The Law Society represents solicitors in England and Wales. From negotiating with and lobbying the profession's regulators, government and others, to offering training and advice, it exists to help, protect and promote solicitors across England and Wales.
Having worked on numerous consultancy and development projects for The Law Society over several years, they approached us to provide community management training to a large group of staff as they wanted to introduce community effectively across the whole organisation. A number of key outcomes were required:
- Clarity of purpose needed to be established
- Processes and responsibilities needed to be refined
- Staff needed alignment and support on their social media efforts
- The Law Society wanted to maximise engagement opportunities on LinkedIn and beyond
- An understanding of moderation good practice and practice handling difficult situations was key
The training
The Law Society trainees spent 3 weeks in an online community environment, learning:
- The basic foundations of online community and social media
- How to engage with community members in a constructive way for the community as well as the organisation
- How to refine a social media policy to give staff confidence and encouragement for listening and responding
- The relationship between content and community, and between staff and members
- Working with key influencers
- Moderation
The outcome
“You simply cannot beat good old fashioned customer service and building relationships.”
“If we're not clear on the… 'What is the purpose' question, we could find that we're not getting the benefits out of our engagement with social media that we should be.”
"Using social media in a customer service capacity is absolutely essential. This is obviously very applicable to commercial operations, but all types of organisations could make the most of it."
“Everyone has a right to voice their opinions and we shouldn't be seen to be restricting people's freedom to air their views.”
"From my conversations with solicitors I've never heard of anyone complaining about the Law Society communicating too much!"
“Most don't want anything material from me, but they do want a feeling that they are valued, that they have a relationship with the Law Society (i.e. we care), and that individually they are part of a bigger picture.”
“I think it's going to be vital to create a community area on the Law Society domain for us to really get the full benefit from social media. Otherwise we'll be left with a lot of disparate channels with no central hub.”