Another week has passed, and another group of people have started using new internet technology to connect with others and build business.  Hopefully, that group of people includes some lawyers.  Welcome to part 9 of our blog series on social media for attorneys.  This week we will focus on your public relations department.

Odds are, if you are an attorney looking to grow your practice, you are engaged in some sort of public relations effort.  Either you do a little PR yourself, you work in a law firm that has a PR department, or you outsource your public relations work to a firm that specializes in that type of work.  The most popular one is most likely the third, let the pros handle it.  But the many areas of social media are so new that even the pros need to catch up.

You can use your ever evolving knowledge of the social media landscape to make sure that whoever is handling your public relations efforts are well informed and doing all that they can do to help you grow.  Call them in for a meeting and let them know that you want to go after the online marketplace.  Tell them that you expect to spread the word about your practice through new media, and that they can help you out in many ways.

In a recent poll, “Public Relations” was voted as the number one industry with the most opportunity in the social media landscape.  It is clear that the social media experts can see the positive effects that the social web can have in PR.  Do the PR firms see it yet?

Here are some things that your public relations team can be doing in the social media landscape:

1. Using Technorati, Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, and others to comb the web for mentions of your name, your firm, or other news that relates to you.

2. Joining groups on Facebook and other networks that can provide leads for articles, stories, reports, studies, and books.

3. Sign up for automated alerts from various niche networks in the legal community to find newsworthy events and stories.

4. Actively reach out to Twitter users and Social Network members with information regarding your online efforts.

5. Help create viral marketing efforts through interesting stories spread across networks like the blogs, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and other bookmarking services.

There are many ways to take advantage of the social media space in public relations, and you need to be sure that whoever you hire is using this space to their advantage.  At this moment, the number of lawyers trying to grow their business in a stale market is greater than ever.  Those who take advantage of new media channels, and cutting edge technology, will be on the winning side in the longer term.  Making sure that your Public Relations department (in house or outsourced) is following up on your own online strategy is a major step to getting your name out there.

Other Social Media News: This blog series was mentioned as a resource in an article on blogging for lawyers.  To read the article, click here.  Also, this blog series was used as a reference for an article on hiring a social media manager for your organization.  To read that article, click here.

Past Installments of this Series:
Part One – Intro to Social Media for Attorneys
Part Two – Signing up for the Networks
Part Three – Using Blogs as an Information Source
Part Four – Start Blogging Today
Part Five – Introduction to Twitter
Part Six – Introduction to LinkedIn
Part Seven – Networks as a Communication Tool
Part Eight – Submit Yourself to Blog Catalogs