Wexler Wallace: Using Social Media to Build a Reputation in the Legal Community
When Wexler Wallace, a high-stakes boutique litigation law firm in Chicago, approached Otherwise to redesign their website, they demonstrated an appetite for understanding how social media could help them amplify their voice and serve as a powerful credentialing mechanism. To accommodate their desire to create a cross-functional digital platform, we also developed a social media program to augment their web presence by providing a platform for Wexler Wallace’s attorneys to address compelling legal and social issues.
Our goal for Wexler Wallace’s social media program – consisting of a blog and a robust LinkedIn strategy – was to establish the firm as a pre-eminent news and opinion resource within the legal community, targeting lawyers, also current and potential clients, law students, legal scholars/educators and the general public. We also wanted to build a program that could eventually be maintained internally by the Wexler Wallace staff.
During the first year of the social media program, the Otherwise team served as social media strategists and editorial directors. We taught attorneys across the firm to adopt the mantle of thought leadership, mining their insights and opinions from the front lines of consumer, business and investor advocacy. With rich and relevant content ranging from hot-button Supreme Court issues to in-depth commentary and analyses of ongoing class action lawsuits, the community of followers to the Wexler Wallace blog began to grow.
With a firm grasp on how to identify and create valuable, relevant content for the blog, we began to engage with others in the legal community by commenting on other law blogs and inviting those with similar interests to write guest posts for the Wexler Wallace blog. To date, the blog has featured guests posts written by members of Public Justice, The American Association for Justice and Kinsella Media. Additionally, one of Wexler Wallace’s attorneys was interviewed for Res Publica, The Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy blog and forum.
As other prominent law blogs have taken note of the blog’s informative content, they continue to share Wexler Wallace’s posts on their own blogs. With significant numbers of external sites referring visitors to the blog, traffic to both the Wexler Wallace blog and website is on the rise.
Wexler Wallace is well into its second year of its program, and with our extensive training, we’ve fully empowered the attorneys to deploy the skills and tools needed to maintain the blog as an indispensible legal resource and ultimately succeed in the social media world. With a powerful online presence, we look forward to seeing Wexler Wallace achieve an ever-greater reputation as a trusted, respected resource within the legal community.
Ji-Sook Yim is an Integrated Marketing Associate at Otherwise Incorporated.
Illustration credit: Josh Epstein, Graphic Designer at Otherwise Incorporated.
