While attorneys and other professionals are beginning to see the dollar signs associated with social media marketing, many are failing to recognize that seizing the opportunity requires much more than slapping up blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter profiles.

Professionals are wasting valuable time and resources by jumping into the deep end without establishing effective strategies for achieving their goals — if they have even accurately identified their goals. They are missing opportunities by failing to implement best practices or stay current with trends.

While social media programs involve countless considerations, here are a few general guidelines.

First, take inventory of your web-ready assets. Social media programs should use a hub-and-spoke strategy, with an appropriate website as the “hub” and other marketing channels including social media, media relations and event marketing as the “spokes.” Much as all roads lead to Rome, all social channels must lead to your website.

Do you have a content-rich, search-engine and mobile-optimized website with appropriate branding and contact information available for prospective inquiries? If not, you need this pronto. An outdated, ineffective — or worse, off-putting — website can limit your success.

After you have the necessary infrastructure, you are ready to create a social media plan based on your business objectives.

Answer questions including: What areas of your business do you seek to develop via social media? What audiences do you need to reach? What topics most interest them? How saturated is your space with competitors, where is the lowest-hanging fruit, and how can you differentiate? This should guide your content production. Strike a balance between niche and broader topics to avoid limiting your opportunities.

How often should you post, and on what platforms? There is no cookie-cutter solution, and social media technologies and best practices are constantly changing, so consult experts to help develop and manage customized programs.

Three considerations

No matter how you engage or what your goals are, three considerations will aid your success: images, links, and content creation.

Appropriate imagery is essential. Build your profiles with professional images consistent with your firm’s brand — not old headshots or generic web images.

The Internet is powered by links, so your social profiles should link to your most relevant website pages — not necessarily your home page. Remember, your home page is like the lobby visitors see when they wander from the street or want to learn more about your firm. For personal impressions, link social posts to personal collateral like your bio or recent publications.

Content is king, so do not merely brag about your awards and achievements. Create original content that engages and brings unique value to your audiences. Maintain variety in topics and types of content, including website blogs, published bylined articles, YouTube videos, PowerPoint presentations hosted on a site such as LinkedIn, SlideShare, etc.

Consider your bandwidth and available resources for maintaining an active, effective presence. If you own significant content, spending nominal time on varied channels to diffuse that content may be smart. Remember to allocate enough time for responding timely to comments.

If you are starting from scratch and want to make meaningful B2B connections and establish yourself as an industry thought-leader, you might use LinkedIn. Its native publishing platform could spare you the effort of building and supporting a dot-com blog, plus it provides the benefits of being the largest B2B social network.

Know what content works best on what platforms. You would not post a link to a blog post on Instagram or write multiple Tweets to convey what belongs in one place on a blog. Also be mindful of length: 1,200- to 1,500-word blogs are proving more effective than 300- to 800-word entries.

Other considerations:

• Enable readers to subscribe to and receive your blog posts via RSS feeds and/or email so they don’t have to hunt for your new content.

• Include social sharing buttons on blog posts so readers can amplify your content.

• Be careful whom you accept as friends and what you post. Consider your privacy settings, and remember: Nothing online is truly private.

• Tag and track your URLs. Use Google URL Builder to create custom links to your content. This will help your marketing team monitor your traffic through your site’s analytics and better manage your programs.

Most importantly, apply a balance of creativity and common sense. Pace yourself. If you try to tackle the world without the right strategy or measurable goals, you’re likely to burn your resources and burn yourself out. Create a plan, select your channels, diffuse your content, engage with audiences wisely, and the benefits are yours to gain.

Know what content works best on what platforms. You would not post a link to a blog post on Instagram or write multiple Tweets to convey what belongs in one place on a blog. Also be mindful of length: 1,200- to 1,500-word blogs are proving more effective than 300- to 800-word entries.

Other considerations:

• Enable readers to subscribe to and receive your blog posts via RSS feeds and/or email so they don’t have to hunt for your new content.

• Include social sharing buttons on blog posts so readers can amplify your content.

• Be careful whom you accept as friends and what you post. Consider your privacy settings, and remember: Nothing online is truly private.

• Tag and track your URLs. Use Google URL Builder to create custom links to your content. This will help your marketing team monitor your traffic through your site’s analytics and better manage your programs.

Most importantly, apply a balance of creativity and common sense. Pace yourself. If you try to tackle the world without the right strategy or measurable goals, you’re likely to burn your resources and burn yourself out. Create a plan, select your channels, diffuse your content, engage with audiences wisely, and the benefits are yours to gain.
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