0:00
Alina Dallal
Hi everyone and welcome to today's webinar, How Leading Law Firms Build Trust on Social Without Risking Reputation. If I haven't met you before, I am Alina Delal. I am the Content Marketing Manager here at Oktopost and I will be your host today. Before we dive in, I have a couple of quick things from you. We love to hear from you guys during the session, so please drop your questions in the Q and A box as we go and we'll get to them at the end. And don't worry, you'll all get the webinar recording sent straight to your inbox within 24 hours of this webinar. If you head to the Resources tab, you will find blog posts and an ungated guide specifically written for law firms on getting your firm active on social. And you'll also find links to Karen and Phil's LinkedIn profiles in case you want to connect with them in the speaker tab. So feel free to rummage in the resource sections throughout the webinar. And with that, we're going to kick things off. Trust in the legal industry is built through people, clients and recruits. Don't just judge firms, they judge the lawyers that are behind them. So that's why law firms today are under pressure to be more visible LinkedIn, but at the same time, they need to do this without compromising reputation or compliance. And this is where employee advocacy comes in. It can really build trust, but only with the right guardrails in place. Today you'll hear how our panelists are enabling their associates and partners to show up on social confidently without adding risk bottlenecks or brand inconsistency. This is a very, very open conversation. Please grab a coffee, get your notes ready, settle in and join us. And please also feel free to introduce yourselves in the chat if you feel comfortable doing so, sharing what you're working on, what's been working for you this year, and what challenges you're facing. I think you'll find a lot of you can relate to each other and also feel free to drop in your linked profile your LinkedIn profiles in the chat as well so you can connect with each other. So without further ado, I'm going to hand over to our panelists to introduce themselves. They are really the best people to bring on for this webinar and you'll see why shortly. So, Karen, Phil, thank you so much for joining us. Can you both be briefly introduce yourself, your role and how social media and reputation management sits within your responsibilities today? Karen, I'm going to start with you
2:02
Karen Snell
Hi, I'm Karen Snell. I'm chief Business development and Marketing Officer at Kennedy's, which is a global law firm focused primarily on the insurance sector. I spent pretty much my entire career in professional services, marketing and comms. In my current role, I look after all things marketing and business development, which includes being responsible for the firm's reputation and public perception of the firm. So employee advocacy sits very firmly in my remit.
2:33
Alina Dallal
Amazing. Thank you so much, Karen, for joining us. Introducing yourself, Phil, I'm going to pass over to you.
2:39
Philip Tyler
Yeah, sure. I'm Phil. I head up the digital marketing team here at ls and I've been here for about just over four and a half years now and then a history of a few other law firms before that. And my function really is all about the sort of brand design, digital CRM and marketing technology. And here at ls, another law firm. And social very much fits into that, into that bubble. So social media management and strategy and how we go to market through the social media channels, that's very much in my team's reading.
3:14
Karen Snell
And Phil and I once worked together. So this is a lovely opportunity for us to be reunited. We worked together at Hogan levels many years go.
3:22
Philip Tyler
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
3:24
Alina Dallal
It's a real full circle moment. And it wasn't intentional. This just happened to be. So thank you both for introducing yourself. It's a very small world, as you can tell. We're going to kick off with this webinar and jump into the first question. Phil, I'm going to turn to you. I want to ask you first to set the scene for this webinar. In a profession built on trust and reputation, where does employee advocacy add value and where does it make leadership stick? Slightly nervous.
3:50
Philip Tyler
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I think where advocacy adds value is that it reflects that we are in essence a people business. And I think that's a really important component to that. So, you know, strategically what we can do with a really robust advocacy program is really leverage. You know, the great personalities and expertise that our people have and, and showcase those really more effectively. You know, people often connect with other people through social channels, you know, like LinkedIn for example. And so, you know, also the quality of those connections, you know, understandably, as a result are better. So, you know, trying to get in front of your chosen audience a bit more effectively, a well run advocacy program can be, can be really good at doing that. So, you know, there's a few key bits there in terms of how you're sort of choosing to take yourself to market and how that kind of fits with the strategic direction you're taking. I mean, the nervousness is probably unsurprising. You know, it's by virtue of going through that process. Obviously, the risks of somebody stumbling into a scenario or saying the wrong thing. You know, there's a. It isn't necessarily quite as tightly controlled. And so what we obviously do is we put a lot of trust and faith in our people. We, you know, spend as much time with them as we can around, you know, training them and helping them kind of be confident and comfortable in what they're doing around an advocacy program and give the information they need. But of course, ultimately, you know, we. We put ourselves in their hands to a degree. And I think ultimately there's a kind of. There's a trust there and where you know, the rewards, in my opinion, I think for a really robust advocacy program should outrun those risks. So, you know, being sensible and pragmatic comes into that, you know, to a degree.
5:46
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing. And you're right, you can reach more people through it. And with the right guardrails, trust and trainings, which I know we're going to speak about soon, you can really quiet those nerves. But before we get there, I want to ask both of you, from both of your experiences, what. What benefits matter most to law firm leadership? Karen, I'm going to start with you.
6:05
Karen Snell
I think it's really about strategic alignment and demonstrating the strategy in action. So, you know, we're a people business. We haven't got widgets to sell. So really seeing our people kind of embody the culture, the values, the client experience of the firm in a very real and relatable way through LinkedIn. I think also not to underestimate the value of internal engagement through LinkedIn. So, you know, often leadership is talking very much about the vision, the ambition, the strategy of the firm. And you, you know, you do internal town halls, you send people newsletters, but actually seeing that come to life through LinkedIn is a really valuable way for leadership to really enforce the strategic direction of the firm.
6:54
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Phil, I want to turn to you. Do you see similar ones or slightly different?
7:00
Philip Tyler
Yeah, no, remarkably similar, really. You know, I think we want to see sort of the reach and the value of our sort of brand really develop. And, you know, ultimately that our people here are a really great way of achieving that. You know, they're just, like I said earlier, they're great personalities and a great flair that they bring to it. And it is really hard. It's a bit stifling. You know, when a company says about a great culture and they sort of send that messaging out through the website or through other means, it's quite hard to make that really resonate. I think it's quite hard to get that to really land because culture is quite intangible. And I think what where the advocacy program works so well is that you can kind of see in action. You can kind of see the energy and get the vibe from those people and really get a sense of who they are. And I think that makes just a massive difference, obviously, if the culture is genuinely, genuinely there.
7:54
Alina Dallal
Of course, yeah, absolutely. Thank you both for sharing. The next question I want to ask Phil is to you. I was wondering if you could walk us through how content is created, approved and shared in practice and where you've deliberately added structural guardrails.
8:10
Philip Tyler
Sure, yeah. We had to give away all the crown jewels, but the, the. I mean, we have a fairly well established process in reality, as I'm sure you know, I'm sure most people do. The, the kind of process is evolving, though. Like, we're by no means perfect. And I think what we've really tried to get right is thinking more about how sort of content, you know, ladders into bigger strategic stuff. But in terms of the, the way it's created, sense checked and approved, we've kind of got, you know, various groups involved in that process to try and make it as streamlined, as efficient as possible, for obvious reasons, you know, around some of the sensitivities that may be there. So in that regard, I think it's, it's. Is pretty robust and I think is, you know, while there are some improvements, I think it's not too, too far off, you know, when it comes to sort of guardrails and structures. It's more around, you know, just thinking about the audience that we're writing for or that we're talking to really. I think in that sense we try to obviously do, is, you know, encourage things around our tone of V. We're quite transparent about that internally. We try to put in sort of structures and approaches to kind of help people adopt that and understand it and bring good structure to their content, make it very sort of readable and, you know, dare I say, enjoyable for people, you know, to, to engage with. But really, obviously what we want to try and do is make sure we find the kind of, the interesting, valuable points in the content. And I think thinking about your audience, what they find interesting, what they find valuable, what we want to try and do is focus on that. You know, I think the governance aspects and what you do and don't do are fairly well established. We have to obviously make sure we continue to develop and remind people of that. But we really want to make sure that the content is really on point and really thoughtful and really thinking about that audience, really, when we share knowledge.
10:06
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, it's the value that you're providing to your audience and the people that you want to attract. Thank you for sharing that. The next question I want to ask both of you, which I feel like a lot of people that are tuning in with us will relate to, it comes with any advocacy program. But specifically for law firms, I want to ask you both what the biggest points of resistance you've encountered from lawyers, partners or leadership have been and how you've addressed those concerns without slowing everything down. Karen, I'm going to start with you.
10:33
Karen Snell
I'm going to make some sweeping generalizations, so I'll start with leadership. I think generally the leadership of most law firms are from a generation that didn't grow up with social media. So there's sort of an inherent distrust in the value of social media. And you know, we're often asking for pretty significant investment in both platform content development training for lawyers. So I think what we've done there is just pick off, in our case, our senior partner and just really coach him through the benefits for him personally. And so, you know, helping the team would help him to draft posts, help him to actually, you know, update his profile, so literally handhold the leadership through it. And actually he's now an advocate of that, having experience for himself, that his clients take notice, that people around the corridors of our building take notice. And actually he can, you know, he can see for himself that there, there is real benefit to doing it. So that's sort of the leadership layer, I think is an inherited inherent distrust of social media and a resistance to making the investment. I think if you take that partner group, generally for them and their team, the focus is on not doing anything that takes me away from billable work. So I think you've really got to position all of this as a value add activity, not just for them and building their reputation and profile, but for reaching their clients and actually delivering content almost directly to clients that, you know, our thought leadership, our content is a value add to our clients. So this is just another way to get that out in a very efficient way. I think with the final group that you identified with lawyers I think the resistance there can often be just permission to play. They're very familiar with using the platform, they're very comfortable with social media, but they just want to have the reassurance that in a professional context, they are allowed to post, to bring their personality to that. And again, I think, you know, you just pick off individuals, you work with them, and then you use, you know, you build case studies around people. To Phil's point about, you know, with the right guardrails, the right policies and processes in place. So, as I say, sweeping generalizations, but that's been my experience.
12:49
Alina Dallal
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I think it's interesting how you divide it between the three and the different things that everyone needs. And a lot of time it's giving them the confidence as well. Phil, how about you?
13:00
Philip Tyler
Yeah, I mean, remarkably similar, in truth. I mean, I do recognize that, you know, there can be quite a bit time poor and that can be a bit of a challenge to try and make sure that they're able to find the headspace and the time to really be able to sort of participate to any great degree. So I think just trying to break that down a bit for them to kind of enable them to be able to access social media and to be able to sort of build a bit of a profile without it being necessarily too exhaustive. I think, you know, kind of a stepping stone in the right direction, I suppose, to sort of building up the amount of time and effort and hopefully obviously value that comes out of that. And actually, I think, like Karen's alluded to, I think some of the stories, the anecdotal stuff that comes out of it, when you sort of hear about potentially some of the successes and things, I think that can be a real motivator as well. Just to kind of outline that doesn't always happen, but there are great stories to be had from it.
13:57
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. It's them seeing that it can actually work and it's like examples in practice and knowing that the more consistent you get, the closer you are to those outcomes. I definitely agree with that. The next question I want to ask both of you is how do you then help your lawyers find a voice that feels authentic to them while still protecting the firm's standards, tone and reputation. Karen, I'm going to start with you first.
14:23
Karen Snell
I think that the simple answer is training. A little bit of formal training, certainly a good, strong digital team on hand to just help people one to one. Having those guardrails in place, having a very clear brand and tone of voice, anyway, that people can, can interpret and using platforms like Oktopost that, that help people, you know, at least have a starting point so that they, then they can sort of apply their own unique style to something that already is kind of pre approved and can, you know, they can just put their stamp on it then. And I think it is just working directly with lawyers in some instances. You know, if you've got somebody that is super keen then you know, spend some time, get the, get your social media team to spend some time with them, working them, working through it with them and also, you know, monitoring LinkedIn for what people are saying and you know, if there are, if you can provide feedback on some posts, you know, that was great. But actually next time I think it would be much better if you'd have done this and that and just sort of giving them some real time feedback. So I don't think it's an exact science, but I think it's just working with them one to one.
15:31
Alina Dallal
Yes, it definitely isn't an exact science. It changes from place to place, but hearing what works in different places is interesting. So Phil, I want to ask if it's similar for you with the trainings and things like that or you've noticed other things?
15:42
Philip Tyler
Yeah, definitely on the training side. I mean, it's funny actually, I was just thinking then how training has actually evolved certainly in the years that I've been sort of involved in doing the training and sort of helping people. Because, you know, I remember not too long ago, but you know, fair few years ago, it was actually the focus was on the platform, what the platform is, how the platform works. You know, it was almost a kind of platform training when it comes to social media rather than what it is now, which is actually much more of a kind of how can you find your own niche? How can you find, you know, your own way of presenting yourself, building your profile and therefore, you know, building the firm's profile. I think actually that training's evolved relatively quickly, I suppose in that sense. And so that I think Karen is right, it's a application of time and really trying to be present and help them through it. And that feedback loop is really, really helpful because there's kind of those kind of constructive feedback loops, but also just to comment, you know, that you've seen something and that you've seen their post, you've seen their story, seen that input and there's just sort of becomes this, there's a sort of sense of momentum to that, I think, which is they do a bit, they get a Bit of feedback, they notice a bit of traction, they do a bit more and obviously that sort of cascades and again the confidence builds. Right. So then it, it's about giving them the confidence to go forth and do a bit more and be a bit more, you know, be a bit more sort of themselves and kind of take themselves out there. And we obviously really do push for tone of voice and bits and pieces like that. But I, I would, you know, always really want them to be themselves and to be really, you know, don't want it to feel too contrived or structured or, or scripted. It really needs to be them if they're going to do it and participate. It's important that they, they find their own sort of voice as well to a degree.
17:35
Alina Dallal
Absolutely. I think also you can tell when someone's speaking from their point of view and that their voice and who they are or from a brand. So I think what both of you are saying with having that open communication is so important and even telling, telling them the door's always open. Come to me when you have any questions. I think is so important because I think as marketers, and I am guilty of this, I forget people outside of marketing don't know things that to me are basic, but we could flip that the other way and any other department could say the same thing about marketers. I think keeping that door open and making it clear that you're always there for support can help with social media Best practice can help with different things I think is really important which you both have spoken about. Karen, I want to turn to you and ask you this because I know we've spoken about the like different levels as we said in the firm. So how do you decide when having your associates active is the right lever versus when having your executives or partners active in terms of being more effective?
18:33
Karen Snell
I mean in, in very simple terms, anything that's kind of corporate messaging or strategy would, you know, obviously lend itself to a leadership message. And I think often we encourage our leadership to be giving sort of personal observations, you know, if they've been visiting various clients or offices, you know, a little bit of the sort of personal, almost diary stories on where they've been. But I think the associate advocacy bit is super important from us in terms of client engagement. So we're trying to build multi layer relationships with our clients. So it's not always the most senior level contact that we're trying to engage because in 10 years time they're probably retired. And I think it's really important for our associates to build their own networks, to be seen as an authority on their particular area of practice, to be in, to be seen to sort of be engaging with their community. So I think from a client engagement perspective, you know, we want all of our associates out there and engaging with their networks at all levels. But yeah, as I say, that more kind of corporate firm wide messaging is very clearly coming from leadership.
19:46
Alina Dallal
Thank you, Isha. I think it's interesting to hear how you're doing it there and finding the right people for the, for the right messages to put out there, which I think is an important thing for anybody in different firms. But then with that, I want to ask you, have you seen or noticed any tangible outcomes that your associates or partners have experienced from being active on LinkedIn, whether that's through what you're passing to them or for them in their career?
20:07
Karen Snell
Well, I mean, as I mentioned, our senior partners noticed it and I think he was almost surprised at the beginning where he was like, you know, I went into a client meeting today and they referenced my LinkedIn post because people, people see, he was almost surprised at the impact it had. So definitely, you know, that is, you know, one anecdote that, you know, it's actually seen in action. There was a story where, you know, again, you know, these, these are all kind of anecdotes, case studies. But a partner told a personal story online, and although it wasn't anything to do with his area of expertise, actually it prompted a contact to comment and then reach out to sort of say, you know, it's been a long time, we should grab a coffee. And then as a result of that reintroduction, then, you know, a few months down the line, he got an instruction from that. So I think that's, you know, it doesn't always have to be about the corporate messaging. It could be about something that you were personally passionate about, but it's just that opportunity to reconnect with people. So those are two anecdotes that immediately spring to mind.
21:17
Alina Dallal
They're amazing stories to hear. And also to hear them be so delighted and happy that that's created such a positive outcome for them is so important. And then taking those stories and sharing them with the firm also. So with that, I know we've spoken about experiences that people have had. I want to talk data. So when leaders asks you guys, is this actually worth it? What data or signals do you point to? And how do you avoid focusing on vanity metrics? Phil, I'm going to start with you.
21:46
Philip Tyler
Yeah, I mean, it's actually funny how just kind thinking about that point you've just raised there, Karen, about the sort of feedback and when they sort of do share a bit more of a personal touch, it's amazing how much impact that can have in terms of building the kind of momentum and confidence because I think people do resonate with those and they kind of really connect with those stories and that can actually be as effective as any data point, quite frankly. Sometimes that can be a real, a real bonus. But I mean, you know, when it comes to sort of strict measurement, obviously we sort of centrally, as such, we use the data we can get our hands on to keep ourselves honest and monitor our own performance and just make sure we're kind of keeping tabs on what we do, how we do it, making sure that it kind of is sort of hitting the mark that we want it to. So that's the sort of data that we sort of take away and necessarily disseminate too widely. But we certainly try to make informed decisions off the back of that or certainly inform judgments. Really what we wanted to do in terms of reporting back to the business being a bit more transparent, basically holding ourselves accountable is really trying to connect our system. So it's a bit of a technical point, but sort of, for example, in Oktopost and the social BI stuff, you know, connecting that with our CRM, being able to kind of funnel our sort of social data into other data to sort of start collating that and painting a bit of a picture, you know, we're really trying to push on real sort of tangible outcomes. So looking at sort of conversions as they're defined in the platform, like what, what social activity have we as a firm or primarily individuals taken through our advocacy program? And how has that led to specific action to converting, you know, through forms, submitting for events, joining communities that we've got, for example, so we're able to kind of actually connect those dots and sort of show the impact sort of say, actually you as an individual have, you know, led to the, this set of action, these steps that people have taken. And actually I think I just takes it a step forward because historically it's always been a kind of like, oh, how many people have seen it, or, you know, just a general generic kind of like, you know, what's the reach kind of kind of vibe. And it, it's hard to get a kind of real sense of value. So what we are trying to do is work towards that, make it a kind of core metric in terms of actually generating more opportunities and, and really sort of showing its worth and its value and holding ourselves accountable to that.
24:14
Alina Dallal
Right.
24:14
Philip Tyler
We're asking them to spend time doing it. We're asking them to make a commitment. It's only fair that we try to measure that fairly and give them a kind of a good view of how that's going.
24:24
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. I think as well as sharing these stories that we're talking about actually showing people the results and the data in a way that they can understand and speaking their language rather than saying things like, oh, we reach this many people showing them shameless plug. If you have a tool like Oktopost where that impacted somebody in the customer journey, and showing them those results not only will prove the value of your program for you, but also will help them understand where, where they benefit from it and really see it, and so they continue doing it. But Karen, how about you?
24:54
Karen Snell
I mean, I think you can get a little bit lost in the data. I think the reality is that a lot of that data only really matters to people in marketing. You know, the, the, it's, it's back to that sort of qualitative that, you know, those case studies, those examples where people have really felt the impact. So gathering as much of those sort of anecdotal stories, I think, you know, as much as you can get lost in the data, I think you've also got to view social media a little bit like your website. Right. Like any credible organization that doesn't have a website immediately, you know, it would just be a very odd thing. So I think you just have to accept that social media is part of the marketing mix now. And not having a very active social media, both at a sort of corporate page level and an employee advocacy level, just would look odd. You know, we know, for example, probably one of the first things that any procurement manager does in a pitch is look up all of the people that are on the pitch document on LinkedIn. And if we do it when we're recruiting, right. What's one of the first things you do when you see somebody's resume pass over your desk? You look at them on LinkedIn to see if you've got any connections. So I think we just have to accept that even without the metrics, that not having a social media presence is almost conspicuous by its absence. But then one point I did want to mention in terms of metrics and data, 1, 1 metric that we have set for ourselves, and it actually is now going to be baked into our strategic plan. So as I said at the outset, reputation is part of my. The firm's reputation is part of my remit and baked into our strategic plan now is a metric which says that we want to reach 20% of our employees active on LinkedIn as one of our metrics. And that almost gives some top down credibility to what we're trying to do in terms of the program. So it's there as a measure of the firm's success, which I think is a huge step forward.
26:59
Alina Dallal
Absolutely. It's really important to have these goals in place that you can see how you're growing. Thank you for sharing. I think both of you have shared from different and similar angles how you can use the data to keep pushing forward and the qualitative stories and case studies as well. Before we wrap up, I can't believe we're at this last question already, but there's one more question I want to ask you guys. Now is the time to anyone listening if you want to drop a question for our panelists in the Q and A to drop them now. But before we get there, I wanted to ask both of you, as a concluding thought, thoughts for legal BDMC teams considering employee advocacy, but still maybe feeling a little bit cautious, what is the safest and most effective first step you would recommend? Phil, I'm going to start with you.
27:43
Philip Tyler
Yeah, sure. So I mean, I think in many ways I think starting slowly and perhaps starting with those who you sort of sense are going to most open to taking it on and being proactive about it is a good first step. Because I think what you want are going to get out of that is the sort of, as Karen's alluded to. Right. Sort of some of the anecdotes and some of the kind of feedback and it's very much a two way thing. I think in that regard it's, it's not a kind of one way push. So I think starting slowly and sort of building in that kind of, you know, a process for people kind of getting up and running, starting slowly, just being on the platform, participating, commenting, liking, for example, when building their confidence and building up to sort of sharing content, having, you know, sharing their insights and their knowledge and sort of their personalities. Right?
28:32
Alina Dallal
Yeah.
28:33
Philip Tyler
And I think it will build. What you'll notice is it will come and as you get more and more will then want to join and then it will continue to build and you'll get that kind of momentum going and then in many ways it will sort of build itself. So it's just about taking those first steps really.
28:47
Alina Dallal
Absolutely. We always say Oktopost, that advocacy is a marathon, not sprint. So definitely at the beginning, when you're getting everything started and you're getting everything going, to really focus on that select group of active people and then letting it grow naturally as you're saying, Phil. So thank you for sharing that. Karen, how about you?
29:05
Karen Snell
I would agree with everything that Phil says. I think, you know, shameless plug, but Oktopost have been, you know, a fantastic help for us on our journey in terms of employee advocacy and sort of learning from your experience, both within the legal sector and other sectors as just, it's just been a really, you know, a guiding hand, which has been great. I also think having somebody on your team that's really passionate, you know, on the marketing team that's really passionate about doing this and sort of, you know, takes this as, as, as their baby, really, and has got a passion for driving it forward. And I'm very lucky to have Jenny Sim, who I think is on the call. So shout out to Jenny because she's, you know, doing a fantastic job, is very passionate about the benefits of employee advocacy and it is really, you know, my voice out to the firm in making sure that we deliver on it.
29:58
Alina Dallal
Amazing. Well, shout out to Jenny also. And we're so honored to be able to support both of you in your journeys with your employee advocacy programs. Thank you so much for joining me and answering all these questions. You've shared so much that I know loads of people have so much to take away from this conversation. I'm going to leave this up here for a moment. If anybody wants to connect with Karen or Phil on LinkedIn, you can either click on the resources section, there's a link right there, or you can scan the QR code from your phone. And then we're going to head into the Q&A. A. I can see questions started coming through. Okay, we have a question that says, what types of content have you seen resonate most in terms of credibility with the team and the audience?
30:42
Karen Snell
I would say it's horses for courses, really. I think that there's, there's. I know it's a bit of a fudged answer, but it's. And this, I think, is sometimes the challenge of a corporate page for a firm per se, because you're trying to appeal, particularly as a law firm, you're trying to appeal to so many disparate audiences. So, you know, if I look at what our healthcare practice is doing to appeal to sort of a public sector audience versus what our corporate commercial practice is doing to appeal to general counsel, it's very, It's. That's kind of difficult. So we're looking at different channels for different audiences and very curated content that plays directly to that audience. I think that that approach, which helps with internal engagement as well. Right. Because it's content that I understand. I understand how it will resonate with my audience. So I'm much happier with posting that than some sort of generic corporate post that really doesn't really matter, you know, matters probably to my team, but not necessarily to my clients. So I think really understanding your audience and the content that you will. That one, they are going to engage with, but two, you want to communicate with them. So I think it has to be audience by. By audience.
32:01
Philip Tyler
Yeah, I'd agree with actually, because it really does. There's a real mix because, for example, we've seen really great stories around, for example, our parental policy that we introduced, which, you know, was quite groundbreaking really for us. And to sort of bring that through. And that generated a lot of activity. It was very sort of people coming through with actually how much of an impact it had on their lives, how, you know, how much of an effect it had. And I think actually because it resonated with people generally as a sort of, you know, a very sensible thing to have done and to have changed and to enabled. I think it just sort of. It took off, but. And similarly, you know, less on the kind of personal side when it, you know, we've done a lot of commentary, for example, recently around the Employment Rights act and all the kind of impact on the workforce, the changes. And again, because it's very. The content, the formats themselves, obviously different formats lend themselves to different types of content and what sort of stories you're trying to tell. But I think it's the bringing in. Bringing through the kind of the hook and the kind of what. The kind of, you know, why people would actually care and why it matters and what the kind of difference is really seems to kind of resonate because that's what people are kind of are able to take away with them. I think that's kind of the key bit for some of the content that works quite well.
33:14
Karen Snell
Also, I think linking back to that earlier point around data, you know, experiment with different types of content. Is it video that's cutting through more? Is it sort of those carousel items? Or is it a very personal perspective on something? Actually, are you getting more engagement by commenting on somebody else's post? So I think that's where those. That, you know, that those data points can be really helpful. It's not just the subject matter of the content. But it's how you deliver that content. I think, you know, LinkedIn has in particular has had a big push on profiling video, for example, which would indicate that, you know, that's in terms of the algorithm, you know, those videos are appearing higher in people's feed. So I think you just got to experiment a little until you find something that you're comfortable with and is actually cutting through to the audience you want to reach.
34:04
Alina Dallal
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. We've had a few more questions trickle in, so I'm going to try power through them. Somebody also asked, what are the non negotiable governance controls you see top law firms putting in place before they scale social activity?
34:20
Karen Snell
I mean, I personally think it's about, you know, and it's almost the same as any professional conduct. Right. You wouldn't say something in a meeting room with a client that you would think that is suitable online. So I think, you know, for lawyers it's the usual standards of professional conduct and it's basically, don't be an idiot, you know, this, this will never disappear. It's out there and publicly. So I just think you have to hold yourself to the same professional standards online as you would in person at a very basic level.
34:51
Philip Tyler
Yeah, yeah. It comes back to that kind of sensible, pragmatic approach. Right. Just exactly as Karen said, it's. It doesn't really change in terms of what the expectations are of you and how you sort of conduct yourself. So those standards should really be there.
35:05
Alina Dallal
Yeah, absolutely. I think also there are other ways to reinforce it if you're not physically there with social media policies and you can do on demand trainings and things like that that we've already discussed. Again, also shameless plug with a tool like Oktopost, you can also, if there are things you're worried about, you can ban certain words. So a post can't be put out of certain words, are there. You can also give your advocates different levels of permissions of whether they can edit pre approved content you've put up or if they have free reins to post as they want or if you want it to be quite restricted. So there are also workarounds with the right tool as well. We got another question that we haven't actually touched upon. Someone asked that. They said they're not only trying to protect reputation, they're also under pressure to grow new client revenue. Can you share examples if you have any of how social activity has directly contributed to winning new clients? I know, Karen, you mentioned a story before, but they're looking for Winning new clients, not just reinforcing the existing relationships is what they're asking.
36:11
Karen Snell
I mean, my focus has always been really on reinforcing existing relationships. Phil, I don't know if you've got an example where you've used it in that way. I know, you know, there's a lot in terms of market segmentation. So, you know, if you've got a specific audience that you are targeting, you can work with LinkedIn and Sales Navigator to identify particular segments, particular job titles that you want to reach out to. But again, my personal view is, you know, we all see them. It's like, you know, those cold call emails that you get in your LinkedIn inbox, actually sort of micro targeting those contacts with relevant content I think is much more powerful than just spamming them with, you know, can we have an introductory meeting? But I think that LinkedIn has some pretty powerful tools in terms of defining both target companies and target job titles. I'm in a fortunate position that we're not necessarily using LinkedIn in that sort of pursuits model. We're using it much more to reinforce existing relationships.
37:16
Philip Tyler
I mean, I'd probably echo that to be fair. It's, you know, in terms of sort of targeting ads and kind of extending your reach and sort of really kind of trying to target specific audiences and roles. It generally always comes through with, you know, informative content and knowledge that we're trying to promote. It isn't. It isn't that kind of slightly sort of cold sell? And I guess in that sense it's a bit of a longer game in the sense of you, you continuing to participate, demonstrate your kind of expertise and your authority in that, in that way and being present and continuing that process are sort of builds like you were saying earlier, Karen, people then they come across you, then they'll sort of look you up if they're going to, you know, try to understand a bit more about you and what you do understand, you know, what you really bring to the table. So it's, we don't, bit like you can, we don't necessarily use it in that, in that sense. I know that LinkedIn does offer those tools and that's not to say we wouldn't head in that direction at some stage, but it's not been the priority.
38:16
Karen Snell
But we have experimented with some paid LinkedIn activity to support specific campaigns. I haven't got the stats to hand, but we have seen, you know, sort of increased levels of engagement when we have done some sort of paid ads on LinkedIn.
38:34
Alina Dallal
Amazing. Thank you both for Sharing. We also got another question from Hillary. How do you keep lawyers engaged over time once the initial excitement wears off? I feel like this is something that everybody guilty as well. I see it as well. Everyone sees it. It could be seasonal, it's anything. People are busy. So how have you kept your lawyers engaged over time?
38:54
Karen Snell
I mean, I think it's the same with any marketing activity. We have it with our client listening program that's sort of flavor of the month for a while and then it will be employee advocacy and then it will be, I don't know, website bios. I think just as a BDM marketing function, you just have to keep front of mind with all of these things and almost have your internal campaigns rotating through all of the different marketing and BD disciplines. And then the storytelling, I think the storytelling internally is incredibly powerful. So when you've got one of those case studies, although those stories of success, it gives you an opportunity to profile that through internal communications, tell the story and then people will just keep re engaging. But I think it's a long game, right? It's never a one and done. You've just got to keep reminding and reinforcing.
39:44
Philip Tyler
I do actually think that's right. You know, the application of effort and time in reality I think is really key because I think as soon as you sort of keep your hands off it for a bit too long, you'll notice it's sort of, the activity starts to sort of drop a little bit. So there isn't, there is definitely a need to continue to do the feedback loops, keep in touch with groups, small groups, individuals, you know, depending on their need. So it is a bit of application of time and effort but that ultimately if it like if you sort of ladder it into bigger campaigns, bigger set, you know, bigger set pieces, bigger sort of strategic elements, I think actually that does help it maintain and become sticky. And I think over time, hopefully people, it becomes baked into the their psyche and it's part of the norm. It's all part of that kind of process around profiling themselves in the firm. But time and effort on that one,
40:32
Karen Snell
on that point of baking it in Phil, I think, you know, you need to start baking a lot of this stuff into your lawyer training programs from the get go. So when trainees walk through the door that, you know, things like LinkedIn are just part and parcel of their day to day life as a lawyer. So I think working with your learning and development and your HR teams to make sure this is, you know, baked into those internal training programs is a way to also keep it top of mind. It's not just, it's not just a marketing and BD activity. It's something that the learning and development and HR can reinforce.
41:05
Alina Dallal
Yes, thank you for sharing that. We've got another question. Someone picked up on our conversation, said, as you're both Oxbow's customers, what would your advice be to any of us looking to work with the team and platform and knowing what you know now, if you knew, knew when you first rolled out the platform, what would you do differently?
41:25
Karen Snell
Well, I'm, I'm going to defer to Phil because we're still at the very early stages of ours, so I'm sure that we're going to learn some lessons along the way. But I think just, you know, in terms of us engaging with Oktopost, we had a very clear kind of what rfp. So we knew what we wanted to achieve. We're very clear on our objectives, we were very clear on where Kennedy's currently is, what we wanted to achieve. And we went out to a number of suppliers and ultimately chose Oktopost. But I think being very clear on what you're trying to achieve before you even engage is super, super important. But as I say, we're at the early stages of our rollout, so if you ask me the question again in a year, I'll have pearls of whiskey.
42:05
Alina Dallal
I'll call you up in a year and ask you again.
42:08
Philip Tyler
Yeah, I mean, actually, to be fair, I think with the benefit of hindsight, I think what we tried to do here was sort of really take, take it on internally and didn't make use of the kind of great resources and input that the Oktopost team could have offered us at the time, particularly in terms of its sort of rollout and its push out to the teams. We sort of operated this kind of train, the trainer model and then looked to roll that through to the different teams and for good reason at the time and, and I would still want a bit of that, but I do think actually we could have just made much more use of the October expertise and, and, you know, personalities there to kind of bring it to life and to kind of, you know, introduce it. So I think just not being afraid of doing that. I think it's just not that kind of relationship we'd have with many suppliers in terms of, you know, baking them that close into the team and into the process. And what I would say is, you know, we've got, I think, you know, a pretty good program, but by no means perfect. And so we're still ultimately still learning on it and I think still coming back to the Oxford team to learn more. I think in terms of the rollout, I think we took a very sort of organic approach. So we targeted very specific individuals and teams to start with who we felt we would get the most traction with and then looked to kind of build it out from there so that we could kind of other teams would understand that they're using this tool and they can also use it and you'd start that kind of word of mouth approach. So it didn't feel like we were imposing it on people. We were kind of allowing people to access this tool which would make their life much easier and yada, yada, yada. And that did work, right? That worked. We got the momentum, we got, we've got hundreds and hundreds on board now. So that's, that's works very effectively. But what it didn't necessarily allow us to do was to make great use of things like some of the data and the leaderboard because we couldn't kind of go out and go, oh, look, here are our top advocates. Aren't they great when, you know, a good chunk of the business isn't involved or isn't, doesn't have access because that would be grossly unfair on them. They can't get on the leaderboard if they're not involved.
44:12
Karen Snell
Yeah.
44:12
Philip Tyler
So there was a bit of kind of having to just play a little bit with the messaging and the comms around it and just kind of bring people into the fold. But now, you know, you can reach that tipping point and it's kind of gone through. I think perhaps I would have arguably come at it a little bit more structured in, in that way.
44:30
Alina Dallal
Thank you for sharing and it's been amazing to see both of your advocacy programs grow. And as I said before, we're really honored to partner with you on the journey. The next question I have is. Let's see, there's another one. Do you see social leadership coming more from marketing, BD or individual partners?
44:52
Philip Tyler
Oh, that's a good question.
44:57
Karen Snell
Shall I fudge it again and say all of them? Like all of the above?
45:02
Alina Dallal
You can say that. That's an allowed answer.
45:04
Karen Snell
Genuinely. No. No. Playing back, in all seriousness, playing back to, you know, what I referenced earlier about us putting a metric into our strategic plan that, you know, that that top down approach really gives everybody permission to play and gives. So I do, you know, having that, that top down approach, I think for me is a pretty powerful way to approach it.
45:30
Philip Tyler
I mean, I consider myself very lucky, really, in the sense that we have, you know, for example, Joe Farmer, one of our managing partners, is incredibly active and out there and really, you know, ablaze is a trail in that sense of sort of demonstrating what good can look like, you know. And so in that it's been quite helpful, I suppose, is that, yes, individuals have sort of been doing that and leading, leading by example. And we've been able to sort of look to them. You know, there's Sal in Manchester as well, for example. Sally Olson is. It's a really kind of good Senior advocates for us who hands up. I'll confess we haven't had to do too much work within reality to kind of get them there. So that's been very. We're very fortunate in that sense that we've kind of got really good examples. But what's been really important as well for us is to make sure that everyone's got the same access and information and understanding of what we're doing and how we're trying to make that work. So it doesn't necessarily feel like it's pigeonholed or just for a sort of privileged group of people. It's. We have an approach, we have a model that we're trying to tackle, a strategy around leaning into advocacy. So those individuals and those teams who want to help us blaze that trail and create those case studies and those stories like Brilliant will happily dovetail off the back of that and use that as a way of making others more comfortable and being able to access it.
46:58
Karen Snell
But I would caution a little bit on some of the leadership pieces. I think we've all seen examples. If you see leadership posting too often, it often opens you up for a little bit. Well, them and the firm up for a little bit of criticism. So I think you've got to be mindful of the balance and the volume of content being pushed out by leadership.
47:20
Alina Dallal
Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I'm going to wrap up with this one last question that is talking more about leadership. We got sent in the Q and A. How do you manage partner expectations on social media? We often have partners who want posts going out on our corporate LinkedIn page, whereas we know that they'll be. They'll get better engagement if posting it on their own profile. Do you find it difficult to manage this?
47:43
Karen Snell
I wish Jenny could answer this because I guess she's the one that's on the front line dealing with this all day, every day and seems to have a good handle on it. So it's not something that's particularly come across my radar. But again, a platform like Oktopost allows us to have that freedom to do a little bit of both. So you can be very clear about what the curated content for the corporate channel is, but still give people the opportunity to, you know, to easily post on their personal profiles without having to be a repost from the corporate channel.
48:21
Philip Tyler
I 100% agree with that. Like, it's, I really love that kind of thing because it's actually the approach where individuals and, or individuals within a team and they kind of come around content and really sort of share it with their connections. Obviously, you know, the quality of the connections that they have and the ability to reach more of an audience that they want to reach. Having something like Oktopost has enabled us to kind of bring some of that data to the table to help make that point, to kind of go, the firm profile can post this stuff, you know, as long as we, it fits in with our kind of schedule and expectation on what we want to say, how we want to say it, and to make sure there's a, you know, a good, decent presentation of the firm. Because it's absolutely right that we should be putting our best foot forward to show the best from across, across the firm, to make sure everyone really understands that there's, you know, there's, there's lots to us. But as individuals, you can go up to market on your profile and share that content and get that messaging out as soon as you like and bring your team around that and kind of help to kind of make that land. I think the data does help to reiterate that so we can kind of help make that point. And then what we have found over time, to be fair, is that it's given us that little bit more space for the firm profile. So as the advocacy program has bedded in and built, built momentum and built numbers, we are finding it's not entirely, you know, done and dusted, but we are finding less reliance on the firm profile to do that heavy lifting. So that it does give us a bit more kind of breathing room to kind of go, right, well, actually, what do we want say, how do we want to kind of bring ourselves to market? What do we want to cover? Because we have a bit more, you know, a bit more headroom to do that.
49:58
Alina Dallal
Yeah. Amazing. Thank you, both of you for joining me and also for answering everything in the Q and A. We are going to wrap up now, so thank you so much. To anybody who had any questions that we didn't get to answer, please feel free to send them over to us. And we'll reach out to the one to those of you whose questions weren't answered in this panel. And we will see you all again soon. Thank you, both of you, to Phil and Karen, for joining me.
50:23
Karen Snell
Thank you.
