There’s a new restaurant in one of the towns near to where I live – and it never has any customers in it. Is this because the good citizens of that borough spurn the proprietor’s culinary endeavours? No, it is because it is the least-restauranty-looking restaurant I’ve ever seen in my life – high windowsills, so you can’t glance in to see other diners, no external menu-boards, none of the welcoming decoration normally associated with a place to eat. And, to cap it all, no apparent way to enter the building, just supposing you did ever want to eat there!
In other words, they are missing the bleedin’ obvious. And that it what it is also like with way too many law firms and legal IT vendors when it comes to their use of social media, including blogs, websites, Twitter and LinkedIn. They miss the obvious.
I’ve lamented here before about the paucity of content generated by legal industry organisations and questioned why more don’t use social media platforms such as Twitter. But there is another issue here, namely that many who do, then don’t tell anyone about their activities or else bury away the good content on impenetrable, hard to navigate websites.
So, here’s handy tip (and PRs working for vendors and law firms please note this as well, as you’re often just as bad when it comes to communications)… if you have a website, social media platform, blog or any other communications channels aimed at the outside world (whether customers, clients, prospects, partners, third-parties) DON’T KEEP IT A SECRET.
Instead, tell the world. Put the addresses etc clearly on all your correspondence and communications. Add text, such as Follow us on Twitter @whatever – in your email footers. Spell it out on your websites. Put it on your business card. And include it on your PowerPoint presentations at conferences and seminars.
In other words: make it obvious.