While scrolling through my twitter stream last week, I noticed many lawyers posting the entire link to their blogs, articles and seminars instead of using a link shortening service such as budurl.com.

And while posting direct links is fine for beginners, lawyers who are serious about using social networking sites to interact with their community and share content should NEVER post a direct link from this point forward.

The reason for this is twofold:

1.   When you shorten your links through sites like budurl, bit.ly or owl.y (just to name a few), you are able to track on your dashboard just how many people are clicking your links; and

2.   The pre-shortened URL makes it easier for people to “re-tweet” or share your content with others.

As you can probably guess by reading number one, the tracking feature is very important in that it allows you to monitor just how popular or intriguing your content is to others.  On the other hand, if you keep posting links and no one is clicking, I can promise you there is something wrong with your overall social media strategy.

Alternatively, if you are posting long links right into the content box and allowing twitter to shorten it for you (which usually looks like the first half of the link followed by a …..), when other people try to post or “re-tweet” your link in their own stream, the link is usually broken or it no longer fits within the 140 character limit.

And speaking from experience, if I have to play around with someone’s link to make it fit within 140 characters, it better be the best article I ever read.   Otherwise, I’ll pass.  I can promise you that thousands of other people feel the same way too, so it’s worth it for you to pre-shorten your links and get that content spreading like wildfire!

So take five minutes today sign up for a link shortening site like budurl.com.  It’s free, it’s simple anand it’s a hugely important step in making sure you get the most out of your law firm’s social media strategy.

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Online Business Manager and law firm marketing expert, Laura Lee Sparks, is one of the most authoritative and well respected voices on attorney outsourcing, legal marketing and being a virtual assistant for lawyers on the web.  Her advice and legal marketing campaigns have helped lawyers reach and surpass the million-dollar mark in their businesses numerous times thanks to her straight-forward advice and ability to make legal marketing principles easy to understand and implement.  For further information on lawyer outsourcing programs or to contact Laura Lee directly, please email help@legalmarketingmaven.com

In this economy, legal marketing is a given.  You must be spending money on email marketing, internet marketing or direct marketing campaigns to get your name out there or you’ll fall prey to your market-savvy competition.

Yet if you’re marketing without a PLAN, I can guarantee you are wasting a ton of cash on your efforts.

Why?

Because a marketing plan is the only way to ensure you are strategic in your objectives and actually get a return on your money at the end of the year.

They also help you to see and monitor your day-to-day marketing goals so you can quickly ditch a plan that isn’t resonating with your target audience.

Plus your marketing plan allows you to see what tasks or goals can be handled in-house with your team and what needs to be outsourced to effectively get the job done.

Finally, your marketing plan shows you months in advance what you’ll need to create products or campaigns that WORK rather than throwing money at “trendy” or run-of the mill campaigns and merely hoping they stick.

And while I’m not going to cover the nitty- gritty of creating a great legal marketing plan, here are a few attributes to let you know if you’re on the right track:

1. Your legal marketing plan will tie into your overall business objectives- If your goal is to make 6 or 7-figures of revenue this year, your marketing plan should pin-point exactly how many leads you need to attract (and convert) to reach that dollar amount.  It should also track your marketing budget dollar- for-dollar to ensure your campaigns are contributing to that goal and not detracting from it at the end of the year.
2. Your marketing plan should communicate your objectives to your entire team and pull them into the process- Great companies ensure everyone is on board when it comes to marketing.  Everyone has a task and key piece of the puzzle to implement.  Your marketing plan, then, will give your staff the clear guidance and instruction they need to ensure your plans are being carried out and reaching your target market accordingly.
3. Your plan will help you stay on track and manage objectives- It’s so easy to get off track when a semi-good legal marketing plan brings a few customers into the pipeline. Yet before you know it, that short burst of clients WILL dry up and you’ll be at square one all over again in your marketing efforts. Instead, resolve to keep your appointment book full at all times by creating a plan that keeps you on track and makes sure your campaigns go off each month without a hitch.

Of course, if you are totally overwhelmed with the thought of creating a marketing plan for your firm or really aren’t sure where to start, please email me at help@legalmarketingmaven.com for a boost in the right direction!