Facebook for Lawyers - Wolfe Law Group, LLC

If you want to see a firm that is using Facebook effectively as a marketing and communication tool, look at the Wolfe Law Group, LLC.  They have done a fine job with Facebook and incorporated some innovative and unusual features such as the JD Supra feeds.

The Wolfe Law Group has a Construction law practice with offices in New Orleans, Louisiana and Seattle, Washington and a big presence on Facebook.

First off, they have set up a fan page rather than a regular Facebook page.  Regular Facebook pages are limited to 5000 followers but fan pages can have unlimited followers.  The Wolfe Law Group is not pushing 5000 followers yet, but they are apparently planning for the future.  If you are a law firm, that is a smart thing to do - a fan site is far more appropriate and you won't be limited.

As is appropriate for a fan site, their news feed gives information and announcement related to the firm.  Nothing unusual here.  They do a nice job of choosing announcements that are generally interesting. They post regularly, but not every day so there is a steady stream of information but it is not overwhelming.  Based on what I'm seeing, they could probably get away with posting even more often, perhaps with some lighter, interesting items to keep people interested.

Their Info tab is sparse, but certainly provides the basic information.  They promote their website elsewhere on the site with links but for some reason there is no link (just a text mention) of the firm website.  [Update:  I'm not sure that I had anything to do with this but going back to the Wolfe Firm's FB page today, the Info tab does have their firm website as a link.]

Under the Photos tab, you get the impression that this group is professional but has fun.  They also do a nice job of showing off some charitable work done with Habitat for Humanity.  Given that they have offices in New Orleans, I have no doubt that is a cause near and dear to their heart.

Next comes the really interesting and unusually in the Boxes and Documents tab, the Wolfe Law Group has been creative.  Under Boxes, they have two news feeds.  One an RSS Connect Construction Law Monitor and a JD Supra News Construction Law feed.  This gives them a running feed of new information on Construction Law.  Under the Documents tab they have a table of JD Supra construction law documents.

Very interesting and creative use of Facebook by the Wolfe Law Group, LLC. Much luck and many followers to you!

- Peter H. Berge

Comments (4)

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further facebook
written by Adrian Lurssen, April 28, 2009

I should say, too: JD Supra is on Facebook - join us there!

http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/JD-Supra/76802356496

:-)

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The Power of Facebook Business Pages
written by Adrian Lurssen, April 28, 2009

Peter,

Thank you for this coverage. I am a conference in San Francisco as I write this. The speaker (Aaron Stout) literally just said: "Are your customers on Facebook? With 200 million people there, I bet they are."

This holds true for lawyers and law firms. If Facebook hasn't been known for its professional dimension (versus Linkedin) that is by no means the same thing as saying "professionals aren't on Facebook." It just means that they haven't been shown how to use the site in a professional context.

I think the newly designed Facebook Business Pages change that. Your coverage is well-received.

The power is in the connection between a page and its fans. Every time Wolfe Law Group updates its status on that terrific Facebook Page of theirs, the news item appears in the extraordinarily personal stream of every Fan (every person who has become a fan of the page). Wolfe Law Group is able to broadcast its news into one of the most highly engaged "online streams" available to them today - the Facebook news stream.

Equally powerful: whenever anyone "engages" with Wolfe in Facebook (likes a link, comments on a post, tags a photo) all of their connections are made aware of it. This broadcast channel grows as its readers respond to it.

Its all about the content. Any law firm can expand its horizons on Facbook simply be creating and delivering interesting content.

I've written about the power of FB on JD Supra's blog ("You Should be on Facebook...) here: http://snurl.com/gxsr5

Thank you also for including JD Supra's Facebook apps in your story. I wanted to clarify that in this case Wolfe is using JD Supra Docs - an app that tethers their Facebook page and *their* portfolio of work on JD Supra. "Documents" shows Wolfe Law Groups portfolio - those are the firm's documents only.

JD Supra Docs allows anyone participating on the site to publish their portfolio of legal work on Facebook. Our other app, JD Supra Legal News, allows anyone on Facebook to stream legal news by subject. Those documents are organized, again, by subject - and reflect the work posted by everyone.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=26217609291
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=62496313536

Wolfe Law Group is ahead of the curve in terms of understanding how to to make the most of these online tools - your picked a great example for your piece.

Thanks,
Adrian Lurssen

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Test
written by Peter Berge, April 27, 2009

Testing the comments section, again....

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Test Comment
written by Brendan Chard, April 27, 2009

Test Comment

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