Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

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!

There’s a social media resource out there that is great for connecting with your local community: Nearbytweets!  It’s sort of a little cousin to Twitter, and very easy to use.  Just go to www.nearbytweets.com, and on the homepage, enter your location, a key word or phrase, and a radius, and you will find people near you who are discussing topics related to your market on Twitter!

As a test, I entered the phrase “estate planning” in a 200 mile radius around Los Angeles, California, and came up with several different people who were tweeting about estate planning in that area:

What better way is there for you to attract and connect with your local audience online?  Test the site out using different keywords your target market might discuss online, such as, “probate law” or “Mom’s groups,” and see what you find!

If you are already involved in Twitter then you have undoubtedly heard about the new Twitter list feature. I think this is the best thing that has happened to Twitter since Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) started tweeting!

Twitter lists allow you to group fellow tweeters into groups to make following your favs much easier. The one beef I’ve had with Twitter is that it is really hard to follow people that you are interested in. I suppose one obvious answer to this is to only follow people that you actually want to hear from, but one of the great things about Twitter is getting to know new people. If you avoid anyone you don’t know you will never grow your network – and social media is all about growing your network.

Key points for Twitter lists:

1. Each account can have up to 20 lists, and;
2. Each list can include up to 500 users.

Creating a list is super-easy. At the time of this writing you will find a message at the top of your page after you log into Twitter with a link called, “Create a new list.” Simply click on that link and and give your list a name and start adding tweeters.

You can also take a short-cut and follow other people’s lists, so if you find a really good one created by someone else you can follow theirs.

One of the things that we often hear is that social media marketing is free.  While it is true that most social media networking sites have no cost to participate, there is the cost of executing.

One of the key components of a good social media strategy is to develop a plan that will keep you or your firm participating regularly.  In order to do this, you must decide if you will be the person to manage this or if you plan on outsourcing this task, or if you want a combination of both.

Here are some examples of different roles that are often outsourced:

• Research Specialist: This person offers ongoing research services to help you identify where your target market is online, which is constantly evolving.  He or she suggests new networks to target, finds new networks in which to participate, lists of friends to invite, etc.

• Company Representative: If you don’t feel you have the time to carry out all aspects of your strategy on your own, you can hire someone to act as a representative of your practice on your behalf.  This person would participate in discussions on behalf of your company online, post relevant and informative articles out to your audience, etc.

• Online Reputation Manager: This person is responsible for tracking and monitoring your online reputation, which is a handful in and of itself!  He or she would use tracking tools to find every post and site where your name or firm is mentioned, and would respond to any negative comments, trying to minimize negative exposure online.

• Blog Manager: The blog is the heart of your social media strategy. It is important to make sure that your blog is continually maintained and upgraded when appropriate.  There’s quite a bit more to running a successful blog than simply writing a post.  A Blog Manager will make sure that your blog stays current by adding the most up-to-date plug-ins and keeping the posting schedule consistent.

There is a cost to outsourcing, but this must be compared with the cost of your time.  If you have a team in place effectively taking care of parts of your social media strategy, you are free to concentrate on the aspects of the strategy where your personal voice really needs to get through and connect with your audience – writing articles and blog posts, for example.

If you decide that you would like to spend your valuable time on the parts of social media marketing that will allow you to put a voice to your message and delegate the rest we’d love to help you discover how easily this can be done.

The Facebook ‘Info’ tab is an often overlooked and underused section of your Facebook page.  But people really do click on that tab to learn more about you!   The info tab is the perfect spot to place geographical information about you and your practice, so anyone visiting your page will instantly know if they are a good candidate for your practice.

Plus, Facebook pages are SUPER searchable. Google loves them!  So be sure to put your city and state on your Facebook profile and fan page so you have a better chance of being found when people are searching for you.