This Law Firm Gets Social Media @allenmatkins

This is a guest post by Samantha Collier.  

Every Tuesday I’ll be profiling a law firm that “get” social media here on Adrian’s blog.  My previous guest post examined the social media activities of law firm Goodwin Procter, this week we’re looking at AmLaw 200, California based law firm Allen Matkins whose lawyers specialize in real estate, labor, tax, and business law.  This post will discuss how Allen Matkins utilizes their website, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and blogging for marketing and business development.

Website 

Law firm websites are notoriously famous for being bland, boring and extremely self promotional.  Thanks to social media, and experts like Robert Algeri, more and more law firms are redesigning their websites to showcase the information their clients and potential clients are most interested in = lawyer bio’s, contact info, case studies and relevant social media information.  Allen Matkins is one of those law firms.

The first thing you’ll notice when you visit Allen Matkins’ well designed website is a dynamic slideshow of attorney videos, awards and upcoming events.  It grabs your attention and draws you in – exactly what you want from a law firm website.  To the right of the slideshow are eight attorney video thumbnails displayed in a clean and simple fashion.  Videos are watched without leaving the website, which is a great way of keeping visitors on your site. Social media accounts are displayed on the bottom of the page and include Youtube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Personally, I love seeing social media accounts prominently displayed as long as they are kept current.  The only edit I’d make is I’d link to the Allen Matkins LinkedIn Company Page instead of the LinkedIn Allen Matkins Group from the homepage. Attorney bio’s are easily accessed from the homepage and blogs are easy to find too. Allen Matkins gets an A+ from me in the website category.

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Thought Leadership 2.0

Originally published in the National Law Journal on November 17, 2011

In the world of marketing, and particularly with the explosion of social media, no term is more overused than “thought leadership.” Yet the expression is often misunderstood. To illuminate why, I interviewed James Durham, a lawyer and chief marketing officer of McGuireWoods. I hoped he could help me demonstrate that although “thought leadership” is overused, the underlying concept remains essential to legal marketing.

Durham has been speaking and writing about thought leadership for lawyers for more than a decade. Before becoming a CMO, he had his own consulting firm, working with hundreds of law firms around the country.

Thought leadership — which essentially means developing a reputation as a leading expert in a particular field — forces lawyers to highlight one specialty, and this can cause great discomfort. “Won’t my existing clients feel alienated if I market myself to a more narrow niche?” some might wonder. “Won’t it take me out of the running for all of the other types of work I do?”

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Web Traffic Will Tell Law Firms What’s Working

By Adrian Dayton and Adam Stock

Originally published in the National Law Journal on November 10, 2011

An entrepreneur who had just sold his business for $20 million explained two fundamental rules of business this way:

“There are really only two things that matter in building a successful business,” he replied. “How much one unit costs and how much you can sell that same unit for.”

He explained that nothing he learned in business school was more important than understanding the cost of goods and pricing. Those two factors more than any other determine the success or failure of a business.

Law firms need to understand a similarly vital calculation when it comes to digital marketing: How much are firms paying for each set of eyeballs that looks at their website? How can knowing this help firms make better strategic decisions in their marketing spend?

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Earning Trust: It’s Not All About You

Originally published in the National Law Journal on October 27, 2011

Charles Green shared a story about a doctor of more than 25 years’ experience. “In all my years talking to drug representatives,” he quoted the doctor, “I have never heard a single one recommend the drug of a competitor. Therefore, I can never trust them.”

Green, co-author of the management book, The Trusted Advisor, was illustrating a point — that selflessness is the path to earning trust. “The pharmaceutical industry is such a great natural fit to become an adviser to their clients,” he said during an interview. “Yet they are squandering this opportunity.”

We see this same problem in the legal industry, but now, with the proliferation of social media, lawyers have an opportunity to become advisers rather then pitch men. The first step is understanding what it means to be a trusted adviser.

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This Law Firm Gets Social Media @GoodwinProcter

This post is by Samantha Collier. Every Monday she will profile a law firm that does social media right.  This week it’s Goodwin Procter, one of the nation’s leading law firms with offices all over the world including Boston, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and London.  Goodwin Proccter LLP is also number 35 on the AmLaw 100 list for 2010. 

Website

Goodwin Procter’s website is simple yet impressive. 

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