Media & Communications Corner: It's Not Social Media, It's a Referral Generator

The answer to that, no doubt, is an enthusiastic yes.

With good reason, too. A study performed by the BTI Consulting Group, commissioned by Hellerman Baretz Communications, shows that obtaining referrals from peers is the most effective method of obtaining new business. Nearly 300 top legal executives at large corporations were interviewed for BTI's survey, and almost 60% said they would consider hiring a new attorney based on a single referral. This data point from BTI is merely a confirmation of what we all know intuitively: The endorsement of a trusted contact can have an extremely powerful effect on our buying decisions ' one even greater than that of professional guides. Consider your choice of a movie for Friday night: A positive review from a New York Times critic will probably make you more likely to see a particular movie, but when your friend who knows your tastes says you need to see it, that's another level of influence.

Lawyers understand that referrals are like gold, but what they haven't all understood yet is that social media is one of the very best ways to get referrals. And while obtaining referrals is worth a lot of time and expense, social media is not an expensive endeavor ' and certainly not the mystical forest of lost time that some may imagine it to be. It's easy to use, it's powerful, and any lawyer worth her salt has all the raw materials in place to take advantage of it.

That's right, all the heavy lifting that the reluctant lawyer believes she'll have to pour into her social-media efforts has already been done ' by her. All lawyers worthy of hiring, after all, have a small network of professional contacts in place, know who the major influencers in their industries are, and have produced marketing content in the form of client alerts, articles, speeches, blog posts, or other written materials. Participating in social media is like flicking a switch that turns on the latent power of these materials, greatly amplifying their effect and transforming them into referrals on their own. How does it happen?

It Generates Referrals

Social media sites are built ' and thrive ' on the premise that humans like to share knowledge with each other. And oh, do they ever like to share. As of 2010, members of Twitter collectively shared 50 million updates (or “tweets”) with their followers each day, while Facebook claims even larger numbers. For those using these sites to connect to friends and family, it may mean sharing vacation photos (more than 250 million pics go up on Facebook each day), recipes, or funny videos.

Within professional networks, the principle is the same ' members come to share ' but the substance is different. Professionals who build the most successful connections on social-media platforms are those who share helpful professional wisdom, articles, and other content about the industries in which they participate.

And that is what makes social-media sites the ideal place for legal professionals to place content, be it a client alert, a media mention, or a blog post. This is exactly the type of material that drives conversation on social-media sites, and that influential members are actively looking to distribute to their followers. By placing your content before them, you are feeding the beast that is social media, and obtaining “referrals” in the process.

Yes, referrals. When a third party (we'll call him Joe) distributes your client alert (we'll call it an analysis of campaign-finance rules) to his followers, he's giving your content his stamp of approval. The effect is quite similar to that of a friend recommending a movie. If Joe's followers know him to be a trusted source on political topics, they suddenly see you someone worth consulting. And if they happen to need legal advice at the moment, Joe's endorsement of your content ' his virtual referral ' could be worth a whole lot.

Of course, if the content Joe is sharing is an article you've written for a respected publication, it comes to the reader with two separate endorsements: that of the publication and that of Joe. The point here, however, is that even material lawyers and their firms have published on their own (blog posts, for instance), arrives on the recipient's screen with a nod of approval from a third party.

And of course, you are not just getting Joe's stamp of approval. Because through social media, you aren't just connected to Joe ' you're connected to the whole world.

It Distributes Your Material to an Unlimited Audience

A beautiful thing about social media is the efficiency with which it distributes valuable information to those who have an appetite for it. The non-professional side of social media is instructive on this point as well; anyone who likes a good underdog story, after all, can tell you who Susan Boyle is (her Britain's Got Talent audition video has been viewed more than 350 million times).

While professional content won't reach such numbers, it most definitely will reach those with an interest in it. Good news travels fast, and on social media helpful information travels even faster. Indeed, if your content is helpful to those in your industry and placed on a social media site, it would be nearly impossible prevent it from reaching your ideal client prospects. Such is the power of Joe ' and the countless other social media participants ' who will happily pass your content along. It's why they are there, and it is what makes them the most effective and targeted distribution system you could ever design.

It Builds Lasting Relationships

Those legal professionals who use a social media platform correctly ' that is, distribute their content over it and occasionally add to the conversation ' will inevitably form relationships with fellow “friends,” “connections,” and “followers.” This hardly requires any effort; merely being present on a platform and posting valuable information to it will draw people into your circle. Even minimal interaction with these other members will, over time, open up significant opportunities. Everyone knows that chance meetings at seminars or networking events can facilitate business, and the same principle applies on social media sites. Building relationships drives business, and social media is a place to do it extremely efficiently.

It Enhances Your Reputation

Through a sustained contribution of quality material to social media sites, legal professionals can reap enormous rewards. At the beginning of their journey, they will earn occasional “virtual referrals” from Joe and others like him. As they continue contributing valuable content, however, those virtual referrals will increase exponentially. Joe and other influential participants will increasingly come to know the contributor as a producer of high-quality information, watch for it, and pass it on as a matter of course. Soon, through repetition of this process, the contributor will have earned a reputation to thousands of industry participants she has never even met.

This last step is the end of a cycle that reinforces itself to extremely powerful effect, and can take a lawyer's practice to entirely new levels. The first step is an easy one. To begin, simply place your content on a social media platform. That's all you need to do to turn your referral generator on.

John Hellerman, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is the co-founder of Hellerman Baretz Communications, an agency specializing in content development, reputation management, and revenue growth for law, consulting, healthcare, and financial services firms. He can be reached at 202-274-4762 or [email protected].

Ask any group of lawyers to get on board with the social media revolution, and you'll get some resistance. It's understandable. Lawyers have been slow to embrace the use of social media as a business-development method, and they didn't get that way because they don't like the new clients, increased income, and professional notoriety that can come from using today's social-media tools correctly.

Their reluctance is perfectly natural. They are busy people, and when the subject of social media comes up, all they hear is “some Internet thing that's going to be a drain on my time.” It feels like a big endeavor, one much less pressing than the brief they're writing, the bar speech they're preparing, or that conference call coming in a half hour. In contrast to these familiar work duties, getting involved with social media may feel like entering a strange forest in a foreign land ' one they could get lost in and never come out again.

While understandable, the reluctance is misguided. Simply reframing the question should do a lot to correct things. In deciding whether to reap the benefits of today's social-media platforms, the question for lawyers is not, “Would you like to get involved with social media?” The question is, “Would you like to get more referrals?”

The answer to that, no doubt, is an enthusiastic yes.

With good reason, too. A study performed by the BTI Consulting Group, commissioned by Hellerman Baretz Communications, shows that obtaining referrals from peers is the most effective method of obtaining new business. Nearly 300 top legal executives at large corporations were interviewed for BTI's survey, and almost 60% said they would consider hiring a new attorney based on a single referral. This data point from BTI is merely a confirmation of what we all know intuitively: The endorsement of a trusted contact can have an extremely powerful effect on our buying decisions ' one even greater than that of professional guides. Consider your choice of a movie for Friday night: A positive review from a New York Time s critic will probably make you more likely to see a particular movie, but when your friend who knows your tastes says you need to see it, that's another level of influence.

Lawyers understand that referrals are like gold, but what they haven't all understood yet is that social media is one of the very best ways to get referrals. And while obtaining referrals is worth a lot of time and expense, social media is not an expensive endeavor ' and certainly not the mystical forest of lost time that some may imagine it to be. It's easy to use, it's powerful, and any lawyer worth her salt has all the raw materials in place to take advantage of it.

That's right, all the heavy lifting that the reluctant lawyer believes she'll have to pour into her social-media efforts has already been done ' by her. All lawyers worthy of hiring, after all, have a small network of professional contacts in place, know who the major influencers in their industries are, and have produced marketing content in the form of client alerts, articles, speeches, blog posts, or other written materials. Participating in social media is like flicking a switch that turns on the latent power of these materials, greatly amplifying their effect and transforming them into referrals on their own. How does it happen?

It Generates Referrals

Social media sites are built ' and thrive ' on the premise that humans like to share knowledge with each other. And oh, do they ever like to share. As of 2010, members of Twitter collectively shared 50 million updates (or “tweets”) with their followers each day, while Facebook claims even larger numbers. For those using these sites to connect to friends and family, it may mean sharing vacation photos (more than 250 million pics go up on Facebook each day), recipes, or funny videos.

Within professional networks, the principle is the same ' members come to share ' but the substance is different. Professionals who build the most successful connections on social-media platforms are those who share helpful professional wisdom, articles, and other content about the industries in which they participate.

And that is what makes social-media sites the ideal place for legal professionals to place content, be it a client alert, a media mention, or a blog post. This is exactly the type of material that drives conversation on social-media sites, and that influential members are actively looking to distribute to their followers. By placing your content before them, you are feeding the beast that is social media, and obtaining “referrals” in the process.

Yes, referrals. When a third party (we'll call him Joe) distributes your client alert (we'll call it an analysis of campaign-finance rules) to his followers, he's giving your content his stamp of approval. The effect is quite similar to that of a friend recommending a movie. If Joe's followers know him to be a trusted source on political topics, they suddenly see you someone worth consulting. And if they happen to need legal advice at the moment, Joe's endorsement of your content ' his virtual referral ' could be worth a whole lot.

Of course, if the content Joe is sharing is an article you've written for a respected publication, it comes to the reader with two separate endorsements: that of the publication and that of Joe. The point here, however, is that even material lawyers and their firms have published on their own (blog posts, for instance), arrives on the recipient's screen with a nod of approval from a third party.

And of course, you are not just getting Joe's stamp of approval. Because through social media, you aren't just connected to Joe ' you're connected to the whole world.

It Distributes Your Material to an Unlimited Audience

A beautiful thing about social media is the efficiency with which it distributes valuable information to those who have an appetite for it. The non-professional side of social media is instructive on this point as well; anyone who likes a good underdog story, after all, can tell you who Susan Boyle is (her Britain's Got Talent audition video has been viewed more than 350 million times).

While professional content won't reach such numbers, it most definitely will reach those with an interest in it. Good news travels fast, and on social media helpful information travels even faster. Indeed, if your content is helpful to those in your industry and placed on a social media site, it would be nearly impossible prevent it from reaching your ideal client prospects. Such is the power of Joe ' and the countless other social media participants ' who will happily pass your content along. It's why they are there, and it is what makes them the most effective and targeted distribution system you could ever design.

It Builds Lasting Relationships

Those legal professionals who use a social media platform correctly ' that is, distribute their content over it and occasionally add to the conversation ' will inevitably form relationships with fellow “friends,” “connections,” and “followers.” This hardly requires any effort; merely being present on a platform and posting valuable information to it will draw people into your circle. Even minimal interaction with these other members will, over time, open up significant opportunities. Everyone knows that chance meetings at seminars or networking events can facilitate business, and the same principle applies on social media sites. Building relationships drives business, and social media is a place to do it extremely efficiently.

It Enhances Your Reputation

Through a sustained contribution of quality material to social media sites, legal professionals can reap enormous rewards. At the beginning of their journey, they will earn occasional “virtual referrals” from Joe and others like him. As they continue contributing valuable content, however, those virtual referrals will increase exponentially. Joe and other influential participants will increasingly come to know the contributor as a producer of high-quality information, watch for it, and pass it on as a matter of course. Soon, through repetition of this process, the contributor will have earned a reputation to thousands of industry participants she has never even met.

This last step is the end of a cycle that reinforces itself to extremely powerful effect, and can take a lawyer's practice to entirely new levels. The first step is an easy one. To begin, simply place your content on a social media platform. That's all you need to do to turn your referral generator on.

John Hellerman, a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors, is the co-founder of Hellerman Baretz Communications, an agency specializing in content development, reputation management, and revenue growth for law, consulting, healthcare, and financial services firms. He can be reached at 202-274-4762 or [email protected].