Americans today spend around 25 percent of their total online time on social networks.  Because social media has become so huge, social media dashboards have become an important part of helping marketing professionals keep up.  A social media dashboard is a piece of software that helps you to analyze or post to one or more social media websites.  In this guide, we'll take a look at some of the best social media dashboards for 2012 and 2013.  Not all of them will be right for your law firm—different social media dashboards have different strengths and would be best for firms with different social media marketing strategies.

TweetDeck: The Twitter Specialty Tool

TweetDeck is the leading social media dashboard application for Twitter.  While many social media dashboards allow users to post on many different social networks, TweetDeck specializes in just posting to Twitter and Facebook.  Tweetdeck allows you to view Twitter posts in just about any way you like.  You can have a column showing you responses to your tweets, one showing all of the tweets from a particular user, and others showing tweets that are using particular hash tags.

TweetDeck isn't really a social media dashboard that will be useful for attorneys who are only casual users of Twitter.  If you're only posting one or two total tweets a day, don't worry too much about downloading a specialty Twitter social media dashboard.  You may want to stick to one of the tools that is more general in purpose.

Hubblr: For Chinese and American Social Networks

If your law firm is among the many that are pursuing opportunities in both the United States and China, you may want to look into Hubblr.  Unlike most social media dashboards, which focus almost exclusively on English language sites with occasional forays into the most popular sites in Japan, Hubblr also includes Chinese language support and access to the biggest social networks in China.

While Hubblr is probably only the best tool for law firms that have a Chinese location, it also does offer the ability to use several different United States social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  It could be used as a primary social media dashboard even by law firms that don't have a presence in China at this time.

HootSuite: E-Mail Client Ease, Robust Abilities

Perhaps the gold standard of social media dashboards today is HootSuite.  Contributing to HootSuite's reputation as the social media dashboard app par excellence is its tendency to buy out companies that have competing products, incorporating their features into its ever-expanding, robust program.

If you're familiar with using email clients like Outlook, you'll probably be fairly quick to catch on to how to use HootSuite's social media dashboards for all the major (and many of the not-so-major) social networks.

ArgyleSocial: For the Number Cruncher

If you think that most social media dashboards are child's play and aren't giving you the information you need, ArgyleSocial may be for you.  While ArgyleSocial is not the easiest social media dashboard to learn how to use, it offers some of the best capabilities for social media professionals who want to be able to do intense analytics and side by side comparisons of different marketing techniques.  ArgyleSocial will let you see exactly what's working in your marketing campaigns so that you can take your most useful techniques to the other social media dashboards when you post.  Keep in mind that this isn't a tool for beginners—if you don't already know a lot about social media dashboard software and analytics, you may have a tough time with the steep learning curve.

Gremlin: Learn What People Are Saying

Wouldn't you like to have someone listening to every social network out there so you could know when people mention your law firm's name?  With the Gremlin social media dashboard, you can do just that.  Unlike most social media dashboards, which are focused primarily on helping you post and track direct replies to your post, Gremlin explores other social networks to see what people are saying about you.

If you're not happy with the framing of a story that you're finding on Gremlin, you can then use the tool's posting features to start interacting with critics and working your way back into the internet's good graces.  This is one of the most useful social media dashboards available if your work involves a fair number of controversial cases.

Cisco Social Miner: Respond Better to Concerns

If you're a larger law firm and want to make sure that you're able to prioritize your responses in social media, there's no better social media dashboard than Cisco SocialMiner.  This is one of the only social media dashboards that actually incorporates data learned from you to change what it shows you.  As Cisco SocialMiner learns more about your actual priorities, it will begin to intelligently prioritize your social media mentions so that you can respond fastest to the messages that are affecting your brand most.

Of course, this kind of functionality doesn't come cheap.  The Cisco SocialMiner tool is significantly more expensive than most other social media dashboards (around $1000), so it's only for firms that want to dedicate a large budget to their social media marketing strategy.

Netvibes: Easy on Beginners

Netvibes is a great way to get your feet wet in the social media dashboard pool.  While many social media dashboards require a bit of experience and know-how to get used to, Netvibes is designed for beginners to be able to use its features right off the bat.  Law firms just using the free version will be able to take a closer look at their social media presence and post to the networks that matter to their firm.  The Netvibes platform allows extensive customization even at the free software level, as well as real time monitoring of mentions of your brand.

The Netvibes premium service costs $499 per month, and includes access to analytics software as well as the ability to set alerts and tags.  While these features are certainly useful, this price may strike some firms as steep—you may prefer to use a less expensive tool once you understand the basics of how social media dashboards work.

When you start to use social media to help achieve your law firm marketing goals, you may be looking for how to create the most efficient social media schedule.  3 in 4 marketers say that creating content is their biggest scheduling concern today, and because social media requires consistent content generation it can be difficult to make time for.  In this guide, you'll learn 7 tips that can help you more effectively create social media schedules that work for your law firm, while avoiding some of the most common pitfalls for companies using a social media schedule.

#1: Be Realistic With Your Social Media Schedule

Some law firms believe that they can just spend an hour or two a week on social media and that their strategies will still generate new clients.  A quick, possibly misspelled tweet and a couple of Facebook updates that are rushed through aren't going to impress anybody.  Allow your marketing professionals enough time in their social media schedules to actually give you the kind of quality content that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Since a huge percentage of Americans now use social media, and since the vast majority of clients today research attorneys online before scheduling a consultation, you may want to dedicate a significant portion of your overall marketing time to your social media schedule.  Social media schedules are largely being underutilized by attorneys, and really learning to use social networks well will give you a huge edge in the modern marketplace.

#2: Break Your Social Media Schedule Into Chunks

Social media offers endless opportunities for distractions, no matter who's implementing your social media schedules.  The best way to make sure that your social media schedule doesn't start bleeding into your other scheduled marketing times is to break the schedule into small chunks.  Make sure that you've got all of your social media tasks for the day and the week built into your daily and weekly social media schedules, and allot specific amounts of time for each small task.  This will be much more productive than if you just divide the schedule into “half an hour for Twitter,” “an hour for Facebook,” and so on.

#3: Analyze Social Media Activity For Optimum Efficiency

Not all of the aspects of your social media schedule will work equally well when they're implemented in the real world.  Social media schedules should be adjusted once you have enough data to begin noticing trends in what works and what doesn't.  If you see that you're not able to attract many followers or achieve your goals with a particular social media platform, it shouldn't keep occupying part of your social media schedule.  

#4: Make Short, Medium, and Long Term Goals

Some law firms make the mistake of just deciding on their short or long term goals for social media and social networking.  However, you should consider making three different social media schedules: one for your daily responsibilities, and another two with your medium and long term goals and ways to achieve them.

By having these three sections of goals, you can help to remind yourself of the big picture when you're aggressively pursuing short term goals.  This can ensure that you don't take any steps that would be incompatible with your overall long term goals for a temporary gain.  However, keep in mind that your long term goals should have a great deal of flexibility—remember that social media services can come and go, and that you don't want to be the last person left who's using a particular app or website.

#5: Allow Flexibility in Your Social Media Schedule

Just because your short term social media schedules indicate you should only spend half an hour using a particular service today doesn't mean that you should always spend exactly that amount of time.  For instance, if there's any kind of major debate breaking out on your Facebook timeline, or you've got a disgruntled Twitter user trashing your firm, you need to put out the fire before you can consider pursuing other goals in your social media schedule.

This is why you should always consider your social media schedules to be guides rather than strict rules.  In some cases, if enough is going on with a particular social network on a particular day, you may want to let other social networks slide for a little while.

#6: Use Software to Create Social Media Schedules

If it's proving difficult to create a social media schedule for your law firm, you may want to download some type of social scheduling software.  These types of software help you to create social media schedules for a wide range of social apps and websites.  You can customize the messages that you want to be displayed on each different social site, and you can then automate your social media schedule so that messages are sent out at the time when they'll be most likely to be read by the largest number of people.  This takes a lot of the guesswork out of social media schedules, and ensures you're not confined to doing your social media work at specific times of day to maximize effectiveness.

#7: Monitor Your Automation Consistently

While it can be great to have a computer program take care of doing some of the social media schedule grunt work, you also need to know the social media schedules that your program is using.  Why?  Because you don't want to send out an automated update that could be perceived as insensitive or problematic.  If a recent news event has happened, like a natural disaster, it could make some types of messages seem offensive even if they would have been completely acceptable during a time that didn't involve a disaster.  For example, you wouldn't want to use any social media updates involving waves or floods after a well publicized hurricane or tsunami.  This kind of faux pas is one of the biggest reasons that no matter how much automation goes into your social media schedules, you'll still need a human overseeing the automated updates.

One of the most critically acclaimed fan favorite series of all time, Arrested Development recently came out of a several year hiatus for a brand new season.  The adventures of the chronically legally challenged Bluth family may even be continuing for a fifth season.  What can law firm marketers learn from the characters on Arrested Development?  We're glad you asked.  Here are lessons gathered from each of the show's main characters.

#1: Michael's Lesson: Clear Up Misunderstandings

Michael, the protagonist of Arrested Development, tends to make mistakes because he makes assumptions that lead to misunderstandings, and when a misunderstanding occurs, he tries to save face by perpetuating it, rather than clearing it up right away.

Misunderstandings and communication problems happen.  The most important thing to remember is that when you realize someone is operating under an incorrect assumption, you should correct that assumption right away instead of letting them continue to live in blissful ignorance.  Michael's failure to clarify and really learn what people are talking about—and his failure to listen to people when they're telling him things that he would prefer not to hear—are what lead to most of his problems in the show.  Attorneys who ignore things they don't want to hear will quickly find themselves running into financial and/or ethical problems.

#2: Maeby's Lesson: Lies Lead to More Lies

For Maeby Funke, daughter of Tobias and Lindsay, is an accomplished liar—like much of her family—but is in many ways smarter than the rest of them.  Because of this, she is able to parlay her lies further, and becomes a successful film executive before she has even graduated from high school.  However, Maeby lives a life that is extremely stressful, because she's always having to lie to most of the people in her life and never is really able to let anyone in.  What's more, telling just one lie never works: you have to tell more and more just to back up the initial lie.

Maeby's lesson to lawyers is simple: once you start lying, it's very tough to stop, so it's much better to simply be honest in the first place.  It's very hard to keep people believing all of your lies forever, and for attorneys, the consequences can be much more dire than for precocious teenage girls in film studios.

#3: Tobias's Lesson: Know What You Sound Like to the Outside World

One of Arrested Development's biggest running gags involves Tobias Funke, Lindsay's husband, being flamboyantly gay but unwilling to admit it to anyone—including himself.  However, he continually outs himself through puns and double entendres that become increasingly outrageous and comical.  At one point, Michael suggests that he start recording himself with a tape recorder just so he can tell how he sounds.

Many people act in denial of how the outside world perceives them.  However, denial won't change the perception, only your reaction to it.  In order to change how people perceive you, you need to change your behavior, and that means taking a hard, honest look at how you come off to others.

#4: Lindsay's Lesson: Be Authentic With Your Charity Activities

Lindsay Bluth, Michael's sister, is constantly involved in charitable activities.  However, her charity functions are just to show off, rather than being something she wants to involve herself in for the sake of the charity itself.  In the same way, some law firms involve themselves with charitable activities that aren't really things they believe in, just because they've heard that working for charity is a good way to market legal services.

Don't be a Lindsay: make sure that you're authentically involved in charitable activities.  Keep in mind that there are charities for a huge range of causes, and that you don't have to attach yourself to a cause you don't feel strongly about.

#5: George Michael's Lesson: Know How to Be Yourself

George Michael, Michael's son, has many awkward moments because he's too afraid of disappointing other people to really show them who he is.  He wants to please everyone so much that he forgets that he's allowed to have an opinion and personality of his own.  New attorneys are vulnerable to this, trying to be all things to all people in order to build up a client base.  While this might seem like the best way to get clients at first, it quickly becomes exhausting to try to contort yourself into the form others wish you had.  Don't be like George Michael: have enough confidence in yourself to show your clients who you are and what you value.

#6: Lucille and Buster's Lesson: Know When Times Have Changed

Lucille, Michael's mother, and Buster, his younger brother, are both stuck acting like the past has never changed.  Buster won't grow up and leave the family nest because he's too attached to his mother, and Lucille keeps spending the family's money as if they are still in a time of plenty, rather than having major legal difficulties.  Partners in law firms need to be realistic: if times have changed and your firm can no longer afford things it used to take for granted, it may be time for downsizing.  Boom times don't last forever, and you can't afford to bury your head in the sand.

#7: G.O.B.'s Lesson: Admit When You've Made a Mistake

George Oscar Bluth, or G.O.B., Michael's older brother, makes huge mistakes—often.  Unlike many of the show's other characters, though, G.O.B. knows to confess his mistakes and knows that he isn't smart enough to correct them all on his own.  In the same way, when lawyers make a mistake that can't be fixed easily—or even one that can—they need to talk about it with their clients and other people in their law firm.  Everybody makes mistakes, but compounding them by trying to deny them and cover them up will only lead to more problems in the long run.

#8: George Sr.'s Lesson: Know When To Turn Down Work

George Sr., Michael's father, is in trouble for a host of illegal activities, including “light treason” when he builds houses for the Iraqi government.  The Bluths run a construction company—they'd have been much smarter to have turned down the development in Iraq in favor of continuing less risky developments back at home.  Attorneys need to think about work that they accept and the clients they take.  Not all clients are worth it, not all cases will be profitable, and every lawyer needs to think about whether the business they're taking will be a net gain to their firm over the long term, with all consequences considered.

The hit TV series Boardwalk Empire is set in the Prohibition Era of the 1920s, but the lessons that it teaches about leadership and entrepreneurship are timeless.  Nucky Thompson, the boss gangster of the series, has successes and failures that are directly attributable to following or failing to follow points of advice that are just as true for law firms—whether fledgling or well-established—as they are for bootleggers and mob bosses.

#1: Opportunities Can Come From Problems

In the opening scene of Boardwalk Empire, celebrants gather to celebrate a new year that will be different from any that came before, because with New Year's Day comes Prohibition.  While many American companies were put out of business by Prohibition, the series follows people who are celebrating because they know that the law will end up making Atlantic City—with all its attendant vices—more attractive than ever to tourists and more profitable than ever for its business owners.

Legal practices can take advantage of opportunities created by problems, as well.  Any time a new law or situation disadvantages a group of people, that group has just become a market for legal services.  For example, when the economy started having problems, real estate lawyers suddenly had much less business—but there were many more bankruptcy filings.

#2: Nobody is Invincible

One of the biggest lessons of Boardwalk Empire is that everyone is human, and that even the biggest bosses can be laid low.  Large firms would do well to take this lesson into consideration, especially if those firms are consumer oriented.  Today's consumers are often seeking legal information online and using discount practitioners instead of becoming clients of older and more respected firms.

By the same token, newer law firms should also keep in mind that by offering something new and different, you may in time be able to upset even the biggest players in your local market.  The sky is the limit, especially in a new era of legal services where technology is playing a bigger and bigger role in marketing and advertising.

#3: Understand Your Home Turf

In Boardwalk Empire, turf matters, and the local area right around where you're from is always your home base.  Too many attorneys try hard to market their firm in too wide a radius, even when the vast majority of their client base comes from within just a few miles of their firm's office location.

It's important to understand not just the city you're in, but even your own neighborhood when it comes time to advertising and marketing locally.  Using the demographics of your neighborhood can help you decide on marketing strategies and ways to target.  From there, you can use A/B testing—something more advanced than Nucky Thompson and his crew ever had—to figure out which of your strategies is giving you the best name recognition on your home turf.

#4: Make Connections In Other Organizations

One of the most valuable things that Nucky Thompson has is ability to connect with people who are different from him and belong to different organizations—even rival ones.  Having this ability to talk to people, even people you don't like, will get your law firm a long way in an ultra-competitive market.  Many legal clients today still come not from web searches, but from referrals made by other attorneys.  When you make connections with other law firms in your area, putting aside petty rivalries and extending a hand in friendship, you're really investing in the future.

#5: Know How Far You're Willing to Go

Nucky Thompson says toward the beginning of Boardwalk Empire that everyone has to decide for themselves how much sin they're willing to live with.  For attorneys, that means that you need to know how far your firm will go and what you're willing to do in order to represent clients.  Are there some types of cases you just don't feel morally right taking?  If so, know that, and make that a proud part of your firm rather than trying to hide it or be ashamed of it.
Law firm partners need to make these parts of your ethical commitments clear to your attorneys and other staff members.  If you have ten attorneys with ten different ethical codes and standards, you're going to end up having significant conflicts.  Make your priorities clear to all personnel, and bring them into any new decisions.

#6: Cutthroat Competition Hurts Everyone

In the most recent season of Boardwalk Empire, Atlantic City was turned upside down by a massive gang war.  While the dirty and violent tactics of the gang war have changed a few fortunes, overall it's important to note that every organization involved in the gang war has lost men and merchandise.

If you realize that you and competitors are starting to have a real rivalry, try to see if there's any way to patch it up instead.  It can be hard to predict how a pitched battle will turn out, and it can be better to resolve differences before they start cutting into everybody's business.

#7: Trust Matters

In the world of Boardwalk Empire, the moment people stop trusting you is the moment you stop being a valuable asset to the organization.  The same is true in law firms.  If there are personnel in your firm that you simply don't feel can be trusted to keep your reputation intact, you shouldn't whack 'em, but you might want to give them fair severance instead.

In order to make sure that your reputation is the best that it can be, show your firm to be trustworthy in all its dealings.  Don't take work on that you're not equipped to handle, and don't overpromise to your clients in an effort to seem like you're more on top of things than you actually are.  Your reputation is your life as an attorney, and you should never squander it for a few short-term gains.

If you're keeping a blog as an attorney, odds are that your entries started off strong, but after a few months, you may not know what to talk about to keep your blog fresh.  Your law firm's blog thrives on new content, and blogs that have grown stale or unused won't attract fresh visitors.  In order to keep your blog current and helping your search engine rankings, you need a steady flow of new posts.  This guide will give you some good ideas for posts that you may not have made yet, but that almost every attorney can write in an interesting way.

#1: “How I Got My Start In Law”

While it's likely that your law firm website already has some information about how you got your start in the legal field, it's just as likely that this website version of the story is a scaled down, watered down version of how you really got there.  Consider telling the real stories of what made you become a lawyer.  Did people say that you should be an attorney even when you were very young?  Did you expect all your life that you'd be doing something else, only to suddenly find yourself receiving a J.D. at the end of three years of law school?

People like origin stories—it's why superhero movies keep going back to superhero origins.  People like knowing where you came from, it humanizes you in spite of the fact that you're in a profession that is often dehumanized in popular media portrayals.  By telling people about your earlier history, you ensure that it they can relate to you on a deeper and more real level than if you just tell the story of your academic history.

#2: Changes To Your Field Recently

While this topic can seem a bit like inside baseball, and it is, there's a good reason for taking the time to discuss some of the changes to your specific field of law and things you've observed recently.  One of the best of those reasons is that you can then share this post on LinkedIn, where it may find an audience of other attorneys.  Why does this matter?  Because that's how you get not only guest blogging spots, but also attorney referrals from lawyers who know that you can handle a specific type of case better than they can.

Cultivating an audience of both attorneys and potential clients is the holy grail for lawyers, so consider making your post understandable for regular people while still interesting and unique enough for attorneys to read without feeling like they've read the same thing ten thousand times before.

#3: Client Myths and Misconceptions

Every attorney knows about misconceptions that people have about their specific legal specialty area.  Myths and misconceptions are rampant in almost every legal area, and when you start hearing a large number of clients reciting those myths, it's a great time to dispel them via a blog post.

When you do this kind of blog post, make sure not to make fun of people who believe these myths and misconceptions.  After all, they're generally propagated by people who simply don't know any better, because they haven't been exposed to the law as much as you have.  Don't assume that people are stupid or uneducated just because they don't understand the law.  The law can be very confusing to laypeople, and potential clients value an attorney who can explain myths and misconceptions in a way that is clear without ever veering into condescension.

#4: Walkthrough of an Initial Consultation

One thing that scares many people—often to the point where they put off contacting an attorney for days, weeks, or even months—is that if they've never hired an attorney before, they don't know how the whole process works.  By having a blog entry that details what a typical first consultation with your law offices looks like, you can make sure that potential clients feel at ease.  Essentially, you're giving them a road map that tells them what to expect from the first moment that they start onto their attorney/client journey with your firm.  Any journey is a little bit easier with a map, so provide your clients with one and they'll start walking through your door with a little more spring in their step and less nervousness.

#5: Advice on Choosing a Lawyer

While this blog entry will undoubtedly be a little bit self-serving, it shouldn't read like an ad for your firm exclusively.  Try to keep in mind that many of the people reading your blog probably aren't from close enough, geographically, to pick your firm.  Consider when you write this entry how you'd tell your mother or sister to choose a lawyer, rather than thinking about what would serve your firm absolutely best.  People will trust you more when your blog entries about topics like this don't just push people into your firm, whether or not it's the best fit.

#6: Understanding Attorney Client Confidentiality

Many people who are hesitant to talk to an attorney wait because they are not sure about what a lawyer is and isn't required to keep confidential.  You can dispel some client fears ahead of time by discussing confidentiality issues on your blog.  It's a good idea to link an entry like this from some part of your main website, potentially the parts that talk about an initial consultation.  When people have a better grasp of the attorney/client relationship, they'll be more likely to come away from their experience satisfied.

#7: What to Do in the Worst Case Scenario

There's usually a worst case scenario that clients in your field worry about, if you're an attorney.  In criminal cases, it's being accused falsely of something that you don't have easy proof you didn't do.  In divorce cases, it might be a messy divorce in which a spouse is determined to go to trial even if it costs an arm and a leg.  Whatever the worst case scenario is, being able to talk about it lucidly and help people understand how to mitigate the damage is a great trait for an attorney to have.  When clients see a blog entry about the worst case scenario and how much you can help in those situations, they'll know that their situation isn't the worst you've seen and that you'll be able to help them, too.

The hit television show Mad Men just wrapped up its gripping fifth season, and the show has taught viewers a lot of lessons about life, love, and advertising along the way.  Those ideas can also translate to advice for lawyers looking for advice about how to run their law firm in a competitive market.  Keep reading to find out how Don Draper, Joan Harris, and Roger Sterling—among others—have given lessons in marketing that work for law firms in the 21^st century.

#1: Names and Brands Matter—A Lot

One of the things that Sterling Cooper knows is that brand names and brand images absolutely make a difference to consumers.  Consumers emotionally associate brands with particular feelings, memories, and sensations—something Don Draper knew in this season's finale, where he dropped a bombshell on executives from Hershey by telling them about what a Hershey candy bar meant to him during his difficult childhood.

In the law, this remains the same.  While not all attorneys are thinking about branding and making their firm name into a brand name, it's definitely something that every attorney should be considering.  Whether you want it to or not, a brand will start to develop that is associated with your firm—a brand based on the perceptions of clients and those who see your marketing materials.  It's better to develop your brand consciously than to let it develop completely on its own.

#2: Know Which Clients Aren't Worth It

In Season 4 of Mad Men, the newly formed Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce agency faces a dilemma many new law firms are familiar with: they have a beautiful office, but they don't yet have the client list to match it.  In their race to bring in new clients, the agency begins to court Jaguar.  Soon, though, they find that there's a catch: in order to make the sale to Jaguar, they'll need to get a “yes” from a man who is only interested in Joan, the firm's long-suffering and very buxom secretary.

After a round of tense negotiations, they end up agreeing to make Joan partner if she'll clinch the sale—which she does.  However, less than a year later, the client gets difficult again and the agency is forced to drop them from the client list.  This goes to show: when a client makes unreasonable demands at the beginning of your business relationship, even if you really need new business, it's often best to just let the client go.  Clients who are too demanding and unreasonable make your workplace worse to work at, and decrease morale across the board.  It's even worse when you need to rely on that demanding client's business at the risk of having to shut down.  Cut it off before you have to rely on a client who will be more trouble than he or she is worth.

#3: First Impressions Make All the Difference

The reason that SCDP got a big office in the first place is that they knew: you can't build a client base working out of a dingy basement.  While it's not a good idea for new attorneys to hock everything they own to get a big spacious office, it does pay to make a good first impression for clients.  Remember that your clients are paying a fairly high amount of money for legal services—they tend to want to see that their attorney's office is clearly professional and that some thought has been put into the décor and the general layout of your space.

#4: Maintain Long-Term Relationships

One of the things that the partners at Sterling Cooper have the hardest time with is fidelity—and that goes in their business lives as well as their love lives.  In several different situations throughout the five seasons of Mad Men, the firm's partners have not only cheated on their spouses, but have also been duplicitous about soliciting business from competing firms—business that would require them to end longstanding relationships with other companies.

While this has sometimes worked for the Mad Men, it's often a lot more trouble than it's worth.  Your longest term clients are the ones you want to keep around most: they're loyal, they clearly like your work, and they are very likely to recommend your firm to other people.  Courting new clients at the expense of your existing relationships is rarely a way to get ahead, and often a way to tank your reputation as a professional.

#5: Small Firms Can Do Big Work

Throughout the show, Sterling Cooper is never one of the biggest agencies on Madison Avenue—and they're not trying to be.  Sterling Cooper presents a great example of why you don't have to be a big firm to do work that matters and gets results, and why big clients might choose a relatively small and nimble firm as opposed to one of the older giants.

The lesson law firms should take from this is to think big, even when you're still fairly new and unestablished.  Don't limit yourself by thinking that your firm isn't yet large enough to get the kind of business that you want.  Make yourself into a specialist and do the research, pick a mentor, and start doing the kind of work that your firm wants to be doing.  Smaller firms are often preferred by legal clients because they can give a more personal touch and offer substantially more flexibility than larger firms.  You can also offer clients at a small firm the same attorney throughout the process of their case, while larger firms often have clients talking to several different people (some of whom they may get along with better or worse than others).

#6: Change the Conversation

Early in Mad Men, Don Draper gives one of the key rules of marketing in any industry: “If you don't like what they're saying about you, change the conversation.”  Too often, when marketing professionals try to respond to critique of their brand online or offline, they get too defensive and reactive.  Instead, you should consider talking about a different topic and highlighting your services in a creative, proactive way.

Branding and marketing usually aren't a lawyer's favorite tasks.  But to succeed in a legal market where almost 40 percent of newly graduated lawyers are without a job requiring a J.D., you'll need to get smart about brand marketing to stay competitive.  Why are branding and marketing so important today, and what does it take to implement a successful brand marketing strategy?  These are the questions we'll answer in today's guide.

Why You Need a Brand

Twenty years ago, it was possible for attorneys to compete in the market without using much branding and marketing strategy.  This is because at that time, the American Bar Association exercised much more control over the number of law school graduates entering the market each year.  Now, more law schools are open than ever before and huge numbers of new firms are starting up.

Clients today don't just find their lawyers based on an ad in the Yellow Pages.  Today, clients do research.  Over 90 percent of legal clients now do at least some online research while looking for an attorney.  With so much competition, the most successful law firms are those that show a consistent brand image.  If clients already feel like they can relate to your firm based on branding and marketing, they're less likely to keep looking and find another firm that suits them better.

The next four sections of this guide are about the fundamental questions you can use to shape the brand of your law firm.  There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, and different firms will answer them quite differently.  However, these answers will make it much easier for you to understand the right way to implement a brand marketing strategy.

Who Are You?

This is a very critical question for your firm to think about for brand marketing.  Whether you're a solo practitioner or have dozens of attorneys, what's at the core of your identity for branding and marketing?  What are the principles you refuse to compromise?  This question can set the tone for your other brand marketing answers, or, if you're not yet confident about who your firm is, you can come back to this question after answering a couple of the other questions posed here.

When you implement branding and marketing strategies, you need to make sure that you never compromise this part of your brand in exchange for a quick uptick to web traffic or new sales.  When people perceive a firm as going back on fundamental parts of their identity, they're less likely to see them as trustworthy advocates.

What Do You Want?

This question is critical for understanding the purpose of your branding and marketing goals.  Brand marketing will be different for a firm that wants to show continuous hiring growth versus a firm that wants to hold steady with a small number of attorneys.  Your clients will be different if you're an IP firm than if you're a tax firm, and different still if you're doing criminal defense cases.  That means your goals in terms of reaching clients and growing your firm should be different, and you should be realistic within the framework of the current legal market not just nationally but in your local area.

Law firms that don't know the answer to this question often present confused branding and marketing strategies.  Their brand marketing shows them trying to be all things to all people, having no goal more specific than getting more clients.  In 2012, you're more likely to have success with branding and marketing by focusing on a particular niche practice than by trying to represent clients with any and all legal concerns.  Once you make your goals realistic, you can narrow your niche so that you're getting more clients who are advancing your brand marketing goals.

Why Are You Here?

This question is one that every law firm has to answer eventually.  Are you just here to make money?  Or are you in business to genuinely help your clients?  You may find that by having the latter as your answer for branding and marketing purposes, you're actually helping yourself make more money as well.  Thinking about why you're here and what your purpose is in having a law firm is important for brand marketing.  But remember, it can't just be your branding and marketing slogan—you need to live your answer.  This means making it right if you make a mistake (which can be a great opportunity for brand marketing if you handle it well).

Where Are You Going?

Whenever you implement a new brand marketing strategy, you should ask whether it's compatible with the long term future you envision for your brand.  Branding and marketing that works only for the short term and isn't keeping long term goals in mind can distract your brand and make you do work that actually hurts your work on your overall brand image.

Many law firms think only about the immediate future, but consider making a 5, 10, and 20 year plan for your firm.  If everything goes realistically but well, where do you hope to be at each of these points?  Track your progress toward the goals, and change them as you need to, but always keep some long-term goals in mind.

Implementing Branding and Marketing Strategies

Once you have the four questions answered, it's time to think about creating a brand marketing strategy that uses your answers.  Make sure that your brand image is consistent across all platforms—you don't want your Facebook tone to be so different from your website's tone that it looks like two totally different brands.

If you can answer the questions with confidence and carry the answers into all of your branding and marketing materials, you'll be much less likely to make a misstep in your brand marketing.  Confidence in who you are shines through, and will help you differentiate your firm from those on shakier ground.

A recent report released by LexisNexis has revealed some amazing statistics about internet marketing in the digital age.  The report analyzed the results of a survey conducted in February of 2012.  4,000 total adults, weighted by demographics including age, sex, and race, were asked questions about how they use the internet and offline sources to seek information when they have a legal problem.  With 58 million Americans trying to find an attorney in just 2012, the stakes couldn't be higher.  Learning more about this report can help you tailor your legal practice to the ways people use the internet now.

Where Do Consumers Look For Lawyers?

Even a decade ago, people who weren't able to obtain the name of an attorney from friends or family were often confined to looking through the Yellow Pages.  Some more savvy consumers would use hotlines sponsored by state or local bar associations.  The new LexisNexis survey shows that these methods have fallen nearly completely out of favor.

In total, 76 percent of people seeking an attorney had looked for information on the internet.  Only 24 percent used exclusively offline methods to look for a lawyer.  For the first time in such a survey, LexisNexis found that slightly more people used the internet than referrals from friends and family.  Only 73 percent consult family or friends at any point during their legal search.  Over 60 percent of total internet users have looked for a lawyer online at some point during their adult lives—33 percent in just the last year.

What Do Consumers Use the Internet to Find?

The biggest reason that consumers start looking online for legal resources is that they want to gather information.  This is one of the greatest strengths of web searches, and many people initially simply want to know whether they might have a case that an attorney could help with.  At the next stage—finding attorneys who might be able to take their case—61 percent of internet users turn to online resources.

The next two stages involve narrowing down the field of potential attorneys.  53 percent of internet users have used online sources to validate an attorney—to make sure that they seem well qualified and are as experienced as they claim they are.  44 percent use websites to make their final decision about an attorney.

What Do Consumers Do With Information from the Internet?

One of the most surprising results of this survey is the number of consumers who converted after searching for attorneys online—in other words, how many people actually hired a lawyer as a result of their search.  The survey shows that a staggering 57 percent of consumers who had searched for an attorney online said they had actually hired a lawyer because of information they found during their online search process.

Of course, that still leaves 43 percent out—what did those consumers do?  Six percent of them ended up hiring a public defender, which means that they may not have been able to pay for the services of an attorney.  Eight percent decide, after looking at legal information online, that they would prefer not to pursue their case and they stop looking for any legal representation.  13 percent continue their search offline, and 15 percent decided to use online services to help them resolve their legal problems on their own (for instance, people who decided to self-file for divorce or print a legal form instead of consulting an attorney).

What Websites Do Consumers Use Most?

Search engines tend to be used most by consumers who are in the earlier phases of searching for legal information and representation.  Google is the most commonly used search engine among the adults surveyed, which is in keeping with findings about Americans' search engine use habits.  Smaller percentages use Yahoo, Bing, AOL, and MSN.

However, not all of the searching for attorneys happens on search engines.  Social media sites were used by just over 20 percent of overall internet users who searched for a lawyer.  If you're not already creating a social media presence to get these consumers, you need to act fast—these numbers were much lower just a few years ago, and in a few years social media could easily be the dominant way that people look for attorneys.  The most common social sites for people to look for legal information and lawyers were Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter, and legal blogs.

The Importance of Ratings

A full 57 percent of the users surveyed also mentioned that they looked at one or more websites that contained ratings and reviews for attorneys.  28 percent of those who looked at these results said that they were extremely influential, while just 3 percent said they were extremely uninfluential.  Attorneys who have not yet created profiles on ratings websites may end up behind in their internet marketing.

The Mobile Web and the Desktop Web

While laptops and desktops were the most common way for people to do their legal research, smartphone devices are rapidly gaining ground, as are tablet PCs.  Over one fifth of consumers doing legal research already use these methods, and if current rates of growth continue, that could be over one half by the time 2014 comes to a close.

What this means for you is that as an attorney, you should be working on having a mobile presence.  If you're not already thinking about buying app advertising as part of your ad strategy, you should start thinking about it now.  Geo-based apps like Foursquare can help you get connected with the ultra local consumers most likely to be ready to schedule an appointment today.

You should also work on your law firm's website.  You don't want to have a website that is Flash-based any more (if, indeed, you ever had one), because Flash players won't work on iOS devices.  Making sure that your content is at least visible—preferably beautiful—to both desktop and mobile users is one of the biggest things that will set your firm apart from the competition in the rapidly-changing web world.

2012 has been a year of incredibly big changes for businesses involved in online marketing, including law firms.  Google Panda and Penguin are two of the code names for two of the biggest changes to how Google, the internet's most used search engine, ranks search engine results.  These changes only affected about 1 website out of every 6—but the shock waves they sent through the marketing community were much bigger.  In this guide, you'll learn everything you need to know about Google Penguin and Panda, including whether your website is affected and what steps you need to take to make yourself Penguin-proof.

Help!  I Don't Know Anything About Google Panda/Penguin.

Don't worry—even if you haven't kept up much with search engine marketing terms and techniques, Google Penguin and Panda are easy enough to understand with some basic explanations.  As marketers got to know what made websites rise higher in search rankings, updates like Google Panda and Penguin became necessary in order to ensure that people weren't getting a leg up on the competition by making websites that were great at attracting search engines but bad at having content people actually wanted to see.

Google Penguin was an update launched on April 24, 2012 that was designed to root out web spam techniques and stop aggressive over optimization of websites.  Having a lot of exact match anchor text and inbound links that come from blog spam can make it so that Penguin is affecting your website.

Only about 3 percent of websites were affected by Penguin.  It's much more likely for a website to have been affected by one of the several versions of Google Panda, released from February 2011 to April 2012.  Panda updates had a major effect on sites called content farms.  These websites often worked by duplicating content found elsewhere on the web, and often had low quality standards.  These sites were lowered in Google's rankings as being irrelevant to users' actual desires for content.

How Do I Know if Google Panda/Penguin is Affecting Me?

The best way to know whether Google Penguin or Panda has had an effect on your business is to check your traffic logs from 2011 and 2012.  Do you notice a very steep drop in your traffic levels after sometime in April 2011 or April 2012?  If so, you may have a problem with Google Panda or Penguin.  Panda problems happened on or around February 24 2011, April 11 2011, and April 19 2012. 

If you had a sudden decline in your traffic on or around those dates, it may be that Google identified your website as potentially having thin content without enough real information that consumers might care about.  However, if your website experienced a big reduction on or around April 24-25, 2012, it's very likely that you have been affected by Google Penguin.  You may need to stop using so many exact keyword matches, or stop using inbound links that come from spammy sources. 

My Site Is Affected—Is My Practice Doomed?

Some webmasters are still finding out that the changes of the last year are affecting their websites.  Because many smaller firms and solo practitioners contract out any work that needs to be done on their websites, not all attorneys are aware of what marketing techniques were being used by their web marketing contractors and haven't always checked on their own site's performance lately.

If you find that your referrals and calls have vanished because your website was affected by Google Panda or Penguin, you need to get a new web marketing company right away—not fixing the site by now has undoubtedly had significant consequences for your law firm.  However, you should also make sure that this is a lesson to your firm—always monitor what's going on.  Another web marketing firm can help you to re-design your site, get rid of old unwanted links from spam websites, and rebuild what you've lost as a result of Google Penguin or Panda.

Preventing Your Site From Becoming Affected

The best way to make sure that neither Google Penguin nor Panda will affect your website is to make sure that you're building high quality content.  Both Google Penguin and Panda tend to affect websites that use a great deal of bad content and bad links, so as long as your links come from legitimate sources and your content is actually of interest to users, you shouldn't have too much to worry about.

Keeping Up To Date About Google Updates

Of course, no one outside of Google's research laboratories knows exactly what the next Google algorithm update will look like.  That's why it's a good idea to keep track of what's going on with Google search updates—you don't want to be caught off guard when the next Google Panda or Penguin update is made, or another even more sweeping update with a still different codename gets turned on.

Content Guidelines for 2013 and Beyond

When building content that Google Panda and Penguin will consider okay, you want to take into account whether it's actually something that somebody will want to read.  Gramatically incorrect keywords, extensive exact keyword phrasing and links, and so on aren't just optimizing a website.  They're also making it look worse and making it harder for people to read through the content presented there.

The focus of your website in 2013 should always be content-based.  When you ground all of your marketing efforts in quality content, updates like Google Penguin and Panda will rarely, if ever, affect your website.

Building Enthusiasm for New Sites

If some of the most common ways to boost initial site visitors are stopped by Google Panda and Penguin, how can a new legal website make itself successful?  The best ways involve social media.  Social presences like on Twitter and Facebook are ranked quite highly by Google's ranking algorithm, and a good social media presence can lead to getting new clients from referrals as well as direct marketing.

Over 90 percent of small law firms are now using online campaigns of some type as part of their overall marketing strategy.  That means that if you're not already familiar with the basics of how to start an online campaign, there's no better time to learn than right now.  The world of online campaigns is significantly different than it was just a few years ago, so even if you think that you know everything there is to know, you'll want to read this guide.  You may be surprised at recent changes—some types of online campaigns that used to be successful are now considered off-limits for most businesses.

Online Campaign Basics: Who, What, Where, When, Why

Before you get started on creating online campaigns, you need to figure out what your goals are.  Without goals, it will be difficult to develop advertising that actually meets your needs and it will be easier to be distracted by trends and fads that won't really fit your mission or your business needs.  Start by thinking about the 5 W's: who, what, where, when, and why.  Only after you've got these down should you start contemplating the “how.”

Who will be reading this online campaign?  Some online campaigns are targeted at consumers, while others may be targeted at fellow attorneys in order to build a base for client referrals.
What do you want your marketing campaign to express?  Is your online campaign about your law firm's longevity, or its creativity?  Its experience, or its innovation?  Only you can decide what you want your online campaigns to say about you.
Where do most of your clients come from, and where do those clients go on the web? Online campaigns are only effective when your online marketing materials are displayed to people who are ready to seek out legal services.
When do you want your new business to start flowing in?  Some online campaigns, particularly those using free techniques, take quite a long time to really show results.  If you need a quick infusion of new business, your online campaign may need to use pay per click advertising instead.
Why are you starting an online campaign?  What are the goals you have for your online campaigns?  Are you hoping to see a 2 percent rise in new business?  10 percent?  Keeping your goals in mind will help you when it comes time to budget.

Incorporating Social in Your Online Campaign

In 2007, you wouldn't have been very likely to incorporate social media into your online campaigns unless you were ahead of the curve.  But in 2012 and 2013, it's impossible to have a truly comprehensive online campaign without paying at least some attention to major social networks.

Get familiar with LinkedIn, because it's the social network that most attorneys already belong to.  But also work on learning more about Facebook and Twitter, which are two social networks that are more consumer focused.  These networks can help you build your brand presence online and interact with members of the public in ways that you wouldn't have been able to just a few years ago.

Monitoring social media for mentions of your firm or your online campaigns should also be part of your plan.  If your online campaign is bombing, you need to know quickly.  Social media can help be a great early warning system helping you to identify when your online campaigns are offensive or just not particularly good.

Using Video in Your Online Campaign

Online marketing campaigns for lawyers should also incorporate video and direct consumers to video answers for questions and concerns.  The reason for this is that many consumers feel hesitant to ask questions of attorneys, but also feel uncomfortable reading an answer that may have jargon or technical terms.  By answering questions carefully through video and explaining any potentially unfamiliar terms, you make it much easier for people to understand their legal situation—and make it more likely that they'll come to you for more specific legal advice and representation.

Target the Right People

Don't make the mistake of advertising as broadly as possible in your area and hoping that you'll get clicks only from people ready to make a call to your office.  The truth is that it's very likely you'll waste money unless you're targeting people who are already likely to be part of your likely client base.  You can identify the demographics you should target in your online campaigns by doing a survey of your existing client base.  This will help you determine which websites typically attract consumers at the age and income level that your office specializes in.

Deploying Your Online Campaign

As you deploy your online campaigns, make sure you keep ad fatigue in mind.  Ad fatigue sets in after just a few impressions, so make sure that you're changing the copy of your ads on a daily or near daily basis.  You should also change the images that you're using with your advertisements.  Make sure that the ads you're displaying have a clear call to action, because this is one of the key rules for making people click on your online campaign.  Online campaigns without a call to action tend to have very low click through and conversion rates.

Analyzing and Changing Your Online Campaign

After you've had advertisements running for several weeks, it's time to analyze your various online campaigns to see which ones are working best and which ones are underperforming.  Ditch underperforming campaigns as quickly as possible, and when you see something in common between several different campaigns that are working, consider making it part of the standard in your advertisements from now on.

You should also keep an eye on any feedback you receive about your advertisements.  Even if the feedback is negative, this is good—it shows people are noticing and it gives you an opportunity to improve.  Be responsive and apologetic if you have caused offense with your online campaigns—trying to deny responsibility is likely to lead to a public relations problem.