Legal Marketing & PR

How NOT To Use Twitter in the Legal Profession

By Amy Derby

In the online legal community, we talk and blog and tweet at length about ways lawyers use Twitter and other social media tools to network and get business. We talk about getting noticed, building relationships, and sometimes even garnering recommendations and referrals. When we hear a success story, we’re happy to congratulate our friends and pass along the good news.

Meanwhile, from the other side of the tracks, other lawyers and legal professionals are entering into social media with a different angle. These folks aren’t interested in building a network; they’re interested in a fast-track to more money. Much like the get-rich-quick scammers flooding our email boxes with unsolicited garbage on an hourly basis, these people are spamming the Twitterverse (and other social media spaces). Furthermore, they are expending resources and utilizing shady systems to target specific people who they think might need their services.

Remember when gaming Google with blackhat SEO tactics still seemed like a good idea to so many law firms? You’ve probably noticed that the same has trickled into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and pretty much anyplace else you might hang out online.

My classic example: if I tweet ?how to lose weight flipping real estate,? I?ll soon have dozens of new followers who are using Twitter bots to automatically follow anyone who mentions ?lose weight? or ?real estate.? While this might sound like a genius idea in theory, my mere mention of these phrases in a tweet doesn?t make me a qualified lead for anyone doing business in either area. I weigh 115 pounds and rent an apartment.

I had hoped this trend wouldn?t extend to the legal profession, because I like to think lawyers are smarter than that. What I hadn?t thought about, but probably should have, is that lawyers sometimes turn over their ?marketing? to people who aren?t so smart. What is simply stupid for a weight loss coach to do could cause serious consequences for a lawyer.

Ethics and solicitation regulations aside, I can’t imagine these tactics are very profitable. Even if you’re in a consumer oriented practice that’s frequently mentioned in these spaces, how many of these people talking about your key phrases are actually in need of a lawyer? How many of these are in your jurisdiction? Probably not very many. And even if you land on a lead once in a while, who wants to hire a lawyer who auto-followed them on Twitter and then spammed them about their services? I sure wouldn’t.

But ‘marketers’ and ’social media pros’ don’t seem to have all made it to that page yet. I’ve had five discussions in the past two weeks with firms who have been doing this type of stuff, along with other tacky antics like creating fake social media profiles and blog comments to fraudulently recommend or otherwise promote legal services. In all but one case, the lawyers claimed they had no idea these events had taken place; they had hired someone who handled things badly. Bottom line, in any case, this type of stuff ultimately reflects badly on the lawyer and does a lot more harm than good.

What is your reaction when you see this kind of stuff?

Full post as published by Law Firm Blogger on July 08, 2009 (boomark / email).