by Tania Schriwer

Back in January, Greg Lambert of 3 Geeks and a Law Blog made ten projections for the year 2010, one of them being that this would be the year of social media acceptance in the legal field. Many others have echoed the expectation that law firms would start to embrace the world of Facebook and Twitter, particularly as a cheap and effective marketing tool. Right on cue, back in January, Kristine Lloyd found this chart from myCorporateResources.com which showed the various social media AmLaw 100 firms had started using. As Kristine noted, many firms had signed up for a Twitter account, but had yet to tweet. I decided to investigate whether, at this stage in the year, any of these tweet-reluctant firms had joined the tweeting bandwagon and, if so, what were they tweeting about.

According to the chart, 51 firms out of the 99 listed had signed up for Twitter accounts but were not yet tweeting. I had a look at their current Twitter accounts and found that only 6 have started to actively tweet. Their numbers of tweets ranged from 1 to 21. (Eight of the “non-tweeting” firms have protected accounts, making their tweets, if there are any, private.)

In addition, the chart identified 18 firms that had not yet signed up for Twitter accounts. As far as I could discern, through Google and Twitter searches, only one of the 18 firms has since signed up with Twitter, but this firm has protected its account. The end result of my (very unscientific) research: 63 of the 99 firms in the original chart are still not tweeting, at least not publicly.

This seems to contradict most predictions, and it shows that law firms are still reluctant to join social media outlets, even when they are free and require little investment in time and money. In the case of Twitter, I think they might be missing out on a simple addition to their marketing arsenal.

While most of these firms do not tweet a lot, the content of their tweets is telling. Firms are sharing their announcements, big wins and accomplishments, as well as recent articles and news items, and they often link back to their websites with more details. In essence, Twitter is used as an additional vehicle to spread the firm’s messages.

Judging by this use of tweets, Twitter can be a great addition to a firm’s existing marketing plan. It’s a tool that requires very little additional time and money, particularly if the firm is already posting such notices on the web and/or sending them by e-mail. Adding tweets would allow the firms message to reach a wider, perhaps even more receptive, audience. Viewed in this light, it’s too bad so many firms are still not tapping into this simple marketing resource.

2 Responses to “BigLaw Twitterers: Flying Soloor Birds of a Feather”

1. Erin says:

   April 19, 2010 at 9:49 am

   Nice article Tania! It is nice to see an update on the firms who had previously been silent on the Twitter-front.

2. The Tweeting AmLaw 100s — LLOPSCited says:

   May 21, 2010 at 5:26 pm

   […] out Tania Schriwer’s prescience in penning a follow-up article to the infamous myCorporateResources chart was well-played. Looks […]