How to…get started with social media in estate planning
24 March 2011
Social media is important. Millions of users
from around the world are involved in a constant stream of
information about millions of subjects every second of every day.
But for many trust and estate practitioners, getting started with
social media can seem a daunting prospect and some may view it with
suspicion.
This needn’t be the case. Think of it as being
offered a cost-effective way to publicise your intellectual
property and expertise – and bring in more clients - the potential
for coverage and clients can be worth a fortune.
The first thing to establish is what you want
to get out of social media. Dealing with trusts and estate, often
world wide - you need to ask - is this for marketing, PR or
customer services? Or all three? From here, make sure you have a
dedicated social media policy in place and then decide who should
be in charge of it.
Two big sites used by the legal world as well
as your clients are Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter allows you to share
an online post of 140 characters or less to which your ‘followers’
can ‘re-tweet’ (re-post) on their own pages, or respond directly to
things you post. Another popular site is
LinkedIn, which allows companies or individuals within it to
have their own pages and discussion groups, while individuals can
post an online CV and use it as a networking tool.
Some interesting statistics for LinkedIn show
that it has over 60 million members in over 200 countries (half in
the US). Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn
members. The average age of a LinkedIn member is 41 and 64% are
male. 53.5% have a household income of around £50k. 80% are
graduates and 49% describe themselves as business decision makers.
If you think that could be your audience you need to get started as
soon as you can….
http://www.linkedin.com/
STEP itself has a number of linked in pages
including the official
STEP page and a
Philanthropy sub-group.
Facebook allows you to share images, events
and detailed information with your online followers. Many companies
have both sites and link between the two. The advantage of Facebook
is it allows you to share more information, but Twitter is regarded
as having a more immediate impact. You can easily sign up with both
websites at: http://www.twitter.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/.
Above all, ensure you engage meaningfully with
people via social media. Try not to see it as a massive sales pitch
to offer cut-price wills - and try to maintain authenticity. You
can do this by engaging directly with your followers. A quick,
honest and straightforward approach is the most successful one. Be
helpful and you will go far.
Social media as a means of communication for
the legal world is becoming increasingly more essential and it will
eventually become fully integrated in all marketing communications
as part of the new landscape. As a forward thinking trust and
estate practitioner, you should think long term but bear in mind
that technology and social trends are forever evolving. Keep
abreast of the social media Zeitgeist and you won’t go far
wrong.
Melissa Davis is MD of MD Communications – a
bespoke communication agency set up to help professional advisory
firms communicate effectively. Melissa was Head
of Media and PR for the Law Society of England & Wales for five
years until 2010. If you need help – either with
setting up your social media policy or would like a training day to
set objectives and get started please get in touch with [email protected].
Follow me on Twitter
Find me on LinkedIn
www.mdcomms.co.uk/