Last weekend I was at The Nigerian Bar Association, Ibadan Oyo state Nigeria meeting. I had the privilege of speaking to lawyers, some of whom have being practicing for decades as well as young ones. Social media is affecting the dynamics of the way we all operate either as business owner, individual or professional.

Interestingly, the meeting was packed with many who want to know how social media will enhance their practice. I started out by trying to define what social media is and why legal professionals should take advantage of the plethora of online social sites to promote, communicate, and build new business, bond with their clients despite the ethical codes that most Nigerian lawyers say are against advertising.

I went ahead to discuss the time we are in and the necessity for change with the trend. I did maintain that growing numbers of professional networking sites, need for everyone to be where their clients are and the fact that people of all ages are now on the internet have provided an opportunity for lawyers to connect with their present, future clients. In the course of the talk, I also maintained that new and emerging social media trends are extremely important for lawyers.

Lawyers who ignore them do so to the detriment of their practice. I also recommended that depending on the size of the firm, there is a need for at least one staff member to be familiar with emerging Web 2.0 technologies and the ways in which those technologies can help and harm their bottom line. This conclusion is premised on my online research and personal observations.

 The reaction I got was pre-empted, given the fact that I knew that many people are avowed to change. Many of the old lawyers believed that law profession forbids advertisement, marketing of any form. I guess many of them are still confusing advertising with conversation, relationship building, personal branding, personal credibility building. As far as I am concerned, there is no such ethical codes that forbid individuals as well as law firm to have an interactive website, blogs, question and answer free legal advice forum that helps people (who may be potential clients) to understand the law better. All the identified platforms above will increase personal credibility, reputation building, business development, make establishment of solid mutual relationship easy.

While trying to establish these grounds, A senior member of the bar who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria of great repute Barr. Niyi Akintola stood up to give supporting evidence of how just having corporate website for his law firm where he showcases cases he had handled, won has increase his personal and professional credibility internationally. He cited examples of getting calls from abroad to handle some cases in Nigeria. At the end, many of the lawyers were convinced that it is high time they turned in and join the bandwagon to remain relevant.

The lessons I learnt at the end are: There is need to increase advocacy, awareness of professionals, business owners, professional bodies in the effective use of social/new media. For those of us ‘who know how’ to keep quiet is a great injustice, disservice to humanity. 2. People will resist change until they see an urgent need to do adapt.

Yesterday, I was speaking at an annual conference of a youth advocacy group I had the privilege of pioneering about a decade and half years ago. I actually led the group for three years before I committed the assignment to some other individuals who could steer its wheel of progress. This group today (which was predominantly undergraduates then) now has doctorate degree holder, computer scientists among other professionals. I was billed to speak to this group on the topic: Developing marketable skill. The time spent was a great one. When I got to a part of the presentation that requires I ask them the question “how many of them are on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as how to develop right skill in appropriating online social networking sites to their own advantage”, I was shocked to note that many of them say there is no time and it could be a distraction to life.

Not being in the social media cloud today (especially the three that hold the preeminence among them) is tantamount to going the way of losing brand’s relevance, visibility as well as recognition. It does not also make personal/corporate brand memorable. Neither can any brand gains top of the mind status anymore without involvement. It is that bad. With heavy money, the brand may feature in local environment but not any more in the global realm.  Out of sight is becoming out of mind gradually.

Not being in the cloud makes your brand to miss out in the 24/7 conversation.  This may harm or make your brand. I read a statistics that really blew up my mind in this regard. I was informed that social media clouds now are the most popular after the porn sites. Another major point that dawned on me from my researches is that any brand that is not in the cloud now will not be found as people search out for brands( personal, corporate) that they want to engage everyday. When you are not there, you are gone.   You can download /view the presentation slide here

In one of my previous articles here I did mention that most of our brands efforts on the internet here are focused on social media abuse through web advertising in social media platforms.

In recent times, we are pleased to note that changes are taking place from unexpected sources. The non-profits are taking the bull by the horns. A particular example is the social medial virtual effort to promote and create awareness for a leadership conference organized by a non denominational outfit named Daystar Christian Centre in Lagos. The first step taken in this regard is to hire a web designer who is versed in e-marketing, e-commerce tools. The outfit went ahead to create a customized website for the conference outside the official website owned by the brand.

To ensure activities of the conference become viral, the church created a Facebook and Twitter accounts to aid brand awareness and promotion. These will all spread the buzz about the programme. Knowing that distribution of content is also important to make it viral, the outfit encourages its over ten thousand members, who are mostly youth and internet savvy, to join the Facebook homepage, download the profile picture and use it as their profile pictures for the period the programme will last. More importantly, the members are also encouraged to tag their friends and contacts with the programme banner used as profile picture.

With regard to the twitter account, each member is also encourage to follow, tweet the activities of the programme, use harsh tag (#) to create a buzz around their tweets. While we are still monitoring this effort with regards to ROI, measuring the effect of this viral initiative, we for see these efforts going viral if there is a hundred percent compliance from the congregation to instruction given. 

An honest assessment of this effort though is that creating accounts on any platform whatsoever is the beginning of the deal.  There is an absolute need for commitment to continually update status. Mere creation of accounts without a corresponding effort in building emotional attachment with the advocate will not help matter. To retweet, there must be enough information that followers can act on. Also in other to slightly differentiate its social media effort campaign (which has a little disadvantage from permission), efforts must be made to buy in followers at their own term. For those who want to know more about online campaign, they can check this article. A consistent effort can be made to speak glowingly about the benefits of the programme, the quality of the speakers and what attendees stand to gain instead of limiting tweets to registration details as it is currently obtain. The customized created website can also be turned into integrated one that serves as hub for all the viral activities instead of making them a stand alone.

But come to think of it and getting out of academic, professional analysis, this organization pioneering dffort is commendable. This shows the quality of the mind of the leadership of this organization in annexing new trends to spread its message. When many religious organizations are still contemplating the use of computer- that is termed as devil box by many of its kind, Daystar has gone ahead to show the way while many for profit organizations are still spending huge amount of money on web advertising. This is not bad anyway but we are just suggesting a new, effective cost saving way.

# Caveat: I am a big fan of this outfit.

Engagement has become a buzz word now. It is built on trust plus positive perception. We are no longer in the old landscape where customer satisfaction rules. We are now in a new landscape where that is the minimum requirement. Value acceleration is the order of the day. The new landscape has fused marketing with conversation. This entails listening and engaging the customers to be co-creators of the brand.

Participation in web 2.0 and social media is no longer optional for brands, but compulsory-that is for those who see the future from now.

Interestingly whether we are there or not, the conversation continues on the web 2.0 and social media is taking the lead. Though the development is still trying to take off here in our country. But we must note when something has become a vogue, the early entrant will have taken position and plundered the markets/options. Web 2.0 and social media offer greater opportunities for brands to start a conversation. Conversation is the beginning of engagement.

Prior to web 2.0 the only way brand owner get to know about customers complaints, request is through physical contacts or telephone at best. The climate has changed here too .Any brand that ignores web 2.0 now is on its way to obscurity, obsolescence. Out of sight is out of mind now.