Twitter Strategy For Lawyers

This week - I'm all about the strategy. Twitter strategy for lawyers, that is. The past few years have seen a huge increase in lawyers and law firms using Twitter. Is this a great thing, or all just a terrible misunderstanding? Well... that depends.

Twitter is a wonderful thing for business development and great for raising your personal profile or your firm's profile, but - used without strategic direction - ultimately a brilliant time-waster.

So, a word from the wise - before you jump in - consider what you're trying to achieve. I'm not suggesting you should write a 1000 word strategy document, just have a think about what you want to achieve by joining Twitter; an ROI if you will.

I didn't do this when I joined - but then I was quite an early adopter. Back then, I'm not sure any of us knew what we were doing. Nowadays, I know that I can use Twitter for the following:

1. Breaking news: time and time again I discover things on Twitter before they are reported anywhere else. Often hours before. 
2. Meeting people (yes really): By responding to tweets and chatting away with people I don't know, I build on-line relationships. I then take these off-line and start to grow 'proper' relationships IRL (in real life).
3. Business development: I say this cautiously. I don't sell on Twitter. Never have, never will. However, I do promote this blog there, and I also have a dedicated LexRex account which I sometimes use to spread good news and business achievements. I suppose really this heading should be 'raise awareness of LexRex'. Whatever. *Another word to the wise - don't sell on Twitter.
4. Spreading news: A lot of people do this on Twitter now, and it's a quick and easy way for you, or your firm to be associated with a certain industry, theme or trend. I try and tweet breaking legal news - it's of interest to the people I want to appeal to, and it means I'm associated with the legal profession. 

So - Twitter strategy. Do you have one?

By Victoria Moffatt

How To Write a Law Blog...

"I can't write a blog!?"


First up, why do you say that? If it's because you truly are a terrible writer, then that's fair enough and in that case STEP. AWAY. FROM. THE. KEYBOARD.

Otherwise, you may be missing a trick. Done well, a blog can be a wonderful thing. It can be somewhere that you escape into the deepest depths of the most obscure case law, it can be a safe place to explore your opinions and thoughts on the demise of legal aid or the state of the PI market or simply where you deposit your thoughts on what it's like to be a lawyer. All very interesting subjects.

A blog can also be used to showcase expertise, explain difficult legal concepts or shout about good news. Written well, it can be something that clients turn to, in order to discover more about you and/or your firm's personality and hopefully, like what they see.

The good thing about legal blogs is that they can be whatever you want them to be. A firm blog can be used to talk about interesting cases, new instructions and that charity walk you did where you all wore matching T-shirts and raised £1,000. A personal blog could cover your fight to get a training contract, or even your day to day experiences.

Done badly though, a blog can be a terrible, awful thing. Turgid, long-winded, pompous posts can be enough to send the most intellectual of us running for the hills in tears; blogs that have been left to moulder like Miss Havisham's wedding breakfast, with the first (and last) post written 18 months ago; or posts that are shoddily written, with dodgy grammar and spelling mistakes.

That said though, the point of this post is to celebrate the legal blog, or blawg if you prefer. If you have a passion for a particular area of law, trend or something else entirely then why not turn it into a blog?

Our top tips for legal bloggers are:

1. Choose a topic you are passionate about

2. Try to keep posts to less than 1000 words

3. Blog as regularly as you are able

4. If it is a blog for your firm – mix up your content

5. Enjoy! - it's supposed to be fun...

By Victoria Moffatt