Marshall: New era for law firms
Law firms need to redesign their social media strategies to embrace influencers or in some cases ‘superinfluencers’ who “massively outperform” their firms on LinkedIn, according to new research.
The top five superinfluencers together have as much influence on LinkedIn as the largest 11 law firms combined, in one case creating “engagement worth over £300,000 in LinkedIn ad spend”.
The top 10 superinfluencers from the top 200 law firms created engagement equivalent to £1.2m in LinkedIn advertising spend, compared to a mere £532,000 for the top 10 law firms’ LinkedIn pages.
To match the influence of the leading superinfluencer, Jen Shipley, a senior associate in the medical negligence team at Irwin Mitchell, the law firm would need to have spent £307,435 on LinkedIn ads this year.
Simon Marshall, chief executive of TBD Marketing, said it had studied the LinkedIn output of 4,500 lawyers and other professionals at the top 200 law firms for a report to be published early next year.
A list of the top 10 LinkedIn superinfluencers was compiled, each of whom got the equivalent of at least 10,000 likes every quarter, with comments each counted as four likes. Figures were calculated for their ad spend equivalent, but they were ranked according to likes and comments.
Ilana Kattan, an associate and a competition and regulation specialist at Hogan Lovells based in Washington DC, was second on the list of superinfluencers, with an ad spend equivalent of £153,703.
Justin Farrance, solicitor and global DE&I ambassador at A&O Shearman, was third, with an ad spend equivalent of £185,082.
He was followed by high-profile solicitor Mark Stephens at Howard Kennedy, whose ad spend was calculated at £164,338.
He was followed by Sophie Wardell, people director at West Midlands law firm Higgs, with £58,917. Behind them came Joel Shen, a partner at Withers KhattarWong in Singapore; Jon Gregson, a partner at Weightmans in Liverpool; James Quarmby, private client partner at Stephenson Harwood in London, Matt Schwarz, partner and head of the US finance practice group at DLA Piper; and Patrick McCann, director of learning at Linklaters in London.
Mr Marshall went on: “The people in the top 10 have got a different worldview to their firms. They have things they’re passionate about, they have opinions, they have preferences and they don’t have to worry about only issuing posts that every lawyer in the firm has approved.”
He said the legal sector had entered a “new era”, where “stand-out individuals massively outperform their firms on LinkedIn”.
“What this means is that we need to see an evolution of law firm social media strategy, so we move away from the firm page to the firm page plus influencers. That’s the magic formula.”
If law firms did not have influencers or superinfluencers, “now would be the time to create some”.
Mr Marshall went on: “We have to encourage people to be themselves online and share corporate news as well. Some people want to do it, others don’t.”
Law firms should ideally create a group of around five to eight people to speak about the firm on social media.
“It takes time to cajole and encourage people to share their stories. Whoever is doing the social media at the firm must be respectful of the fact that influencers own their accounts, and must treat them nicely because it’s their choice.”
Social media has a dark side and Mr Marshall said researchers had recently started work on a new report which found that lawyers had been subject to bullying, sexual harassment, racism and death threats – “all of which has happened on LinkedIn”.
He added that researchers were “not ignoring that there are safeguards in place” for people using LinkedIn, but this was something the profession “needed to talk about”.
Separate research we reported on Monday from First4Lawyers said found that law firms operating in consumer law areas found LinkedIn one of the most effective marketing channels. It was the only social media channel that all 100 firms surveyed had accounts on.
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