As we saw in Part 1, HootSuite is a tool lawyers and law firms can use to effectively manage their online presence, stay abreast of current events in the legal arena and even prospect for clients and referral sources. Remember, for a broader look at how and why lawyers must embrace online tools like HootSuite click here. Now, let's jump right in and look at two additional ways you can use HootSuite to grow your law practice.
Build A Strong Engaged Community
You can use HootSuite to build a strong engaged community of clients, prospects and referral sources. A strong engaged community of advocates will assist in your efforts to grow your practice.
Reply to posts from other people right from your HootSuite Dashboard. Retweet and share posts from other people in your networks. Post your own value-add information. Send people to your website or blog when you can. Use your social networks to improve your SEO. Sending people to a specific page on your website often leads to clicks on additional website pages. Always remember, you are using social media to develop trust and credibility. Don't barge into a conversation an accident victim is having in order to pitch your services. However, directing them to a helpful blog post or page on your website, if done in an appropriate manner, could be effective.
Use HootSuite's RSS feed feature to set up streams that pull in stories and blog posts from your favorite news sites and bloggers. Use this material to share with your connections, stimulate ideas for your own blog posts, or educate you staff with some breaking news.
Track And Analyze
Okay, you're doing all the different things I've suggested. Or, you've enabled the HootSuite multi-user features and assigned this work to others in your firm. Either way, I know you want to know if your efforts are working. Hopefully you've installed some internal processes to determine if email and calls coming into your office are the result of your social media efforts. Maybe you are also tracking this with Google Analytics.
HootSuite also has sophisticated analytics and reporting features to help you analyze and measure the effectiveness of your activities. Track your Followers, Friends, retweets, shares and more with HootSuite's analytics tools. Set the system up to email you regular reports.
As you can see, there are many ways for you to use HootSuite to help you grow your practice and I've only touched on a few of the possibilities. Give it a try and let me know if you come up with other ways to use HootSuite. And, if you aren't currently using the product and want a free 30 day trial, click here.
