Social media tactics easier than strategy for lawyers

Kevin O’Keefe posted an interesting take on Seth Godin’s post on tactics over strategy and states that attorneys and law firms have a hard time focusing on strategy.  This makes sense because strategy involves risks, uncertainty, taking a stand without knowing if it will work.  Tactics either work or they don’t.   You either know how to add content to your blog or stream blog content into your LinkedIn profile or you don’t.

I don’t think the strategy vs. tactics discussion has to be so polarized.  First, you need to understand how various social networks sites and tools work before you can determine a strategy.  For example, if you think that  your LinkedIn profile  content will impress potential clients, you probably don’t fully understand how LinkedIn works and doesn’t work. 

And to me, the first rule of social networking is that its not a panacea.  No matter how big a social networking presence you have, that alone won’t make clients flock to you. 

My strategy?  To increase my online visibility as a legal marketing professional and build a likeminded community.  Over time, that strategy might shift and as I learn more about the tactics; how to use social media sites, about new applications, what works and what doesn’t, that will influence my strategy.

I think the problem is that people think tactics ARE strategy and when a tactic doesn’t work, they bad mouth social networking as a time waster and hype.  Their loss.