Exemplary Twitter usage by employment boutique CM Murray LLP

Posted on 7 November 2011

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:

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.