Lawyer Social Media Profiles and Linking to the Law Firm

By Gina Rubel

As a Philadelphia-area marketing and public relations agency with a focus on legal marketing, we here at Furia Rubel get asked a lot of questions about how lawyers should handle social media.

Some of the most common questions have to do with the relationship between an individual lawyer and the firm, particularly when it comes to marketing. Should a personal profile for a lawyer on Twitter link to the law firm’s website? Should an individual lawyer brand his or her social media profiles independently or link to and mention the law firm where he or she works?

As with most marketing situations, the answer is "it depends."

For solo and small firms and individual lawyers, social media profiles should always mention their law firm. In these instances, the lawyer *is* the firm – he or she is inextricably tied to the law firm brand.

In big law firms, however, the answer is more nuanced. The attorney first should consult the firm’s social media policy. If the policy permits or requests that the lawyer mention the firm's name in his or her profile, and/or to link to the firm’s website, then this is a best practice.

Many firms require a disclaimer in the lawyer's profile as well. They usually read something to the effect of, "These opinions are my own and are not endorsed by my employer."

Remember, there is strength in numbers, and if you're in a big law firm, being associated with the brand can only support your individual lawyer marketing and business development efforts.

Social Media Etiquette for Business on the ‘Big Three’

By Kim Tarasiewcz

We all have those friends whose updates you dread seeing in your Facebook feeds – they type in all caps, they post their political rants, or they just can’t stop posting every move they make on any given day. You try to scroll past them, but they just keep coming. And for whatever reason, you can’t unfriend the person without causing family, business or friendship issues.

Fortunately, privacy settings can be used to hide feeds entirely or to allow you to see less of certain types of posts in your news feed. Just click on the small arrow in the top right corner of the post and chose an item from the drop-down screen. Currently, however for Facebook, there is no way to unfriend someone without alerting them, so hiding posts is the best way to remove them from your feed so as not to cause disputes.

In business social media, the rules become a bit diluted and are still evolving, but there are three main platforms with which every business should be familiar. Where Facebook is the most common and one of the oldest social media platforms, LinkedIn is probably best known as the connection spot for business. LinkedIn is less about your personal connections and more about sharing business ideas and networking. Twitter moves faster with shorter “bursts” of information which can be great to get news out to the public quickly, but can be dangerous if the information is incorrect or controversial.

Facebook allows flexibility when sharing information on the site, but how often should you “tag” another business? Probably never unless previously approved by the business. At Furia Rubel, we share our client’s news and events, but only after they have sent it out and only with their permission. Our site is maintained and reviewed so that nothing offensive is on it and there is no need for clients to worry if we share news. Allowing other businesses to tag you can lead to problems if their site isn’t constantly monitored.

So what are the connection rules on LinkedIn? I’ve had several times recently where a salesperson has called and as soon as I hang up the phone telling them we don’t have a need for their services, they are connecting with me on LinkedIn. Do I accept their connection or not? I find it a strange concept to connect with someone you’ve never met and most likely won’t meet or ever develop a relationship with. But it’s business, so most of the time, I will connect because there may be a need in the future for their services or for business leads, but also because I don’t like to burn bridges.

Twitter can be a great tool, especially for events like a press conference or seminars as you can give quick updates on what is happening and provide links to details if people need more information. Because Twitter limits the number of characters in an individual tweet to 140, it forces creativity with wording in your messages and choosing hashtags or you may end up with a stream of unwanted items. It’s so easy to send something off; before tweeting or re-tweeting, be sure the information is legitimate.

But as with any social media platform, too many posts, tags or tweets can cause viewers to hide or to skip your posts. Look around – if the same person repeatedly comments on your items or if no one is commenting, maybe you need a campaign to attract new followers or to add something more interesting to your pages. And for goodness sakes, DON’T POST IN ALL CAPS – no one likes to be yelled at.

Social Media Policies for Employers, Employees and their Counsel

By Laura Powers

In October, I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2014 Bench-Bar & Annual Conference held by the Philadelphia Bar Association. I was joined by Ryan Gatto, Global Director of Compliance at Sungard Availability Services, and Justin Moriconi, Senior Associate at Segal McCambridge.

During the conference, my fellow speakers and I discussed the importance of putting social media policies in place for businesses and the rationale behind having a designated social media expert (or even more than one).

Here’s what we learned:

There is Power in Social Media

Social media can be wielded as a powerful marketing and business development weapon if properly harnessed. It can be used effectively in regular communication with external audiences such as past, existing or potential clients, customers and employees, the media, government officials and referral sources as well as in crisis communications.

In crisis, for example, many companies used their social profiles, which had followings, to communicate during Hurricane Sandy because they didn't have email service and some did not have phone service, either. Social media has become a primary channel not only for regular outreach, but also for critical communication during a crisis.

For recruiting purposes, social media gives us a look inside the culture and environment of a company. A website can only take this so far; social media allows us to take it further. For example, office parties, office pets, event photos or sponsored 5K races are snapshots into the daily interactions of coworkers and that is so critical to recruiting, especially for younger generations that place a lot of value on a job’s flexibility and life balance.

How to Benefit – Educate Employees

Most employees don’t start their day with the intention to damage the company they work for. They most likely haven’t been properly informed enough to understand the effects of their online behavior because the guidelines and expectations about company-sanctioned behavior have not been correctly communicated. It should be up to the employer how it provides this education.

Clearly, companies shouldn't be taking the “head in the sand” approach to social media. To deal with possible crisis issues, employers need to take the time to develop a thoughtful policy. And since technology often outpaces the law, that policy needs to be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. Once social media policies are created, they should have a proper firm-wide roll-out to management and staff.

How to Manage Your Online Reputation

This is why having a team internally, or externally, like an agency, is critical. I can’t tell you all the things we've found that employees have posted, including a lawyer’s post one day from court that said “Justice is so slow. Wish this judge would hurry up,” and, “Bored to tears in this NJ CLE class.”

A branded platform that does not look like it is abandoned by the company but looks like it is cared for every day will emphasize an employee’s perception that they are being watched and promote conservative use. Consistent branding, messaging and positioning for a company on the platforms that are sanctioned for use also will make a difference.

Marketing & Communications – What’s Necessary and Obvious

In 2013, more than 92 percent of companies reportedly had one staff member for whom “social media” was a requirement according to a Forbes article by contributor Ken Makovsky entitled ‘A Snapshot Of Social Media 2013.’

Of those social media experts, 18 percent report directly to the CEO, indicating that social goals and strategies are gaining traction in the boardroom. There is still discrepancy between the dedication to social and the belief within a company’s leadership that it is actually effective, but measurement and effectiveness is another conversation.

Leadership cannot rely solely on the marketing staff to handle policy management and social media engagement. A social media committee can be set up to monitor and manage everything and hold each other accountable if there is no designated social media expert or if your company is too big for just one expert to handle.

The team setups we see vary based on the culture of the company and its attitude, which also depends on the generational demographics in the company. In open environments, social media is accepted as the norm and everyone can be a brand ambassador and share information online. However, that doesn't lessen the need at all for monitoring and management.

Does your company have a clear social media policy or designated social media expert(s)? Share your experiences or thoughts in the comments section below.

What Happens On The Internet, Stays On The Internet

By Kim Tarasiewicz

Some days, I find the news difficult to watch, with the barrage of bad news we are faced with on a daily basis. But one of the things I look forward to is the fascinating bits of trivia that come toward the end of the news segments. Recently, I saw a segment about the Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia. It showed how they are taking old videos and filing them into an archive system along with restoring old films and adding them to “the vault," a former bomb shelter that is now home to more than 1.4 million films, television shows and other videos that "tell America's story."

Each year, the Librarian of Congress selects 25 movies to be added to the National Film Registry. Some of us from the 80s era will be pleased to know that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off  (1986) and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) were added in 2014. The self-proclaimed “film geeks” who work at the Conservation Center even save television commercials, to show the changing evolution of attitudes during certain eras or cultures in America.

The item that caught my attention, though, is that they are also archiving today’s media in real time, including radio, television and Internet content - even YouTube videos. To store that volume of data, they use petabytes; one petabyte can store up to 13 years of TV videos at a time. The reason for archiving YouTube videos? According to the Moving Section Director, “It is for future generations to decide what is important and what is not.”

It is that same desire to capture history-in-the-making that has led organizations and businesses nationwide to turn to web archiving services such as Archive-It from companies like Reed Tech. I doubt many of us thought that those corporate presentations, video games or family videos we uploaded to YouTube would ever be a part of the Library of Congress, but now they may be, as the preservation of digital content becomes more common.

For me, this is a perfect illustration for my teens to explain the need for online responsibility and confirming that what you post out there, stays out there. I can now point to a government agency that is collecting their information and archiving it.

Companies need to be aware of this, too, when sharing items on the Internet and social media. We’ve shared blog posts here on having a corporate social media policy and a crisis management plan, but it’s important to know that your Internet items may be captured in an archive program, too. 

Each time I upload a video presentation, TV commercial or news coverage interview for our clients, I will enjoy thinking about how we are creating history and wonder how those future generations will judge us. Will our YouTube posts seem antiquated? Will the news stories seem trivial? Will the films become classics like so many of those 80s movies I love to watch? I guess we need a crystal ball to see into the future to know for sure, but if we want to look at the past, evidently there is plenty being stored in Culpeper, Virginia waiting to be seen.