Talkwalker reveals that while larger larger law firms are no strangers to social conversations across the major networks, blogs and online news, they are being outmanoeuvred by smaller contenders.
The analysis also highlights the UK’s most socially successful law firm - Taylor Wessing - the UK’s social media legal champion, thanks to its structured community management and engagement efforts such as regular tweeting, leveraging off live events and varying content.
Not only does the company take the time to tweet more regularly than its competitors, (422 tweets in December in comparison with just 67 for Freshfields and 61 for DLA Piper respectively) which in turn prompts valuable re tweets from its followers, it also leverages news and events, for instance live tweeting during a “Women in Business” event which generated sizeable social engagement. (Appendix A).
Small Firms Come First in Audience Engagement
When measured by the number of people wanting to share their content, talk about and engage with them, Bird & Bird, Brodies, Pannone, Mishcon de Reya and Taylor Wessinggenerate more engagement than any of their larger peers.
Brodies outperforms its larger competitors with a different strategy, by retweeting the content of others rather than producing that much of its own.Bird & Bird succeeds by attracting many social mentions, with double the audience impressions of their closest competitor (measured by the total number of people who see their tweets), suggesting they are followed by influential people who help them extending their audience, despite the fact that they have the 3rd lowest number of followers of all firms monitored.
Four out of the five major law firms show strong performance in their overall share of voice, thanks to their ability to generate news. In order of content generation, Clifford Chance comes first, followed by Allen Overy and Linklaters
(Share of overall conversation (right), social media only (centre), Twitter feed only (left))
But the picture changes when discourse and engagement are measured. Taylor Wessing jumps from 6th to 1st. It changes once again when twitter feeds are examined. Taylor Wessing stays at #1 and smaller firms like Mishcon de Reya and Bird & Bird jump up to 3rd and 4th respectively.
Says Robert Glaesener, CEO Talkwalker;
“In the social world, expression, dedication and opinion denote success. Not stature. Firms with a lower brand recognition and an eye on the future, are operating structured social media strategy and outperforming larger firms with good community management on increasingly important social channels”.
“These firms know that ignoring social media is like letting the phone ring, that social media is where conversations are held, opinions are galvanized and business is forged”.
Overall, law firms appear to be taking steps to capitalise on current events and hot topics, such as the #Britishlegalawards;
Appendix A
