Global Audit of Law Firms shows poor Twitter Take Up and Usage

An international audit of law firms painted an interesting picture of Twitter take up and usage by law firms.

The 2011 audit, available here, was produced in association with LexisNexis and reviewed 110 law firms across the world in 22 cities between April and mid-May 2011.

Of the 110 law firms reviewed 35 had registered with Twitter, which equates to just over 30% of the global sample.




24 of the law firm Twitter feeds are used to broadcast news. These firms were broadcasting industry news and retweeting the news of others.

8 accounts are parked and lie dormant. This is bad Twitter-practice and can even damage your brand as we noted here.

3 of the Twitter accounts are being used primarily for interaction. These were Elegis, Allens Arthur Robinson and Taylor Wessing who engaged with their Twitter community through '@ replies'.

Commenting on the results the report said: "compared with other industry sectors, it is clear that the world's leading law firms are at the beginning of their collective Twitter journey. Looking outside the legal sector momentarily, the Twitter profile for Jet Blue Airways has 1,643,917 followers. Given their differing client bases, it is expected that Jet Blue, a consumer-facing company, should have more followers than a law firm."

Importantly, the report added: "But what is more worthy of note is they way in which Jet Blue uses Twitter. It has embraced Twitter as a customer service channel - the majority of its tweets are conversation '@username' replies to individual users."

That's exactly what we've been preaching here at Twitter for Law Firms: it's not about just 'doing' Twitter, it's about 'getting' Twitter and doing it properly, the way it was meant to be done. That means it's not about maintaining a Twitter feed with endless posts about industry news and development; it's about engaging and interacting with your Twitter community - that the true spirit and design of Twitter.

In a later next post we will look at Twitter uptake and usage by law firms across the regions.