It ain't all good...

I have been thinking lately about how lawyers might use social media to deal with less positive publicity and comments.

The background to this is that one of our local firms of solicitors recently launched a new website as part of a rebranding exercise. They announced it with a bit of a fanfare and also plugged it on their new Twitter account asking what people thought.

Like most tweets about local lawyers, this found its way to me via the Twitter searches I have set up using RSS so I decided to take a look. I don't really have an unhealthy obsession with law firm websites, but I like to keep on top of new ones which are launched locally to see if they have come with anything exciting.

In this case, the answer was basically no, but I noticed that the "contact us" box didn't seem quite right in Safari... text was superimposed over a picture in a way which made the whole thing illegible and the elements of the form seemed to be in the wrong places.

A quick look on Firefox showed what it should actually have looked like... definitely a problem with how the site rendered in Safari (and mobile Safari too... I checked!).

I tweeted back to point out that there seemed to be a problem with how the site rendered in Safari and that they might want to check this out.

The response... absolutely nothing. Not a "thanks for the heads-up" or even a "get stuffed!" and a week later the site still doesn't work properly in Safari.

I can't understand the thought process behind this. Are they ignoring me because I work for a competitor? Are they not interested in Safari users? Do they think I am trying to wind them up?

If it was my site I would want it fixed and I would be happy that someone pointed it out (whoever they were).

This isn't even a case of negative publicity or unpleasant comments (I was genuinely trying to be helpful rather than snarky... which is why I haven't named them in this post), but is a blank silence the best response?

In this situation there is nothing to be lost by a polite response (by DM if you are worried about losing face)... followed by a prompt call to your web designer!

I don't think that it is ever appropriate for law firms to deal with serious negative publicity (complaints by clients etc.) via Twitter... but if you are serious about social media you can't only engage with those who are saying what you want to hear.

One quick example:- the recent story about Coca Cola supposedly encouraging workers to call in sick in their adverts for Glaceau Mineral Water.

I actually follow @glaceaunwest (the local account for Glaceau Mineral Water) on Twitter and on the day the story broke I tweeted:

I doubt this had Coca Cola nervously checking their stock price (and it probably wasn't all that funny either), but a little while later a response popped up from @glaceaunw:

Made me chuckle... and also showed that they are not just on Twitter to send out Tweets plugging mineral water, but are actually serious about engaging with people who have something to say about their business.

Law firms who are venturing onto Twitter would do well to bear this in mind. It isn't a broadcast medium (at least not if you want to see any benefit).

If you aren't prepared to deal with the tricky Tweets as well as the flattering ones then maybe you should think twice before putting yourself out there?