Managing your legal practice takes a lot of dedication and hard work. It also involves staying current with the needs of your community, wherever you’re at. Much of your success as a professional depends on staying relevant and plugged in to the needs of your clients. Here are some tips on how to extend your influence in your community:
- Understand how social media sites work: Your “community” now and forevermore also includes the online internet community. You need to understand how the online community works. For instance, did you know Tweets posted between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. receive the highest click rates? Also, some websites, like Linkedin, allow you to “endorse” other members, which can be good for your own online marketing efforts as well.
- Attend professional events: Bar association events are always great ways to ensure that other lawyers remember you. This can lead to greater case referrals and turnover rates. Doing volunteer work for groups is also a great way to meet people and to get your name out there.
- Speak at a CLE workshop or seminar: Being a speaker at Continuing Legal Education seminars can help improve your visibility and your credibility as a professional.
- Perform some adjunct professor work: If you have the time for it, doing some adjunct professor work can help open doors that you might not regularly have access to. After all, your former students will one day become practicing attorneys, thus growing your professional network.
- Join non-lawyer groups: This can help increase your chances at being recognized, since you will inevitably be dealing with less competition from other lawyers.
- Get some OPM advice: OPM stands for Online Presence Management. It refers to the way you present yourself online and your overall “appearance” to virtual users. Even younger, tech-savvy lawyers can benefit from the expert input of an OPM counselor.
- Learn some basic Google Analytics: Google analytics tools allow you to learn information about your website’s traffic, such as how long a person viewed your site, where they came from before that, and what website they clicked after viewing yours. This can help you understand the pattern of traffic associated with your web marketing strategy.
Staying current and up-to-date with various marketing solutions is essential for your legal practice. One of the main take-aways of this article is to make sure you don’t discount opportunities that don’t present themselves in the most obvious, immediate way.
Any type of social and communal interaction can lead to increased visibility. Additional measures such as maintaining an account with LegalMatch can help diversify your marketing efforts and broaden your base of supporters and clients. Stay engaged with LegalMatch by following us on Google+ and LinkedIn.
Authored by Adam Vukovic, LegalMatch Legal Writer and Attorney at Law
