Legal Marketing & PR

Twitter Not Effective for Law Firm Marketing

By Larry Bodine, Esq.

We've all been sucked into the black hole of buzz about Twitter, which attracted 32 million global unique visitors in April, 2009 according to comScore.  It's even surpassed Digg (23 million), LinkedIn (16 million), and the NYTimes.com (17.5 million) in monthly unique visitors. 

But that doesn't make Twitter an effective law firm marketing tool. Consider that:

• 60% of Twitter users drop out after one month.
• It is the least effective way to boost traffic to your website, compared with SEO, email promotions and blogs.
• Twitter will generate leads, but not necessarily sales.
• Twitter can get lawyers and firms in a lot of trouble in the event of litigation.
• Twitter is a powerful distraction from getting real marketing work done.

After months of using Twitter, I've learned that it is a shouting post for relentless self-promoters, a dumping ground for press releases and advertising, an ego-drovem competition to amass followers, and a target for computer-automated Tweets.  It's always been a good place to learn what sandwich someone had for lunch and when someone changed a baby's diapers.  But Twitter is supposed to be "all about the conversation," and I see few conversations that lead to new business.

Research from multiple sources reveal that Twitter is a lot of things, including being a time-waster.  But it's little help in business development.  For the full story visit the LawMarketing Portal at www.lawmarketing.com

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).