The Rainmaker Blog : Law Firm Marketing and Business Development : The Rainmaker Institute : Stephen Fairley : Professional Legal Marketing

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Oh, the irony.

The day after I blogged last week about a real-life example of someone finding an attorney via that lawyer’s blog posts, the ABA puts out a story saying that people don’t really use blogs that much to find attorneys.

According to a recent ABA survey, 46 percent of the folks surveyed say they go to a trusted source like a family member or friend to find an attorney.  That certainly comes as news to no one.  Referrals continue to play a huge part in new business for attorneys because they are based on trust.

Asking the question, “If you needed a lawyer for a personal legal matter, how likely would you be to use the following resources to find one?”, the survey found that 20 percent were very or somewhat likely to turn to Facebook and 15 percent to blogs.  Another 9 percent would look at Twitter. 

Frankly, I think the survey methodology made it tough to suss out exactly how people use the Internet to search for attorneys.  People were not asked to identify a main source, just how likely they were to use one or more from a whole list of sources.  When you just say “blog”, what exactly does that mean?  Would I look for a blog about attorneys or by attorneys? 

Plus, the survey was conducted only over landline phones.... which might bias it right then and there, since those who still actually have landline phones could be less likely to be tech-savvy when it comes to social media.

I think that section of the survey missed the whole point of what blogging and social media is about, which is reputation and trust building. 

Just like building good referral sources, social media and blogs are tools of trust-building that eventually result in bringing in new clients.  We see it every day, and in my book, experience trumps conjecture every time.

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