Toss the Crutches

It’s time to admit it. Social media is not a passing fad. It’s here to stay and it’s promising to revolutionize the ways we develop business. Many lawyers who aren’t meeting with success using old-fashioned marketing strategies and techniques are hoping that social media will be their modern answer to business development in a changing profession and a changing world. But is it ...
Toss the Crutches
Donna Wannop, practice-development coach

It’s time to admit it. Social media is not a passing fad. It’s here to stay and it’s promising to revolutionize the ways we develop business.

Many lawyers who aren’t meeting with success using old-fashioned marketing strategies and techniques are hoping that social media will be their modern answer to business development in a changing profession and a changing world.

But is it possible for social media to deliver all that it promises? Can building networks and relationships on social media platforms like LinkedIn really be the way to move things forward when it comes to business development?

The short answer is no. Social media is overrated and oversold. A lawyer’s practice cannot be built on the basis of a social media strategy or campaign.

This is not to suggest that social media has no place, or is of no value, when it comes to business development. Having a social media presence can help a lawyer increase his or her visibility and name recognition a little — but generally not a lot (exceptions to this discussed below).

It can also help a lawyer build up a list of names and contacts, which hopefully will include people who might in some way offer business-development potential. In other words, social media can be helpful in terms of building a resource base.

There is also no doubt that, for those people who find it difficult to reach out to others, connecting through something like LinkedIn can make it easier to initiate contact with others. But becoming more visible, building a list of names and inviting others to connect via LinkedIn — these are just starting points. While social media may offer new ways of reaching, qualifying and contacting people, its usefulness pretty much stops there.

The hard work comes after that, and there is no avoiding it. The first and last word in marketing in the legal profession has always been, and always will be, the development of meaningful relationships with other people. Therefore, while the use of social media can help support marketing, it does not actually constitute marketing.

While there are very definite limits to what can be gained from social media, it must also be acknowledged that opting out completely isn’t an option for most people in practice these days. Most law firms encourage – and in some cases require – all firm members to be on LinkedIn, and indeed, upwards of 90 per cent of lawyers do have a LinkedIn presence of some kind.

This means that, for most people, it will be necessary to spend some time getting set up on LinkedIn and posting a profile. And after that, a little bit more time doing the bare minimum associated with keeping a LinkedIn presence marginally active.

Why just marginally active? As it turns out, social media has a very, very low return on investment, and interestingly, the more time a lawyer spends on it, the lower the return. That means that if you spend more than a little time on your social media, the law of diminishing returns kicks in — and it kicks in in a big way.

There is, however, one significant exception to the low-return reality of social media. When a lawyer is prepared to do what it takes to become an Internet celebrity, making a big investment in social media can actually pay off.

That being said, becoming a legal celebrity online is something that requires a major commitment and devoting huge amounts of time to developing and maintaining rock star social media status on an ongoing basis. It’s the kind of commitment, time and energy that can only be expected of someone who is truly on a mission to become a social media superstar, and who throws themselves into it with a kind of passion that speaks of more than just an interest in business development.

There are few among us who aspire to be Internet celebrities, and even those who do typically aren’t able to devote the time and energy that it takes to get there — because they also have to practise law. That means that, for most of us, the best approach to using social media is to use it, but minimally.

Many new ways of doing business are simply products of the times we live in. And very often newer is not better. There is quite simply no form of remote access or connection that can be a viable substitute for getting out there, meeting people and developing meaningful relationships.

Donna Wannop, LLB, MBA, is a practice-development coach (www.donnawannop.com) who has worked exclusively with the legal profession for over 20 years. Reach her at [email protected].