LEGAL CENTS: Making the case for a firm Facebook page

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I’m addicted to Facebook.

I go to the site every morning, right after pouring a large cup of coffee — another vice. I try to limit myself to no more than 10 minutes. Many of my Facebook friends are also members of the legal community, so it’s an enjoyable way to ease into work mode.

Considering how many lawyers and judges I’ve friended — who typically have already posted a new status for the day, every day — I don’t think I’m alone in my habit of going to Facebook first, then starting work.

Just about all of the pages that show up in my newsfeed are friends’ personal pages, although a few have added professional pages as well.

I recently created a professional page, but when doing so, I was suddenly struck by the notion that it’s rude to market myself professionally to my Facebook friends.

In my mind, Facebook is for fun; LinkedIn is for business. Period.

A lot of my Facebook friends were just plain friends before Facebook, and I don’t see my friends as revenue sources. I don’t host Tupperware or jewelry parties, either.

But done right, I suppose the Facebook professional page is just fine.

Consider Milwaukee lawyer Jay Urban’s use of it, as a complement along with other social media to a personal Facebook page, which he had first.

When he created the professional page for his firm, Urban & Taylor SC, he asked some of the people he’d friended on his personal page to “like” it.

Urban now asks clients to “like” it as well. It’s an effective segue into the critical topic of Facebook’s discoverability, after all. Plus, the firm Facebook page serves the same functions as many law blogs fulfill: to educate clients on consumer-safety issues, communicate news and generally keep his professional presence in the client or prospect’s mind.

The personal and professional pages allow him to keep the two separate: while he’s posted information about his family, interests and political leanings on his personal Facebook page, that’s not on the firm page.

Some clients have been friended personally as well, but he’s very selective on that.

Urban said he wanted his firm to have a presence on Facebook, separate and apart from himself, because Facebook just keeps on growing in popularity.

Some people get their news in large part from Facebook only, looking at links from various sites that their friends have commented on. Moreover, few, if any, of his Facebook friends have abandoned their pages. And those who are using it, and who are the most active, tend to be influential people perceived as leaders in the community.

At the time of this writing, 162 people “like” the Urban & Taylor page. Urban is considering another push for more “likes” among his friends, but said he doesn’t want to overdo it. Too much professional marketing among friends can have the opposite effect, he cautioned.

Likewise, he frequently comments on other people’s pages, both with the personal page and the firm page — so it’s not all about Jay Urban, all the time.

The key is strong content, agreed Brooke Durant, who has created a Facebook page for Hofbauer Law LLC in Brookfield.

Friends might like a professional page, just to be nice — but then they’ll “hide” your updates if you bore them with too much in-your-face marketing.

Durant, attorney Tom Hofbauer’s office manager, said the goal is to make daily status updates that people will find interesting, such as a comment about a link to an article discussing tort law news, interspersed with the occasional update on the “human side of the firm,” namely, Hofbauer’s interests in golf or hockey, or perhaps a photo of him with the family.

The firm Facebook page is a complement to the website, she said, where it’s all business. But people don’t want that with Facebook, Durant said.

A professional Facebook presence is important, she said, because people start there and then go elsewhere on the web from links on Facebook. For example, people might not, out of the blue, think, “Hey, let’s see what’s new on so-and-so’s blog,” and then enter the URL. It’s a lot more likely that they’ll read a Facebook status update about a new blog post that makes them go to that blog.

Moreover, the lines between work and personal lives have become blurred, and Facebook and other social media are in part responsible for that.

While Baby Boomers typically tried to keep work and personal lives separate, twenty-somethings such as Durant don’t see that as an absolute necessity.

Marketing is about relationships, she said. With their clients, the bulk of Hofbauer’s communication is about cases. But it’s also part of Hofbauer’s personality to be friendly and ask about someone’s family, she said, while sharing that kind of information about himself, as well.

So in some ways, it’s what people expect from him.

Jane Pribek can be reached at [email protected].