Posts Tagged ‘social media marketing’

By now you’re probably using a program to track and evaluate your social media strategy, such as Google Analytics (and if you’re not, you should be!).  But there are also tools specific to certain social media sites, like Twitter.

For example, Tweetbeep will give you hourly updates whenever you or your company is mentioned, while Tweetstats will graph your Twitter use so you can judge how effective your tweets are.  Both of these are useful tools if you’re on Twitter consistently and would like another way of measuring your Return on Influence.

If you are not actively managing your online reputation, feel free to contact us and see how we can help.

Email marketing is still hot!  I hope that you are communicating to your list on a regular basis.  It is one of the best ways to educate your community and it also allows them to get to know you.  Both of which are key to converting leads to clients.   But there is a right way and a wrong way to use email.

One of the mistakes that we see being made is when the emails are being sent.

Picture yourself sitting with your first cup of coffee as you first turn on email.  If you are like most people you are doing what we like to call, “The morning purge.”  You go through the numerous emails you received through the night and delete all but the ones that require your attention, right? I thought so.  So, why is it that so many attorneys set up their emails to be sent overnight?  I haven’t figured out the answer to that question, but you can be assured that if you do your information is much more likely to be purged.  We recommend that you set up your email to be delivered at 10:00 a.m. which is safely beyond the morning purge.

It is also best to send email on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays.  This reason is a little more obvious, but Monday is typically a busy day for most and Fridays are, well, Fridays.  People are more likely to want to clean out their inbox to be able to relax for the weekend.

There is a new feature offered by Outlook and LinkedIn where, if you use Microsoft Outlook, you can now have more insight into the people with whom you email.  Basically, once you download the application, you will see a summary of the contact’s most recent LinkedIn activity, status updates, accepted connections and e-mails. You can sort these updates by news feed updates and RSS articles about this person; If you are not yet connected on LinkedIn, you can click “Add” to add them to your network.

This feature is a great way to keep closer tabs on your LinkedIn network, and is helpful in building your marketing lists, as well!

To learn more about this integration and to download the feature, click here.

Facebook has a new feature that allows you to repost other users’ shared items, much like the ‘retweet’ function everyone uses on Twitter. To try it, just go to a friend’s posted item in your news feed, click “share,” and you’ll see a “via [your friend’s name]” (with an option to remove it). Once shared, the item will appear on your profile, with a ‘v’ia link that points to your friend’s profile. Your friends will also see the item in their News Feeds, creating a viral loop, much like ‘re-tweeting:’

This function has many good uses: for example, if you are a fan of a page that keeps you abreast of changing estate planning laws, you could ‘share’ a relevant post of that page with all of the friends and fans of your own page, thereby educating your audience on a matter important to them.  Or, you could just repost a review of a good book or blog post someone else shared, giving your client base a chance to get to know you on a more personal level and strengthening your relationship.  Test it out and see for yourself the response you receive!

It is now easier than ever to engage in meaningful conversations in Facebook.  The newly updated Facebook Search Feature allows you to search for topics being discussed in status updates. You can use this feature to find people who are looking for estate planning services.  See example below:

By searching for the words “estate plan” I instantly found someone looking for a “good estate attorney”  (Oh, and I was sure to recommend one to her!).
You can search through posts of your friends, or choose the more global “Posts by Everyone” feature to find people outside of your current network.
It’s quick, easy, and a really great way to increase your social networking contacts.