Articles

02.19.10
Are You a Real Person?

By Jeanne Frazer, President, vitalink® communications

We’ve all seen and heard about the new marketing environment. It’s no longer about pushing a product or service—it’s all about a “conversation” with your customer. But what does that mean to your efforts to market your law firm?

First and foremost, client expectations—especially within the younger generations—have changed. And one of the things that we are seeing is that clients and prospective clients want to know more about you personally. In reviewing website activity for our law firm clients, the team / attorney profile web pages are either first or second in page views for every single law firm.

It’s no longer enough just to post a CV on your profile page on your website. Potential clients are searching for a reason to choose you and it isn’t always education and associations. So what do we recommend? Here are a few suggestions to make you a “real person” that a prospective client might want to choose:

• Include a personal paragraph at the top of the page above your CV; this might include a comment about why you decided to practice law, what practice area(s) you enjoy the most and why, a bit about your family or pets, or interests outside of work. You may want to also post a photo if you don’t have one there already. Consider adding other photos that show more personality than the standard head shot.
• Include a personal approach/focus to articles in newsletters, e-newsletters, brochures, etc.
• Create a Google Profile for free at www.google.com/profiles; this has the added benefit of appearing in search engine results.
• Make sure you’re LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), with a free personal and company profile. Public profiles are found by the search engines and will pick up new status messages, recommendations, etc.
• Add a Facebook page (personal and business) at www.facebook.com and post periodic updates (at least 2/week). Include your business website URL to capture click-through traffic to your primary website. 


If you are really motivated and can commit the time, write articles and add them to your website, start a blog or make a brief informational video about your favorite practice area (for example, a 2-3 minute clip on workers’ compensation) and post it on YouTube and your website.

So, are you a real person? Taking these inexpensive steps can make you more visible and “real” in the minds of your clients and prospective clients and may just give them that one piece of information that makes them choose you. It’s one more way to market your law firm.

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