From time to time in this blog, I’ve shared different tips and strategies for using Twitter and other social networking sites to grow your business. Whether it’s retweeting other people’s blog articles, or doing a #FollowFriday shoutout, using Twitter and social media successfully comes down to one main concept: it’s all about building relationships.
That concept is what led to the topic for today’s article. For several months, I’ve been trading tweets back and forth with Orlando attorney Steven Kramer. In this interview, Steven shares his experience with social media and how he’s been able to use it to build his law practice.
Steven Kramer is the founder of the Kramer Law Firm, a full-service law firm that offers services in family law, bankruptcy, intellectual property and foreclosure defense. Mr. Kramer has been recognized as a Best Lawyer in America (Woodward/White, 2012 Edition), a Top Lawyer in Orlando by Orlando Magazine (2012), and an Legal Elite Up & Comer by Florida Trend Magazine (2010). He is also a weekly featured guest and legal commentator on the SBK Live show on Real Radio 104.1 WTKS and a weekly guest on the nationally syndicated Monsters of the Morning Show also on Real Radio 104.1 WTKS and Sirius XM. You can learn more about him at www.mykramerlawfirm.com, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KramerLawFirm and you can follow him on Twitter at @KramerLawFirm.
What follows is a transcript of the interview, or you can watch it here:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8q37XhxcI&w=400&h=301]
Gloria Rand: Why did you decide to create a Twitter account?
Steven Kramer: I’m in that group of first adopters, and I thought it was cool.
Gloria Rand: So what were you trying to achieve with it?
Steven Kramer: With our business Twitter, it’s different than what I’d want to do personally – the purpose of business Twitter is to network, establish relationships through social media marketing.
Gloria Rand: How have you… I notice you have over 6000 followers, or close to 7,000 followers. How did you build that following?
Steven Kramer: It’s confidential, it’s top secret. I could tell you, but I’d have to… (laughs) Part of it is providing valuable content to, and trying to come up with interesting stories that are engaging for people, so that when people are going to consider whether to keep you on their lists, they choose to keep you, and just get those retweets going and just provide valuable, useful content.
Gloria Rand: Do you ever go out and follow a bunch of other people who follow you? Or do use, I know there are companies out there that will basically buy followers for you?
Steven Kramer: No, I’ve never done that, although it’s a great idea. (laughs) Really, then it’s about the quality of followers, are you going for a number of followers, or high quality people following you… part of what’s been helpful for us is because it’s not like we just do Twitter. That’s not where we start and stop. First off, we got a big jump ahead because I do radio –I do SBK live show and Monsters in the Morning – and there’s an audience already built in there. Especially SBK Live is very active in Twitter world. it’s got a tendency to be trending on Tuesday nights and that’s usually successful. And it can be as popular as most popular topics in the world as far as Orlando is concerned on those nights. So that was a big help and a big boost. We do other social networks too. We do Google+ personal and business. We do Facebook, obviously Twitter, LinkedIn and we blog. We have a lot of blog. All of them work together to make a big cohesive presence.
Gloria Rand: Do you share some of the same information across those different social networks or do you tailor it – certain things for this audience, certain things for Facebook as opposed to Twitter?
Steven Kramer:We want to not be duplicitous all the time. We like to try to stay original and we want to keep people interested in what we’re providing, and the information that we’re providing, so we try to separate them. But – obviously they flow into each other from time to time – if we have a good blog article that one of our attorney’s posted, obviously we’re going to link that into our Twitter.
Gloria Rand: So how much time do you spend on Twitter, every day and every week?
Steven Kramer:I spend a lot of time on internet marketing and marketing in general. To break down the hours would be difficult, but all I can say is there’s not enough hours in the day for everything. As you probably know.
Gloria Rand: Do you use any 3rd party tools to help you out and schedule things ahead of time?
Steven Kramer:Yes! You have to! Otherwise if I get tied up in something I’m not going to have a chance to get that content out there that I want to get out there.
Gloria Rand: Right. I imagine that sometimes you have to deal with clients once in a while, right?
Steven Kramer:Yes. those tools are really, really important – and there’s lots out there.
Gloria Rand: Is there any one in particular that you recommend?
Steven Kramer:No, we use a few different tools, and I think without them it’s difficult to maintain that constant presence. If I go on vacation, I’d still like to be able to tweet even if I’m in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – so sometimes you can schedule that out ahead of time, so that information gets out there. And then people will be perplexed sometimes. “Wait – how is he there and I’m seeing this? That doesn’t make sense.”
We also try to cut the fat too. I don’t want to keep a lot of spammers in our network, or people that are not providing content. And that’s what we don’t want to be. We don’t want to be a spam tool. That’s why we provide good content and not just self promote – I mean that’s just good business and good sense to provide a value for people and give them the information they need.
Gloria Rand: So is there any particular content that you post that works best?
Steven Kramer:We do videos – I do videos and I think those work well especially for our potential clients because I try to make those videos about topics that those clients will be interested in I think that’s the key. It’s hard to tell, I mean it’s hit or miss. Interesting stories and news stories, I think will be interesting for people. Although that’s hard to say too – if I post a divorce story a lot of people that are not interested in that are not going to click on it. so part of it is selective attention, selective hearing.
Gloria Rand: Have you gotten direct business from Twitter?
Steven Kramer:It’s hard to say – yes I have. How much, I can’t articulate. With internet technology and the web your customers don’t have a tendency to go ahead and specifically tell you the exact route that they found you so that’s difficult a lot of people will just say I found you online. And that could be even with radio – I could be on the radio, and then someone will heard me on there but then they found me on the internet – but the big factor that made them click on the website or call us is they heard me on the radio.
Gloria Rand: If you could recommend one best practice for Twitter, what would it be?
Steven Kramer:I think good content – trying to make good connections that you can build upon – just like in life – is it more valuable to have an acquaintance that you just say, you know wave hi to every now and then or would you rather have a relationship that’s a give and take, and is meaningful. I think that’s the key to everything in a certain way. I think providing good content, establishing meaningful relationships and thinking about what other people are interested in. That’s important.
