How to Capture the Throne of Social Power

Online marketing is social. How influential is your firm?

Times are a changing: online marketing is no longer just about how well a website is optimized to encapsulate focused keywords. It is now also about how well a website is positioned for global search engine optimization and how it communicates with social media.

Over the past year, interest in social media has risen, with the numbers on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and even Pinterest speedily increasing. There was a time when simply having a website was enough. But users have come to expect more. Attorneys must have a social networking presence to help answer the question: Do I really care about you?

While that may sound cliche, the truth is that the clients are more likely to hire an attorney they believe cares about them and who is likeable and trustworthy. If your law firm has developed a presence of trust and authenticity on the Internet, you are more likely to reach potential clients. One of the best ways to convey authenticity and build trust online is to have an influence on the web.

So the question is, how influential are you?

There are several tools out there that can tell a law firm how well they are influencing others on the web such as Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Twitterfall, or Whostalkin. But the website Klout is setting a standard for measuring, evaluating, and improving a social presence. According to Klout, a three-year-old startup company based in San Francisco, “The Klout Score measures influence on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the most influential. Klout uses data from social networks in order to measure:

• How many people you influence; (True Reach)
• How much you influence them; and (Amplification)
• How influential they are (Network Score)”

Your Klout Score is currently measured using data from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and YouTube, but networks will be added as the site grows. A high Klout score means several things:

• People are talking about the law firm/lawyers
• If the people that are talking about the law firm have high Klout scores as well, their conversation will reach many others, which in turn also boosts a law firm’s own Klout score
• More conversation = more leads = more clients

While there are no real shortcuts to get a high Klout score, there are steps a law firm can take to at least start the influence process.

1. Optimize social network presence to show off the law firm’s brand. Start with the most popular like Google Plus, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest.
2. Post more tweets on Twitter that link to a blog, the law firm website, or to the optimized social networks.
3. Tweet success stories and positive press.
4. Post more articles and press releases to sites such as Articlebase, Scribd, or Lawfirmnewswire.
5. Post at least two blog entries and one article a week.
6. Get involved in chat groups on Linkedin, Yahoo, etc.
7. Be authentic, real, sympathetic, empathetic and pleasantly voracious.

Remember, influence leads to social power and social power helps increase your lead potential and client base.