Charges (FindLaw's Technologist)
• Tools for Archiving Your Twitter Tweets (FindLaw's Technologist)
• The Profits and Perils of Twitter (FindLaw's Strategist)