Exemplary Twitter usage by employment boutique CM Murray LLP

We spend a good deal of our time looking at law firms websites. As you would expect, we keep close tabs on what the big firms are up to, but smaller firms pique our interest frequently too. This week it was employment boutique CM Murray who grabbed our attention. Their use of Twitter is exemplary and you should take note.

CM Murray is a boutique firm specialising in “strategic employment and partnership advice” and we first became aware of the firm through Anna Birtwistle, an employment and discrimination lawyer at the firm.

Multiple twitter accounts

The firm has at least five Twitter accounts: a corporate account for the firm and one for each lawyer, with managing partner, Clare Murray, leading from the front.

You can check out CM Murray’s five Twitter accounts here:

• @CMMurrayLLP
• @claremary
• @AnnaYoshica
• @msesthermartin
• @Susanne_Foster

Corporate tweeting

CM Murray use their account to provide followers with a stream of useful content by collating relevant tweets from the firm’s lawyers, but also forwarding useful information from other sources relevant to their specialism.

Law firms draw a lot of criticism for taking a broadcast approach and failing to engage online, but the way CM Murray run their account is entirely appropriate. Firms don’t converse, people do, and this is where the individual accounts come in to play.

Lawyers that tweet

The key to Social Media generally is that it gives an insight in to what you might be like to work with. CM Murray’s lawyers have it down to a pat. They are:

Expert

If you are tweeting for work rather than pleasure, you’d better know what you’re talking about and no opportunity for demonstrating expertise should be missed.

CM Murray tweet about the articles they have written and the places they are published, conferences attended and insights gathered. They also interact with the various professional bodies of which they are members.

Generous

The clue is in the name, but its amazing how many firms miss the social in social media and end talk only about themselves. CM Murray never fall in to this trap and a huge proportion of their tweets refer their followers to useful content from other providers, wherever they happen to find it online.

Being generous is not just a nice thing to do, it makes business sense as well. Just like in real life people help those that have helped them. Content and links are the currency of the web and people are more likely to share your content when they know you’ll help them too.

Personal

We’ve said it before, but it is worth repeating - social media gives people a sneak preview of what you might be like to work with.

The lawyers at CM Murray strike the balance just right, with a confident yet friendly style that is personable while staying on the right side of the personal/professional divide.

Polite

Check out the feeds of the CM Murray’s lawyers and you’ll see that they say thank you a lot. Simple manners go a long way and you should never take your followers attention for granted. If somebody mentions you or takes the trouble to share your content remember to thank you!

Leading from the front

Aside from having some very smart lawyers, I think a significant factor in the quality of CM Murray’s approach to Twitter is that their managing partner, Clare Murray, is firmly on board and leading from the front having been a Twitter user herself for almost 3 years.

It is great to find a small firm making such good use of digital marketing tools and CM Murray should be high commended. This is a great model for a boutique law firm, but practice groups in large firms could run their social media accounts this way too.

 

---

---

More from the Blog

23 May 2013

When Partners Don’t Deliver: It’s not your fault but it is your responsibility

PR bashing has become a popular pastime on Twitter with several respected legal-sector commentators taking delight in mocking the latest firm to pump out a self-indulgent press release pertaining to the minutiae of life in their firm.

---

08 May 2013

How to Start a Legal Blog

Blogs are often the starting point of a legal content strategy, especially amongst well-positioned practice groups, boutiques, or chambers focused on a single specialism. They offer the chance for lawyers to demonstrate how clever they are and they result in lots of original content that can help your practice rank well in search engines.

---

02 April 2013

Manners Matter: Guidelines for Law Firm Newsletters

Amongst its more amusing entries such as the suggestion that a banana should be eaten with a knife and fork instead of “monkey fashion” with ones hands, The Debrett’s Guide to Etiquette and Modern Manners has at its heart some very sensible advice. Most of it boils down to “think of others before yourself”.

---

02 April 2013

Content Habit Experiment Results

Back in February, at the start of Lent, I set out to create a new content writing habit. There where two aims: to improve the performance of our own website, and to learn lessons we could pass on to our clients. The idea was to write a new blog post every day during Lent and this post is a summary of the initial findings.

---

13 March 2013

Law Firm Lessons from the Harlem Shake

The Harlem Shake was a viral video craze that swept the Internet during the month of February 2013. It is remarkable for the speed with which it spread (over 1 billion views in the first month), and the number of times it has been imitated. The BBC estimate there are over 100,000 versions.

---