"Social Networking", what do we really mean by that? Wikipedia defines it as :-
A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, financial exchange, friendship, sexual relationships, kinship, dislike, conflict or trade.
So that's clear then....not! I simply describe a social network as "virtual place where like minded people choose to congregate". It's this idea of congregation that makes a good social network.
I've been working with social networks long before they were called "social networks". Back in the early 1990s when I worked for CompuServe they just used to be called Forums, and all you could do was post messages to the forum and perhaps upload some files. Even before CompuServe existed, there were Bulletin Boards around.
Social networks, or social media to use another name, are in the basic sense online meeting places. But there is a parallel to real world meeting places. Have you ever walked past a bar or restaurant that you were intending to go into and glanced through the window to see no-one in there? If so, did you keep walking? I bet you did. If so, that's the real world analogy for visiting a social networking site and getting there to find the last message was posted a month ago. Why would you hang around or ever come back?
Let's face it, professional service firms did not start out with the best of intentions when it came to social networks. Law firms the length and breadth of the country blocked the use of sites like Facebook and LinkedIn from their offices. How short sighted is that?
Larger firms are likely to be considering setting up their own social networks on their intranets. It's a natural extension of their staff directory, combined with the discussion forum they might already have had. However, if the discussion forum never got used, just renaming it to be a social network won't make that much difference.
Social Networks that Work
In our view there are two types of social network that work:
- large community / few active users - Facebook might be a good example of this. In proportion to the number of people with Facebook accounts, I suspect the proportion of "active users" is probably quite low.
- small community / many active users - these social networks tend to be very niche, so only ever attract a low number of total users, but many of whom are quite active.
I'm not going to attempt to define what we might mean by "active users" in the examples above, but think "gym memberships" and I don't think you'll be far off. The problem is now that there are "social networks" everywhere (Wikipedia has a big long list of social networking sites that you might want to check out)
That sums up the largest problems for law firms when considering their social networking strategy, where do we spend our time, and more importantly, who's time do we spend?
On the basis that networking online is akin to networking in person, then surely the Partners and Fee Earners should be the one's doing the networking? Maybe, the big advantage with online networking is that your secretary can "listen in" on your networks for you, report back on where they think the interesting topics are and heaven forbid you can dictate a reply that they can post back to the network on your behalf. It's still your comment, you just used a more effective way to get the comment online than hunting & pecking at your keyboard.
How Law Firms can Network using Social Networking Sites
So, what about some ideas about what law firms can do with social networking sites:-
- Get a blog, but then what do you write about and how do you drive visitors to it? Blogging does work, but it needs to be a) up-to-date and b) provide value, either because it's opinionated or contentious or because it assimilates a variety of information that the reader would not ordinarily find themselves.
- Set up an Alumni Group on Facebook - you do know where all your alumni are don't you? Also, there probably is one already, you just don't know about it. Try going to Facebook and searching on your name.
- Think about setting up a "customer group" on LinkedIn, make it private to all your clients and invite them to join, make it feel exclusive. The challenge with this is the same as the alumni group, you will start off doing all the work to drive usage, if you don't you need a customer group who are VERY engaged with you and with each other if they are going to do it.
- Invite all your customers to "join" you in someone else's group. For example, one of the social networks I spend some of my time is the PM Forum group on LinkedIn. This group has over 1,468 members already and is a pretty active community.
This brave new world of social networking has brought with it new businesses: there are now a plethora of "online reputation management" companies. These firms will "look out" for you online and report on what is being said about your brand/firm. Consider it a modern day "clippings services" that the PR firms of old used to offer.
It would not surprise me to find that the Magic Circle firms start appointing “Social Networks Marketing Manager” sometime soon. After all, I did meet someone the other day who was the full-time "video manager" at a large firm. He did not look after video tapes, he went round the business making video films. They found it more cost effective to hire someone than to keep paying freelancers to do it.
Micro-blogging
For what it's worth, Twitter does not count as a social network. It's official term around our industry is that it's a "micro-blogging" site. The term micro is used as you can only post 140 character messages. Interesting enough, Twitter has just raised a third round of funding of £24.5m (over £35m in total) and it's still "pre-revenue". Yet amongst the hip young trendy things Twitter is already consider "Soooo last year!". They have moved on to sites like Spotify,com, Gypsil.com and Power.com.
If you've never checked out a Twitter account then you might want to have a look at ours at http://twitter.com/conscioussol
Social Networking for Everyone
Social networking - is it for you? I think it's for everyone, but it may be just that you hang out in other people's social networks and are not in a position to start your own. My last word of advice is something my father said to me when I was younger. "David," he said "don't spread yourself around too thinly." Make sure that you fish where your fishes are (in other words: spend time in social networks where your clients and prospects are likely to be). Build your profile there.
The whole world of social networking opens some interesting opportunities for forward thinking law firms. However, in my experience by the times have caught on to this fact, they will have missed the curve and be playing catchup with the "next big thing".