Grow My Law Firm

What's in a name? The name change conundrum in social media.

This may be more interesting to female readers than male ones.

When your whole identity is your maiden name, at what cost can you change your name? Will that brand be sacrificed when you get married and want to take your husband's name? That is the dilemma I encountered when I married last year.

I'm not in my 20s, or even my 30 for that matter. As a result,  I have a lot of equity in my name personally and professionally, especially since a lot of my income is generated by the recommendations and referrals that come via the social media sphere.

So when I married, I stressed over what to do with my last name, and thus, my identity.

I ended up adding my husband's name after mine, without a hyphen. That was the best solution for me, and most social media platforms made it pretty easy as well. Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Slideshare, YouTube, and Google+ gave me no hassle at all. It was easy to find and configure the change on their respective sites. (Note: I am referring to display names only, not platform usernames. I see no reason to jump through those hoops.)

Twitter, however, was a whole other story. Twitter actually has a character limit on display names, and "Christine Pilch Mancini" exceeds it, so I am unable to change my name there. Yes, it is ridiculous.

Anyway, making the right name decision for me was a whole lot harder than the actual process of changing my name in the social media world. If only it was so easy to do everywhere else...passport, driver's license, bank paperwork, insurance, utilities...

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

Social Media 101: covering the basics in early 2012

I can't tell you how often people ask me what they really should be doing to cover their bases these days from a social media perspective. Often these conversations start something like this:

"Should someone like me really be on Facebook?" with a wrinkled nose," That's not really my thing."

"Not really your thing?" I counter, "What do you mean? Marketing yourself and your company isn't your thing?"

"Oh, then what should I be doing?" is a common follow-up question.

Social media is constantly evolving, and there is no mix that is right in every situation and every company, but what was once the essential 3: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, has expanded to include YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest these days, depending upon what you are selling.

There are plenty of others too, but let's go through the current recommended basic social marketing hexagon, one-by-one.

Facebook:

Everybody should have a personal Facebook account, if for no other reason, to educate your friends and family about what you do. Sure, your cousin and college roommate likely know that you're a lawyer, but can they tell a friend what kind of law you practice and possibly refer business to you? Believe me, all my Facebook connections know exactly what I do, and yes, they do refer business my way.

It's a common and legitimate concern to worry about mixing personal and professional connections and have clients see vacation and family photos, but Facebook has extensive privacy controls that utilize lists, and a single account can satisfy an infinite variety of people in your life by simply controlling what they can and cannot see. If you need assistance setting this up and understanding how to use these controls, I would be happy to help you.

A Facebook Page for your firm is another no-brainer. Anybody can do create one. Facebook offers step-by-step instructions. Just fill out all the requested information completely, upload your logo or photo, post some content, and invite your personal friends to like the page. That's all you have to do to get started, and there are lots of ways you can use that page to market your firm later.

You might also find use for a Facebook Group within your business. This space could be used to collaborate and share information with specific people. Unlike Pages, Groups can be private, where non-members can't see content, or secret, where nobody outside of members even know that the Group exists.

Facebook ads are another possibility. Since Facebook collects lots of information about its users, it is capable of extreme targeting with its advertising. This is not a no-cost option, but it is worth exploring at the right time.

Twitter:

Twitter seems odd and uncomfortable for most users when they first check it out. How can anybody market in 140 character bursts? Well, Twitter is very much about developing relationships, which are likely the lifeblood of your firm, so sign up and start talking to others in your geographic area. Yes, you can discuss your field of expertise a bit, but don't preach, and above all, just be friendly. If you need help getting a feel for Twitter, give me a shout.

LinkedIn:

You're a professional right? Well, a LinkedIn presence is expected for all professionals these days. In fact, LinkedIn is so powerful that often your LinkedIn profile tops your own web profile in search results. Let me also assure you that LinkedIn makes it really easy to find your competitors, so if you're not there when a prospect searches for you, you just might lose business to competitors who do take this platform seriously. Can you afford that risk?

Sign up and go thorough the process of building a 100% complete profile. Be prepared to spend a couple of hours gathering and inputting all of your information, and go way back throughout your entire career and school days. Most everybody in your past is a potential referral source, aren't they? The best way for them to find you is to identify yourself with all of your past jobs and education. Don't skip sections, but do use action words and proper grammar and spelling. This 24/7 web-based resume is not the place for typos and tense issues. If you don't have the time, patience, or inclination to write a proper bio for yourself, I would be happy to help you. In fact, one of my clients currently hears from at least 2 recruiters per week because of the profile that I created for him.

YouTube:

YouTube is a no-brainer for professional service firms that want to position their lawyers, accountants, etc., as qualified and knowledgeable experts in their fields. Grab your iPhone, Andriod phone, Flip, Kodak Zi8, etc, light yourself, get an inexpensive lavaliere microphone, and start talking. Do a few takes if you need to and edit to whatever degree you are able. Or hire someone to do this for you. It may be a bit pricey to hire a professional videographer, but there are also plenty of multimedia college grads who are unemployed and/or need to build a resume. They would likely work very reasonably. Have them come in and shoot a dozen videos at a time that they can take back to their studio and edit for you. Then use your videos on your blog and website in addition to YouTube.

Google+:

I must admit that I am still not a big G+ fan. I find it somewhat redundant and can't break the feeling that it's just another social media that I have to check, so I neglect my account. There is one feature that I use regularly though, Hangouts. Hangouts allow up to 10 people to videoconference, unlike Skype, which only allows multiple parties to videoconference within the paid model. I am currently working with a group of 4 others planning PodCamp Western MA 4, and we haven't had a single in-person meeting. All planning is being conducted within a private Facebook Group and weekly Hangouts.

There are a couple additional nice features that are worth mentioning. On Google+, updates are editable. How many times have you posted on Facebook and wished you could change something retroactively? Google + is also integrated with many of Google's other products. I especially like its integration with its Picassa free photo app. And I love that all of the photos I take on my Android phone are automatically uploaded to my G+ account. That's free automatic photo backup! If you have additional favorite features of Google+, please add them in the comments below.

Pinterest:

This blog covers marketing for essentially professional service firms, but I do plenty of marketing for other kinds of companies that have products to sell. And, let's face it, your service is your product. The true marketing potential of Pinterest is still being discovered and tested, and its core strength is in its visual advantage, so its value to you may not be as readily apparent as the above tactics, however; I like Pinterest because it displays the human side of me and helps people get to know me, so they feel better about reaching out to me. Remember too that Pinterest will climb in search engine rankings as it becomes more popular, so it will help you to populate that critical first page of search results with your own content.

In closing, it is important for you to understand that there is no cookie cutter social media strategy that suits everybody. However, the above includes what I am finding especially useful in my own and my clients' social media toolbox lately. What are you using that I haven't mentioned?

 

 - Christine Pilch Mancini

 

Photo credit: Best Design Options

Friday Favorites: 5.20.11

Here are 5 of my favorite or most helpful things I read on the web this week:

1. 10 Best Tips for Creating a Mobile Site:
   Are you thinking about mobile marketing yet? If not, you're a little behind the curve because smartphone use and mobile traffic are growing daily. This article offers a brief, plain English overview of best practice for developing a mobile site.
2. The Most Complete Twitter Application List Available - 2011 Edition:
   No explanation needed here. This list rocks! You might want to bookmark it.
3. 5 LinkedIn 'Must-Haves':
   LinkedIn has developed into a serious business tool, and this article offers solid tips about getting as much as you can out of the application.
4. New Facebook Promotions Guidelines:
   This is certainly not the most exciting item on this list, but it may be the most important. Facebook is serious about reducing their own liability, and a lot of the things people ordinarily do when they run a promotion on their Fan Page is actually against Facebook's terms of service. Read these guidelines and respect them, or you just might find your Page disappear one day. Remember that this is a free platform and Facebook can do whatever it wants, leaving you with little to no recourse.
5. How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard:
   Yes, you can track your social media activity without spending big bucks with expensive monitoring services. Here's a step-by-step guide for all you do-it-yourselfers. 

Well, that's it for this week!

- Christine Pilch

Determining who to follow on Twitter

I've done this post before, but it's been a while and it's worth revisiting now as I am going through a backlog of people who have been kind enough to follow me on Twitter. I'm @ChristinePilch, by the way.

I rarely seek out new people to follow any more. I used to when I started a few years ago, but I'm currently following too many people already to read every tweet, so it seems silly to actively pursue new tweeps. However, if you follow me, I will look at your profile and make a determination whether or not to follow you back. (It may take a while, but I'll get to it, so please be patient.)

There's no right or wrong follow process. It's all personal choice, but I'm looking for people who will add value to my Twitter experience. I like to reach out to my Twitter community when I need help, and I'm interested in meeting new people who will educate, inform and entertain me daily.

Here's my own strategy.

I use TweetDeck as my preferred Twitter client. So the first screening is what I can see there.

1. Your photo matters: If I see the egg, that tells me that you don't care or aren't serious enough about Twitter to bother, and I won't look further.
2. Your bio: No bio is a stop sign for me. It's not difficult to add a couple lines of text about yourself, so if you haven't bothered to do it, I won't bother to look further.
   
   The first 2 tests happen in a second or so, and if you passed them, I click over and check out your page on Twitter.com. The first thing I notice is,
   
   
3. Your background: It's okay to use one of the stock Twitter backgrounds for a little while when you're getting started, but if you're still using it after 1,000 tweets or so, although it's not a knock-out factor, I notice and file it in my mental follow-criteria folder.
4. Location: The next thing I notice is where the person is from. I almost always follow back people from Western MA, as that's my backyard, and I like to be friendly. If it's someone I know personally, they get an automatic bump into my local favorites column in TweetDeck, and I add newbie strangers to a second local column that I keep an eye on. I move people between and in and out of those columns regularly as I constantly re-assess value. Reading tweets is time-consuming, so I want my favorites to be prioritized.
5. The numbers: I look at the total number of tweets against the number of followers and following. If I see a disproportionately small number of tweets and a large number of follows, I know that user is a celebrity or just followed everybody on someone else's list without any thought at all, and oftentimes, many of those people auto-followed back. That's not my style. Again, this isn't a knock-out factor, but it's added to the follow-criteria folder in my head.
6. Tweet stream: While I pretty much automatically follow back local people, all the rest are screened by their tweet stream. This is one of the most significant factors to me. I don't bother following people who preach, that is, if I don't see a balance of unique content, @Replies and retweets, I won't follow, regardless of the value of the content. Twitter is, at its core, a communications platform, and I'm not going to bother with someone who has no demonstrated interest in an exchange of ideas.

So, that's how I make my decision whether or not to follow back someone who followed me on Twitter. Do you screen differently?

- Christine Pilch

Photo credit: geek&poke