Twitter is supposed to be the place for lawyers and law firms to interact with potential clients and convince them to call if they have a legal problem. However, many lawyers underestimate the dedication it takes to have a strong social media presence, instead seeming to adopt the “if you build it, they will come” approach.
At Myers Freelance, we follow a lot of lawyers and law firms on Twitter. Many of the posts we see there serve to highlight how lawyers can fail on the platform and provide lessons for other attorneys to keep in mind. Some are pretty stinking funny, too.
You Need Content to Tweet Effectively
Probably the biggest pitfall that lawyers make when they get active on Twitter is to post when they don’t have anything to post about. Twitter is a great platform for putting your online content on a pedestal for others to see, like, retweet, and maybe even backlink to. So is the rest of social media, for that matter.
But when you don’t have online content, the results leave something to be desired:
Pedestrian accident kills man in Wheaton.
— Bell & Bell, P.A. (@BellAttorneys) August 15, 2018
Umm… okay.
At best, posts like these can act like filler, which falls somewhere between failure and success:
“The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is the duty of the living to do so for them.” Lois McMaster Bujold #Attorney #Lawyer #Jury
— Steven B. Levy Law (@sblevylaw) August 27, 2018
Sure, this post takes up real estate in a potential client’s Twitter feed, but what are they supposed to do with it? At least include a link to a relevant landing page:
If you’ve been injured while on the job, the attorneys at Mintz Law Firm will work to ensure you receive the proper compensation for your losses. https://t.co/wqlDaNaByP pic.twitter.com/dH11i4Dqgv
— Mintz Law Firm, LLC (@4injury) August 27, 2018
You Can Enhance Your Reputation… Or Hurt It
Lawyers are aware of the fact that potential clients are interested in who they are, as people. Twitter is a great place to humanize a law firm and the attorneys who work in it, showing to potential clients a face that they can relate to and grow the firm’s reputation.
Many lawyers do this effectively on Twitter, though they typically need real life events and interests to stand in for online content:
We’re proud to support the 31st annual Laudholm Nature Crafts Festival from high above Portland! Held in Wells every September, this prestigious, juried event brings many of New England’s finest artisans to exhibit their wares for thousands of browsers. pic.twitter.com/iwoquFKfY8
— Joe Bornstein (@JoeBornstein) August 28, 2018
We’re helping out Kutz4kids with their 10-year event this Sunday, August 5th! There’s going to be free haircuts for kids and school supplies, so we hope to see you there! 😎 Visit their page for more information! https://t.co/ec2eSmUKtR
— William Umansky (@OrlandoLawMan) August 3, 2018
Still other firms take a bold and daring approach to try to seem “hip” with the internet culture. All to often, though, the emphasis falls on the word try:
CALL NOW 919-617-7009 #lawyer pic.twitter.com/sihSvseQVd
— John Fanney (@JohnFanneyNC) August 27, 2018
In our unscientific opinion, solo and small firms are especially susceptible to this problem. Without others available, willing, or able to edit or critique a Tweet before posting it, the results can be strange or off-putting:
I just smoked a Florida Sun Grown Robusto on @drewdiplomat! #DE4L pic.twitter.com/wLhGju4Gqt
— Mike Rosas (@RosasEsq) August 10, 2018
This post is not an anomaly. It is, with very few exceptions, the only thing this lawyer posts on Twitter. Granted, the firm does not have an official Twitter account—only Google+ and Facebook profiles—but that actually makes it worse: With no official account on Twitter for the firm, the lawyer’s posts start to stand in for the firm’s Tweets, implicating the firm’s reputation.
Don’t Dabble in Conspiracy Theories
Similarly, Tweeting or Retweeting fake news and conspiracy theories can hurt your reputation, as well. If you spread clickbait articles with racial and political dogwhistles from suspicious sources, you not only alienate a huge portion of your audience, you also shoot your own credibility in the foot. To wit:
All schools should do this ! https://t.co/FoyLYjw5vf
— Carol A Lawson Esq (@ClwtrBkAtty) September 3, 2018
The source for the article is a WordPress blog, with no identifying information on it, exclusively hosting articles with a particular political slant and without citation to primary sourcing. We’ve dealt with handling politics in your legal blog and the different levels of journalism, before. This is an example of what can go wrong.
Using Social Media Like Another Place for TV Ads
The perk of social media is that it allows you to interact with potential clients, as well as the public at large, in ways that traditional media like radio and TV never could. Yet some firms seem to copy and paste their billboards into their Tweets, and add just a pinch of hashtag:
Injured in Florida?
Get a #Personal Injury #Attorney that has a proven track record of success!#TheJasponFirm.com https://t.co/g4qLHXQfXP (888)WE.STAND * (407) 513-9515#OrlandoLawyer #CarAccident #Lawyer #FloridaLaw #lawfirm #legalhelp #PersonalInjuryLawyer pic.twitter.com/O5RZZr9bKH— The Jaspon Firm (@thejasponfirm) August 27, 2018
Overdoing the Hashtags
Speaking of hashtags:
Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. #HappyMonday #TrafficLawyer #RealEstate #Lawyer
— Izidor Mikhli Esq. (@BrooklynLawyer1) August 27, 2018
#DAILYDOSE
••#blessedandunstoppable #findyourdestiny #setgoals #makeitareality #motivation #kalamazoomi #kalamazoomichigan #downtownkalamazoo #lawyer #law #lawfirm #murphyreedlaw #MRPLC
••
*Fill out our intake form for more offers and info: https://t.co/L56oVtDyj6 pic.twitter.com/dE1GXfA3tq— Murphy Reed PLC (@MurphyReedPLC) August 27, 2018
We’ve discussed how lawyers overuse hashtags, before, so there’s no sense going past the four main takeaways of that post:
- Hashtags make Tweets look commercial and desperate for attention
- While using hashtags can increase the number of impressions a Tweets gets, impressions are a poor measurement of success
- Using too many hashtags even decreases the engagement rate of a Tweet, which is actually a good measurement of a Tweet’s success
- See Takeaway #1
Don’t Misspell Things
Remember that your reputation is synonymous with how people judge you. Controlling your reputation is controlling how other people see you, and one way that people judge is through your use of the written word. Unfair? In many cases, yes, but maybe not for attorneys whose job it is to use that language on a client’s behalf.
So don’t misspell things on Twitter. That includes using one word when you mean another, like continuous when you mean continuing:
Continuous Legal Education with the New York State Bar Association. Always learning new things! Bridging The Gap! 🇬🇭 🇺🇸 #NYSBA. #CLE #Lawyer pic.twitter.com/nbb890TOz9
— N Nketiah Law (@NNketiahLaw) August 17, 2018
Even if you’re not a law firm, if you’re a legal publication then you rely on your credibility, which takes a hit if you misspell a word:
A Supreme Court case is coming to the big screen. Roe v. Wade is being make into a film, and reports indicate the production is taking a pro-life stance. This takes on added significance… https://t.co/gxg8D0zecU
— Supreme Court Review (@SupremeCourtRev) July 14, 2018
Especially because, once you make a spelling mistake, other typos or grammatical problems begin to set a trend:
With the issue of abortion being a major consideration in the lead up to the hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee this is a link to a great piece by the NY TImes, which details… https://t.co/rPaNUYkNHZ
— Supreme Court Review (@SupremeCourtRev) July 21, 2018
But if you make it your goal to cover the U.S. Supreme Court, you should at least never misspell a Justice’s name:
PBS does a good report on the careers that many clerks of Justice Thomas have gone onto.
Twenty-two Clarance Thomas clerks, which is roughly 20 percent of the… https://t.co/FuWY5NwctG
— Supreme Court Review (@SupremeCourtRev) August 27, 2018
FYI: It’s Clarence.
[Updated 9/3/2018 to include the section on conspiracy theories]