Permission to Post

Here's the thing: You don't need a separate policy governing how your firm's staff will represent you on social media. You already have one.

NASA Shows the Way

I recently listened to a podcast featuring John Yembrick, the social media manager at NASA. Yembrick oversees more than 500 NASA-affiliated social media accounts. If any organization was going to face a roadblock to posting on social media, I would have expected it to be NASA.

Yet Yembrick said he had no trouble gaining approval to build out NASA's social media presence, and authorizing hundreds of NASA employees to post on NASA's behalf. If you work at NASA, he said, you already have a NASA email address, a NASA business card, a NASA office phone, and in most cases, a NASA cell phone. The organization already has a detailed communication policy that governs how employees will represent NASA in person, over the phone, and over email.

Your firm's existing communication policy applies to social media too. NASA didn't need to create a separate policy for social media. It simply told its employees to follow the same standards on social media that they follow in any other situations.

Allowing your staff to post on social media on your behalf might feel like a dangerous move. However, at any given moment, any one of your staff could say something in an in-person meeting, or during a speech, or in a mass email that would reflect poorly on the firm. As most policies provide, the firm allows them to speak on your behalf via those platforms because it's crucial to their job and you trust them to represent you well.

Convincing the Firm

So how do you convince a reluctant President or Managing Partner that your firm needs to be on social media? Start by relieving them of the burden of creating a social media policy. Your firm's existing communication policy is enough to guide your staff in posting on any social platform.

Another reason some of the firms I consult with are reluctant to establish a brand presence on social media is because they're fearful of the potential public criticism from dissatisfied clients. That may be true, but just look at the social media accounts of the largest airlines in the U.S., for example.

With frequent weather and technical delays, airlines always face complaints from frustrated customers. But the best brands see the public forum of social media as an opportunity to showcase their outstanding customer service. Instead of only engaging with frustrated customers via private message, proactive brands respond publicly and offer to help, provide an explanation, or correct the situation.

Sure, you'll have interactions with clients who refuse to be satisfied, but your loyal clients watching the exchange can recognize when someone else is being unreasonable. You'll gain more respect when you handle a difficult situation well than if you try to hide the complaints.

Even if you're not on social media, clients will find ways to express their frustration about lackluster experiences they've had with your brand, whether that's on Facebook, on Google Reviews or on their own personal accounts. If you're already on social media, you gain the advantage of being able to respond and potentially convert a dissatisfied client into a delighted client. Start having those conversations in your sandbox instead of all throughout the internet.

How to Respond

As an example, remember the McDonald's “pink slime” issue from a couple years ago? Nope, very few do. They squashed those concerns amazingly quickly by having the conversation in their sandbox. Briefly, the quality of McDonald's meat was questioned, and the moniker “pink slime” was attached to create a tagline to the press circulating the rumors. What did McDonald's do?

Instead of ignoring the rumors, they approached them head-on. They invited everyone into their virtual living room and invited all questions to be answered.

Conclusion

What's the lesson for law firms? Policies that govern your private response to clients are the same ones that should guide your public response. Taking this approach to social media should cross one more thing off your firm's marketing and advertising to-do list. You don't need to write a social media policy because you already have one. So start posting!

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Spencer X Smith is the founder of spencerXsmith.com, instructor at the University of Wisconsin, and Adjunct Faculty at Rutgers University. He may be reached at www.spencerXsmith.com. This article originally appeared in our LJN sibling, Marketing the Law Firm.