Originally posted in the National Law Journal on January 12, 2012

Last month, my father-in-law invited me to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with him next spring. The problem is, starting my own business and entering my third decade have left me out of shape and about 20 pounds overweight. I decided I needed to educate myself about how to get in shape and lose weight — two things I never had to worry about when I was younger.

At first I thought I could just go run on a treadmill for an hour each day, but a friend who specializes in helping people train for triathlons said that wouldn’t work.

“Your body gets used to the machines,” she explained.

“So what do I do?”

“You need interval training.”

The idea is simple — you need to keep your body guessing. Once your body knows what to expect, the exercise becomes much easier. Easy is nice, but the problem is that your body stops getting stronger. Interval training — alternating intensive and moderate exercise — is designed to get around this. We build muscles by breaking them down so the body can rebuild them, but the same exercises eventually become less and less productive. The best workout programs require frequent change. Our minds work in a similar way. New challenges help us grow.

So what does this have to do with lawyers? During the past year I have advised hundreds of lawyers on bringing in more business, and the vast majority of them start out stuck. They bring in a certain level of business, but it doesn’t vary much from year to year. They want to break out.

It may seem obvious, but to accomplish things you never have before, you need to do things you have never done before.

Here is how I respond to some of the most frequent complaints I hear from lawyers who are feeling stuck:

“I never get business from bar association events.”

You have two options: Switch to some other type of networking or change the way you behave at bar events. Set goals for engagement. Try to learn about five other attorneys’ practices. You are bound to see opportunities to refer business to them, which will bring return business your way.

“I’ve been on LinkedIn for three years but haven’t gotten a dime of business from it.”

Again, there are two options: Quit LinkedIn or start using the tool more actively. Reach out to old law school friends. Become more active in a couple of groups important to your industry. Pay attention when contacts switch jobs.

“I have a hard time talking to people.”

Stop talking and start asking questions. Before you go to a networking event, choose a few stand-by questions that you can ask of anybody, even a total stranger. “So how was 2011 for you?” “Any big plans for 2012?” These are good for breaking the ice; then, you can get into more specific questions about their practice. “You may have told me before, but what type of law do you focus on?” “Is that still what you spend most of your time on?” Show sincere interest. The person you are talking with will respond by showing interest in what you do.

I’ve never climbed a major mountain before, but I am going to go for it at the end of March. My biggest motivation? I am completely terrified at the thought of putting in months of preparation and not making it to the top. Fear can be a great motivator. New opportunities and new goals make life exciting, but you need to embrace change. You need to find your Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012. Good luck.

In early 2009, Melanie Green, marketing director of Baker & Daniels (which combined with Faegre & Benson on Jan. 1 to form Faegre Baker Daniels) announced via Twitter that her firm had added social media icons to its website that would allow visitors to share information from their site with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

“Shortly after beginning communicating our information through these tools, it naturally made sense to use our website as a way to tell our visitors how to find us,” Green said. “We added call-out buttons on our news pages, telling visitors to follow us on Twitter, and then added links to professionals’ bios who were becoming active in the space. All of these steps were part of an integrated plan to utilize and leverage social media tools and have continued to develop over the past several years.”

At that time, this was completely unheard of among large law firms. Since then, this use of social media by firms has become far more commonplace. The logic is simple: law firms want to make it as easy as possible for visitors to their sites to share their articles, blog posts or white papers with their own networks. The icons allow that information to be dispersed with the click of a button. It is an inexpensive and effective tool.

A similarly powerful yet easy change for professional firms is updating e-mail signature lines. Your signature line is the information that ends every e-mail — typically, your name, firm name, mailing address, telephone number and fax number.

It makes sense for professionals to have their fax numbers and physical addresses in their signature lines, but from a marketing and business development perspective this information is almost completely irrelevant. Signature lines could be improved if lawyers added information that would lead to continued engagement. For example, Roy Ginsburg, an employment lawyer and partner with Dorsey & Whitney, is the author of the blog quirkyemploymentquestions.com. Just below his name in his signature line he has a link to his blog.

Other lawyers include a headline and link to their most recent blog post or article. By featuring your latest article or blog post in your signature line, you show contacts and potential clients how well you understand your practice area or industry.

Another technique is to include links to your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles. When you send someone a message and they want to learn more about you, they can always go to your official law firm bio, but if they want more, including more links in your signature line gives them exactly that.

Providing links to your social networks sites helps potential clients learn to whom you are connected and what connections you have in common. It gives context about who you are and what you are about. Law firms sometimes complain that they don’t want visitors leaving their site, but they are missing the point of the Web site. It isn’t merely to advertise the firm, but also to provide potential clients with the information they need to make a very expensive decision about who to hire for services.

So why are most firms stuck in the 2000′s when it comes to e-mail signatures? Two reasons — fear of the unknown and fear of individuality. Changing a lawyer’s e-mail signature line is messing with something that has been the same for more than a decade, and that can be hard for lawyers. The even larger challenge, however, is fear of individuality. If a firm lets one lawyer include a link to his blog or LinkedIn profile, then doesn’t it have to let all the lawyers provide links? What about the lawyers who don’t blog — won’t they look bad? What about the lawyers who hate LinkedIn and refuse to use the Internet — we wouldn’t want them to stand out as different, would we?

All of these fears are absurd. If one of your lawyers holds a J.D./MBA from Harvard, you include this in her bio. Not because it makes her fit in with the rest of your lawyers, but specifically because of how much it makes her stand out. The same principle applies to e-mail signatures: Some of your lawyers have put tens and hundreds of hours into blogging or into participating on LinkedIn or Twitter. Don’t they deserve to stand out because of it? Isn’t it a positive to show that lawyers at your firm effectively use social media? Isn’t it good to show that you aren’t stuck back in the past?

Does it make the rest of your lawyers look bad? Of course not, because the nonblogging lawyers are not exactly a minority — lawyers aren’t the most tech-savvy people around, after all. Would it be better if all of your lawyers created effective LinkedIn profiles and blogged about their areas of expertise? Absolutely. But just because your firm isn’t there yet, it doesn’t mean you have to hold back the rest of your lawyers in the name of conformity.

The signature lines of the future can be so much stronger. Here are just a few possible items to include:

• Link to the lawyer’s recent blog posts.

• Link to a major news source that recently quoted the lawyer.

• Link to video of the lawyer.

• Link to his or her LinkedIn profile.

• Link to the lawyer’s Twitter account.

• Link the individual lawyer’s bio on the firm’s website.

• Link to recent charity or nonprofit work.

Signature lines are just another simple way to help your lawyers brand themselves and highlight their writing and online participation. Signature lines can’t be one-size fits-all anymore — lawyers are just too different nowadays. Their experience is different, their clothes and hairstyles are different. Their e-mail signatures should be different, too.

It seems only fitting that today my co-author Amy Knapp and I are releasing our new book LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age. The book is available immediately from West Publishing and subscribers to my blog get an additional 20% off. Click here to purchase.

In the book you will read case studies of a partner who used blogs to bring in multiple six-figure trials, an associate that leveraged LinkedIn to build a substantial book of business as well as all the techniques and strategies that helped them get there.

The foreward to the book is written by Richard Susskind and here is just some of the advance praise the book is receiving:

This book is very user-friendly and is the best resource I have ever seen for lawyers looking to maximize the ever-changing world of social media.

- Aleisha Gravit, CMO at Akin Gump

This book is an absolute ‘must read’ for anyone looking to build a sustainable practice in what is now unquestionably an online world.

- Felice C. Wagner, Chief Client Service Officer at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan

In every section of the book, I learned something that I did not yet know.  I highly recommend LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers.

- Steve Bell, Chief Client Development Officer, Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC

Most of you will have seen the famous Apple commercial, “Think Different” — if not, you can see it here. The ad featured clips of the “crazy ones” — Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, Charlie Chaplin, Richard Branson, to name a few.

Originally, Steve Jobs cut a track with his own voice narrating, but in the end he used the voice of Richard Dreyfuss. He explained to biographer Wal­ter Isaacson that he didn’t want the commercial to be about him. He wanted it to be about Apple.

The commercial isn’t really about Apple either, though; it is about a concept. The concept that even though you are mocked, fired, kicked out of your own company or worse, you still can change the world. The commercial was effective because ideas are so much more powerful than advertisements. Most commercials leave us entertained at best; the Apple spot actually is inspiring.

So what is the trick? What can law firms learn from the way that Jobs marketed? Jobs was passionate about great design and creating truly great products. His gift to the world was turning his ideas and leadership into something tangible. His commercial was great because it captured the idea and the value of Apple, and shared that concept as a gift through a short video. Firms need to be willing to share what inspires them.

I often hear this complaint from firms resistant to share online: “We don’t want to give anything away.” They are so worried about giving away the firm secrets that they are afraid to share the most valuable gift they have to give, their insights. How can your firm turn what it is about into a message that resonates? The answer will be different for every firm. One things is certain, though: It is worth figuring out.

Fortunately, Apple didn’t erase the version in which Steve Jobs narrates; you can take a look at it here. I don’t think the Jobs narration makes it any less powerful. That’s the great thing about the best ideas — they don’t really belong to anyone. At the end of the day, whether the voice came from Steve Jobs or Richard Dreyfuss, the message resonates.

A LexisNexis survey of 110 international law firms discovered that while 77 percent used at least one social network, fewer than 3 percent engaged in conversation.

There are two excuses for such a minuscule degree of engagement. First, firms are so concerned with controlling the message that their social sites — whether LinkedIn pages, Twitter or Facebook sites — are far too impersonal. The second is that allowing individual lawyers to participate will dilute the brand.

I predict that 2012 will be the year this mindset begins to change.

According to the same survey, even though 85 of the 110 of the surveyed law firms had a registered LinkedIn page, many of them didn’t recruit or handle client development through LinkedIn. They have official profiles, but they aren’t using the tools.

The way firms are using social media is like owning a fighter jet but rather than flying it, rolling it around on a dolly. Firms need to stop using social media sites as billboards and start using them to connect with people who would be difficult to reach otherwise.

Firms fixated on controlling the message silence their best messengers — the lawyers themselves. Firm managers rack their brains trying to figure out how to micro-manage a handful of accounts when they should be providing their lawyers with strategies to get out there and engage in a meaningful way. To extend the metaphor, firms have grounded an entire fleet of fighter jets for fear that someone will make a wrong move.

If managers are wondering how to engage, they can start small. Firms I have seen make the jump successfully started with a small pilot group. This allows them to do two things. First, to see that the sky won’t fall if they allow lawyers to tweet and otherwise engage. Second, once they realize the benefits of having a few lawyers use social media, it will be far easier to sell the idea up the chain of command.

Firms are beginning to wake up to the absurdity of the restrictions they impose on their lawyers. Placing a blanket limitation on Twitter or blogs is analogous to banning lawyers from chatting at cocktail parties. “But this is so different,” the firms tell me. “This is all recorded.” Yes, it is all recorded, but it is the recording of the information that makes it so powerful. It allows potential clients to find you in a way that wasn’t possible five years ago.

For conscientious lawyers to use social media to discuss law, policy and economics — where is the harm? If your lawyers tend to engage in racist, hateful and offensive language in polite company, you may want to restrict them. For everyone else, let them speak.

Will 2012 be the year that all law firms wake up and start using social media the right way? This is an extremely conservative group, but we are seeing a shift in the way lawyers talk about social media and in the begrudging respect even the most senior lawyers are beginning to show for these tools.

We may not see all firms jump on the bandwagon, but 2012 may be the year that many overcome their fear.

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.

Twitter

I’ve done extensive research on the social media activities on all of the AmLaw 200 law firms and you might be surprised to know that over 80% have Twitter accounts now. What sets firms apart is how they use it.  It’s not good enough to create an account and promptly forget about it. In fact, it’s better to just ignore Twitter all together if you aren’t going to use it properly.

Allen Matkins uses Twitter to share blog posts from their blogs with their 227 (to date) followers.  Their last post was over two weeks ago on December 13th, but I’m forgiving them as it was the holidays.  Ideally, firms should encourage their lawyers to do the tweeting, but law firms that choose to actively use a firm account should post at least once per day (Monday – Friday) when using Twitter.  Branding your Twitter account is important and Allen Matkins has done so by updating their background, bio and Twitter icon.   With well over 640 tweets to date they are well on their way to Twitter Zen.

It’s important for law firms and lawyers to use Twitter to engage and interact with followers. I’d like to see Allen Matkins doing a little bit more of this by retweeting relevant content, replying to Twitter “@ replies”  and using hashtags when appropriate.  Engaging with Twitter followers can be a little tricky for law firms as you need to decide who you’re targeting and how to engage them.  Creating a social media policy and plan can help immensely.

Facebook

Do you think Facebook can be used effectively by law firms and lawyers for marketing and business development? This is a question I hear often and it’s highly debatable.  Some will say it’s only good for recruiting and others will tell you to ignore it all together.  In the end, it all comes down to what your goals are and how you use it (like all other marketing efforts).

Allen Matkins is one of my fave’s when it comes to Facebook.  They utilize JD Supra to share content authored by attorneys, and RSS Graffiti to syndicate content from their 45 blogs, to separate pages on their Facebook page.  They’ve also uploaded over 15 albums to Facebook which includes charity events and lawyer speaking engagements.  Overall, their use of Facebook is much more advanced than other law firms which leads me to believe the have a social media superstar on staff.  The only two suggestions I have is to: 1.) create a custom designed landing pages to encourage more likes and 2.) post questions on their Facebook wall to encourage discussion.  Overall, they are doing a fantastic job!

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is recognized as one of the most widely used social media platforms by lawyers and law firms. I find it strange if I can’t  find a lawyer on LinkedIn in this day and age.  LinkedIn recently updated Company Pages and it’s important to check what your law firm’s page looks like.  More and more of your potential clients are doing their research online and LinkedIn is one of the first places they look.

There are over 300 Allen Matkins professionals with LinkedIn profiles.  Additionally, the Allen Matkin’s LinkedIn Company Page has been updated to include blog feeds, website information and a nicely written law firm summary.  What’s missing from their profile are company page status updates and services.  Companies can now post status updates that are shown on the home page of all their followers – this is great for Allen Matkins as they already have 375 followers.  Law firms can also take advantage of the “products” tab and create separate pages for all practice areas – you can add links, video and pictures here too.

Blogging

Allen Matkins attorneys author four blogs: Diversity & Community Involvement, California Sustainable Communities Law, California Corporate & Securities Law (which won Lexis Nexis Top 25 Blogs Business Law) and California Consumer Product Health Safety and Environment. Please note these blogs cover very specific niche areas – this is important.  There are thousands of law blogs out there (just check out the ABA Blawg Directory), you must make yours stand out. The Allen Matkins bloggers benefit from having their blogs posted on the firm website as well.  Overall, the blogs are nicely designed with up-to-date posts, sharing buttons and linked social media accounts (Facebook, YouTube and Twitter).  The only change I’d make is to allow reader comments to encourage engagement and discussion.  It takes extra time to moderate comments but I think it’s well worth it.

YouTube

Video is the next big thing when it comes to legal marketing.  Creating videos allows viewers to see you, hear you and really get a feel for who you are.  Keep in mind videos should be concise, original and should explain how you solved a clients problem.  Do not make it all about you and how great you are – that is the kiss of death.

Allen Matkins has a nicely designed YouTube channel with over 75 videos, 15 subscribers and 12,700 views.  Video is becoming increasingly important among lawyer business development and Allen Matkins is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.  Their videos are professionally designed, include well written descriptions and aren’t boring! These are videos clients and potential clients would be interested in watching.

Overall, Allen Matkins is doing an excellent job when it comes to utilizing social media for business development and marketing. They excel in video and website design and I look forward to seeing other law firms taking suit.

You can find Allen Matkins online at:

• Website: http://www.allenmatkins.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/allenmatkins
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allenmatkins?ref=ts
• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/allenmatkins
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/21282?trk=tyah
• Blogs: http://www.allenmatkins.com/Publications/Blogs.aspx

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?”

Well, no.

“Becoming a thought leader in one area isn’t limiting at all,” Durham said. “You build exceptional credibility in one area because you are that good at it. It isn’t a stretch that you are probably good at other things as well.

“It’s always a mistake trying to sell the multiple things you do anyway,” he continued. “I’ve spoken to GCs who don’t like to hear firms say, ‘We have someone who does that.’ They want someone who is the very best. The benefit of having a thought leader isn’t just for that individual’s practice, but also for their ability to bring in work for other practices. Many of the top rainmakers at McGuireWoods bring in work that they themselves can’t do. It isn’t a leap for a company impressed by your thought leadership to assume these talents extend to other attorneys your firm.”

Some lawyers are fearful of picking a niche that is too narrow, but according to Durham, “You gotta keep slicing it thinner, because there are just very few people who can have the national reputation or even be identified as the best at general practice areas.”

Thought leadership may come more naturally to more senior lawyers, but there is room for younger lawyers to start developing thought leadership now. “With young lawyers starting out, I have them draw two lines down a page, creating three columns.”

“In the first column, I have them write down existing clients, existing work. How can you actively move those forward? What is better or more important there? If you do most of your work for just a couple of clients, how can you build on that relationship and ensure great work there?

“In the middle column, I have them write down: Who do you know that you might be able to do work for, or that the firm can do work for? When was the last time you spoke to them?

“Third column: What is your passion? What do you love? Poetry? Writing? Sailing? Look for places where you would enjoy spending your time. What do people who care about those things read? Find what you love and get your name out there.”

Durham used these three columns to help even the young lawyers understand that they are already developing thought leadership–and that asking the right questions can help them focus their efforts.

How can we predict who will succeed at thought leadership? I’ve observed that many of those who are successful enjoy a healthy dose of luck. Durham agreed that a certain amount of serendipity comes into play.

Still, “You make your own luck,” he said.

“It’s like playing in traffic: If you want to get hit, you gotta get out there. You gotta be playing in the street. Our rainmakers think about business development all the time–it is really a matter of focus. Contrast this with those lawyers who don’t have as much success. When they hear problems from potential clients they say, ‘Good luck with that,’ instead of figuring out how they can help.”

Social media have made it easier then ever for lawyers to get their names out there. Start playing in the traffic; otherwise, you have little chance of connecting with the next big opportunity.

Adrian Dayton is a lawyer, consultant to large law firms and author of two books, Social Media for Lawyers: Twitter Edition (ARK 2009) and LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age (West) co-authored by Amy Knapp with publication anticipated in January of 2012.

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?

Los Angeles firm Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis studied its web marketing spending and was surprised to learn that some types of exposure online were very low-cost (like blogging) while others were extremely expensive (like the various lawyer-rating services.)

The calculation was a simple one. He divided the amount spent on the website, blog or, aggregator by the number of visitors to each particular destination. This calculation gave him a per-view or per-impression cost.

To test his findings, we sent a survey to a dozen firms, and five returned data concerning their marketing. Perhaps the biggest surprise to both of us was that many firms (even very large ones) had never looked closely at these data; most had never tracked their spends and compared it with results. This is major strategic error.

A firm’s web traffic tells a story. It tells what is working for the firm and what is not. Once firms understand the price they are paying for web traffic, they can make better-informed decisions about creating content, whether in the form of legal alerts, articles, lawyer bios, or blog posts.

According to our research, based on reports by a mix of midsize and large firms, the cost per click on firm websites was between 2 cents and 7 cents. For blogs, the range was wider — 2 cents to 10 cents. This reflects the fact that some firms use free blogs while others use paid services; there are companies that aggregate blog and website content and distribute them for a fee.

JD Supra, for example, is an aggregator that shares your content online via Twitter and LinkedIn and sends weekly digests through email. Lexology provides a similar service, but works with organizations such as the Association of Corporate Counsel, so some percentage of the audience is highly targeted. Mondaq redistributes news information to a variety of media outlets. Our research showed the cost per-view for these services ranged from 6 cents to $1.

We found that by far the most expensive cost per page views were charged by some of the lawyer-rating services — $1.25 to $2.50 per page view. At these prices, the data don’t indicate that this is a bad deal — just more expensive than the alternatives.

Many consumer-based law firms use a service called pay-per-click advertising — firms pay to land at the top of Google results, then a fixed amount for each individual who clicks on the link. A click from a search for “automobile accident” might cost between $15 or $20, while more specialized clicks from a search for “mesothelioma lawyer” might cost as much as $100 each.

Is it worth paying these high prices? Often, the answer is yes. For a personal injury case worth millions in fees, it is worth it to spend tens of thousands of dollars on pay-per-click advertising. For bankruptcy or employment law, it might not be worth the price.

The most important lesson of pay-per-click advertising is that traffic is valuable, and when firms can generate substantial traffic for less than $1 per click, they are getting a bargain.

What worth are impressions, if we can’t convert?

A personal injury lawyer can track a prospect from the point he fills out a form on the website until he is signed as a client. This process is not quite as simple for business-to-business lawyers. Quality web content in the form of legal alerts, blogs, and articles makes an impression and may even cause the phone to ring, but conversion depends on a lawyer’s reputation and ability to close.

Lawyers often complain, “I just don’t see the types of clients that hire me reading blogs posts.” Very few people read blog posts for fun — the vast majority read them to help solve business problems. If a firm can create content that consistently does that, new relationships and new work will follow. As firms track their analytics, they will see this borne out.

Paramount is paying attention to the analytics. What is your firm paying for traffic? Are you getting your money’s worth? The next time lawyers at your firm ask to be featured by a rating service, show them the statistics. Show them how they can get five or 10 or 100 times the traffic for the same price by using blogs or aggregators.

This is not a complicated equation — it is as simple as buying low and selling high. That should be a concept that even the most stubborn lawyers can grasp.

If your firm would like to participate in the survey, email info@adriandayton.com. We are sharing the full survey results only with participating firms.

Adam Stock is the marketing and business development director for Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis. You can find him on Twitter at @adamlstock or view the firm’s content at http://allenmatkins.com. Adrian Dayton is an attorney, social media strategist, and author of two books on social media. His second book, “LinkedIn and Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age” (West Publishing) is co-authored by Amy Knapp and is scheduled for release in January 2012. You can follow @adriandayton on Twitter.

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.

“There is no formal definition of the term ‘trusted advisor,’ ” said Green, who has spend more than a decade researching trust-based relationships. He posited a simple formula: credibility (you know your stuff) plus reliability (you can be counted upon) plus intimacy (people feel secure sharing with you) divided by your self-orientation level — the degree to which you care about yourself relative to others. The denominator is really the key.

“If people trust you, they will seek your advice far more than otherwise,” Green said. “You are more powerful. Things will get done more quickly, they will buy from you. They won’t push back on price as much. It’s more valuable for the client, as well. If your client really trusts you, he doesn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and contact you. You get called in earlier and at the appropriate time.”

In his book, The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey Jr. tells how Warren Buffett, who enjoys tremendous trust in the business world, can close major deals in a day or week when other organizations require months. The need to build elaborate compliance structures can “slow the deal process down,” Green said. “The lack of trust makes it cost more money.” Buffett saves money simply because people trust him to live up to his promises.

“You don’t have to be Warren Buffett to build those kinds of relationships,” Green said. “If you are able to get over your own needs, focus on others and care about them, you can get there. It’s an emotional level of maturity. In psychology, this is called ‘differentiation’ — can you empathize with others without losing your own identity?”

We see good and bad examples of this in the social media world. “The key online is to share things of value,” Green said. “Chris Brogan (one of the most popular social media mavens) is great with this. He says to make 10 tweets about others for ever one tweet you make about yourself. Become known as someone who offers things up to others, and eventually people will come to you.”

This is challenging for lawyers — they so fear promoting their competitors that they miss the chance to become trusted advisers. “All these people shouting, ‘Me! Me! Me!’ aren’t very emotionally mature,” Green said. “They think bad things are going to happen if they don’t talk about themselves.

“I seem to be learning over and over the value of telling the truth. Not just, ‘Don’t lie.’ Telling people the whole truth, and realizing that truth is your friend, and getting comfortable with that, is huge. Simple things like, if you’re a 29-year-old lawyer and you have a 53-year-old client, don’t try to act older than you are. This won’t seem right. If they ask how much experience you have, tell them. If they want the best article on a certain topic and it wasn’t written by you, tell them.

“If the tsunami is coming, get your surfboard out. If you are in sync with the truth, things will go well for you. Go with the flow, and the flow is the truth.”

You can check out Charles Green’s latest book The Trusted Advisor Field Book at http://trustedadvisor.com/books, or follow him on Twitter @charleshgreen.

Adrian Dayton is a speaker, author and strategist helping lawyers bring in more business through digital media. His latest book, LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers: Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age (West Publishing), was co-authored by Amy Knapp and is scheduled to be released in January 2012. You can follow him @adriandayton.

Website

Goodwin Procter’s website is simple yet impressive.  It’s branded in the usual blue and black and includes vivid images that definately impress. The usual headlines apprear such as: people, practices, offies, our firm, news, events, publications, etc.  Their awards and nominations are listed on the homepage but it doesn’t scream over confidene and self promotion.  Goodwin does share their social networks on their homepage. 

Facebook

Goodwin Procter’s Facebook page is one of my favorites. It includes almost all of my favorite features:

• Custom designed landing page
• Separate locations page
• RSS feed of News
• Separate Twitter tab
• Newsletter sign up tab
• Photo Albums
• Customized vanity URL

Goodwin Procter isn’t using the JD Supra Legal Updates tab on their Facebook page nor do they display photo albums of their attorneys and staff.  The font on their locations page is a little small as well but it’s definitely readable.  These would be my only suggestions.  The firm’s Facebook page currently has 128 likes. Most posts are blog posts via an automated publishing feature.  Comments are allowed which is nice!

Twitter

Goodwin’s Twitter page currently has 557 followers and follows 571 people.  They have been listed 38 times which is always a good sign.  They post often and use Hootsuite for publishing as you can tell by the URL shortner ow.ly. The background is branded again in the traditional black and blue.  I love how the imaging and style matches across their Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as their website.  They also retweet other content which is neat. Kudos to whoever is directing their Twitter account!

LinkedIn

There isn’t much to say about LinkedIn pages these days as they are all generally the same.  Goodwin Procter does LinkedIn company pages right and includes their recent blog posts and news.  They haven’t post a status update yet but I’m sure that’s coming soon!

All in all Goodwin is doing an excellent job with their social media strategy.  I look forward to seeing what’s coming up next!