Law firms are increasingly embracing innovation as a source of competitive advantage within the UK. Innovation allows an unique strategic marketing niche for law firms within a highly competitive marketplace, and offers law firms a means to improve on market share and market growth. In management of these firms, especially in the contemporary landscape of alternative business structures, such flexibility and adaptability can mean that firms such as Eversheds and Inksters flourish, whereas older, bigger incumbent firms struggle.

Fundamental to the definition of an innovation is an idea or product which is easily understandable; that then ‘diffuses’ across to ‘adopters’ within a wider ‘network’, who can then decide to make or break an idea. Google+ is an idea but its ultimate survival depends on whether the general public take to it, in the way that they have taken to Facebook; indeed, Facebook announced its IPO today. The network no longer consists of employees, including trainees, within the firm; it is much wider, critically involving now the general public, other clients, potential clients, and even potential trainees. In this post, I describe two innovative uses of the social media by two law firms: @Inksters and the trainee account of @Eversheds, called @LegalTrainee, both involving Twitter. Inherent in the innovations is full participation by the intended audience in determining the success of the innovation; this is reflected indeed in the tagline of ‘Legal Trainee’, “this is not just a brochure, this is conversation” (as depicted here).

Inksters decided to send out Christmas hats through the post in a campaign which is still going strong, and @LegalTrainee decided to offer a competition whereby a law student who had put ‘@LegalTrainee’ into his or her profile could win coffee with a partner of Eversheds. Both were relatively simple ideas, but were remarkably successful. I put various questions to Brian Inkster of @Inksters and Ismat Abidi, a trainee solicitor of Eversheds @LegalTrainee,  earlier this week. As explained here, @LegalTrainee is not simply a Twitter account, but is how Eversheds has embraced the social media in a number of different platforms.

Both are great examples of how an organic social media marketing campaign should be conducted. Indeed, for a wider discussion of the social media issues, a brilliant short book has been written by Guy Clapperton called ‘This is Social Media: Turning Social Media into Sales’ (this book, newly published by Capstone, is available in Kindle and iBook formats too, and available from here). This updated book is especially great for practical tips throughout the text, including “action point” boxes, with a variety of topics covered such as content, tone, business analytics, platforms for innnovation, and returns-on-investment. Guy discusses in his book the critical issue of participant behaviour; implicit in his argument is the convergence of the culture and mindset of the two parties, and fundamentally increasing brand awareness. This is certainly no mean feat, as it is all about the ultimate holy grail of marketing – discovering new members of the target audience.

Brian Inkster (Inksters)

1. What is the concept behind the ‘Inksters hats’ campaign?

Inksters rebranded in December 2011. The new brand reflects Inksters’ place in the legal market as forward thinking lawyers and incorporates an arrow device. This points to Inksters’ care for detail, progressive approach and the fact that we direct clients and lead the way.

2. Where did the idea come from? 

As part of the rebranding exercise we asked our designers, O Street, to design a Christmas Card to launch the rebrand. They came up with the idea of a Christmas Hat as the cut out in the Christmas Crown reflects the arrow device in our new logo. Indeed, as with the hat, on our new notepaper and business cards the arrow is actually cut out of the paper/card rather than being printed on it.

3. Why has the campaign been such a success? 

Social media has really made it a success. We printed on the hats an e-mail address to send photos to but the vast majority of the photos received have been tweeted to us. Tumblr was an excellent blogging platform to post the hat photos and Twitter quotes to. Setting up the Tumblr blog with the www.inksterschristmashats.com domain enabled the hats and quotes to be showcased. This combined with Twitter was a winning combination. Tweeps tweeted about receiving the hat and/or tweeted photos of it on themselves, their pets, toys or elsewhere. Other Tweeps who had not received hats asked if they could get one and we were still just a week ago (which is a month after Christmas) posting them out. We are now into February and still have the promise of some hat photos over the next week including someone who has a carefully planned photo to take this coming weekend! All of this has kept Inksters Christmas Hats in peoples minds well beyond Christmas and given it a longevity that a standard Christmas card would never have had.

Ismat Abidi (@LegalTrainee)

1. Why does Eversheds, through @legaltrainee, consider it important that applicants understand the work and culture of the firm through social media?

A Trainee gets as much out of a TC as they put into it. It’s also no secret that Trainees that most closely fit the firm’s culture will be the most valuable to the firm, get the most out of their training experience and become more likely to secure an NQ position with that firm. It’s really a two way process, so by finding applicants that fit this bill at the graduate recruitment stage, it’s a win-win situation for both sides. That’s why it’s important that applicants understand the work and culture of the firm. It’s not crucial that this is done through social media, but social media is the best way for Trainees and Graduate Recruitment to engage in real and live conversation with potential candidates. It’s like a 24-7 international networking event where recruiters and candidates can  come and go as they please. What’s even better is that all conversations are public, so unlike face-to-face networking events, students can see what other candidates are asking and join in discussions between recruiters, legal bloggers and other students.

2. In addition to offering the competition, how does @LegalTrainee use social media to achieve an innovative, competitive edge in securing the best applicants ?

@LegalTrainee isn’t just a Twitter account – it’s an entire project using three social media platforms: Brave New Talent, Facebook and Twitter, which are integrated with one another. Chances are that our target applicants use at least one of these platforms. The competitive edge is that we’re offering a live brochure to candidates (our slogan is: This is not a brochure, this is conversation), which no other firm really does at the level of direct engagement we’re involved with right now. Aside from the project itself being innovative (@LegalTrainee recently won the SoMe Graduate Recruitment Award 2012 for Best Use of Twitter), Eversheds allows real Trainees from across its international offices to manage and run these accounts using mobile devices and engage directly with press/candidates/any other followers. It ’ s not the PR team or graduate recruitment that followers are speaking to (though they do monitor the account), it’s the real trainees talking about their real experiences at the firm – something that hasn’ t previously been done before in the legal world.

3. Why do you think that the various competitions run through @LegalTrainee have been so successful in reaching new candidates?

It’s unfortunate that there’s no other way to sift through large volumes of high-calibre applications more efficiently than online applications. We’ve all been through it (most of us have done so several times) and it can be a really grating process. You could be an absolutely ideal candidate and for one reason or another, have a bad numbers day and fail the numerical reasoning test, which means your application automatically stops there. I applied to Eversheds in 2005 and again in 2007 (with a supposed destined-to-fail-in-a-TC-hunt 2:2), so I know what it’s like. These competitions that Eversheds run offer a chance for those who otherwise didn’t get through the standard application process. Unlike spending an evening filling in your work experience and grades in an online form, the way to enter these competitions is quite refreshing for law students. It can range from submitting a video/song/blog with a friend to win work experience in our Hong Kong office or simply following a Twitter account to win coffee with one of our Trainee Partners. If I was still searching for a TC, I’d definitely enter these sorts of competitions.

This is a general article about law firms, social value and social innovation ; LegalAware has received nothing in the production of this article which is a freely-written opinion, and please note that the article is not representative of the views of BPP or the BPP Legal Awareness Society. The blogpost is a personal academic viewpoint of @Legalaware.