Is Social Media Part of Your Mentoring Relationship?

Mentors and mentees, are you discussing the mentee’s business plan during your meetings? The goals within that business plan help guide the creation of a relevant marketing and business development plan. In turn, those plans influence the development of a strategic social media plan.

Even if only one of you is a social media user, here’s why discussing business plans and social media during mentor/mentee meetings can be beneficial:

1.  Refine your plan(s)

Mentees

For mentees who haven’t written down any plans to define career, marketing, or business development goals, this is a must-do activity.

For instance, simply saying in your head that your goal within the next few years is to become a go-to lawyer in x area of law for clients in a particular industry is not good enough. You need to write down what your objectives are to work towards achieving your goal.

Through that written exercise, you’ll break down how to achieve your goal. You’ll need to identify the activities to carry out. Such activities could be to:

• meet with x number of lawyers to advise that you have experience in helping with legal matters for the desired industry and are looking to work on more files for that industry;
• present x number of presentations on legal issues affecting the desired industry;
• attend x number of events that those in the desired industry attend so you can meet others in the industry and learn of potential challenges you can help with; or
• share on social media your speaking engagements and attendance at industry events to increase awareness of your expertise and interest in the desired industry.

Once you’ve written down your plan, review it to see if the activities support SMART goals. Share your plan with your mentor. Discuss whether your plan needs any refinement to ensure it is clear, achievable, and realistic. Ensure there are deadlines associated with each activity.

Mentors

Mentors, keep in mind that a mentee may have never written a business plan. Provide your mentee with tips on how to prepare one and review the plan and related plans.

Even if you aren’t a social media user, don’t feel that discussing social media is out of your expertise. You can approach it like you’re discussing a business plan generally. For example, if a mentee seeks to increase awareness of the mentee by sharing his or her speaking engagements on social media, ensure the mentee has secured the speaking engagements. Ask what relevant information from the presentation the mentee will share on social media.

You can help your mentee by considering:

• where the mentee can present (e.g., clients, potential clients, and industry associations) and who you can introduce the mentee to; and
• who at the firm the mentee should speak to about marketing efforts for a presentation at the firm for clients and potential clients.

As a mentor, you can review the social media presence of your mentee. Consider whether it is aligned with your mentee’s business and social media plans. Also, discuss with your mentee professional obligations and business concerns to be considered before posting on social media, especially in terms of client confidentiality.

Moreover, step back from the details of a plan and assess whether the activities listed are realistic. 

To get a better understanding of how Twitter, for example, can be used to increase awareness of one’s law practice and to meet other objectives, read my blog post “Are You Pairing Up Twitter With Events You Speak at or Attend?”.

Through these considerations, a mentee’s business plan and social media plan will become more refined.

2.  Achieve your goals faster

Mentors can help a mentee achieve goals faster and may even feel more vested in doing so after actively working through the mentee’s business/social media plan.

For example, mentors, consider:

• who you can make introductions to within your network to help your mentee – this can include thinking about whether there is someone in your network who can be another mentor for your mentee, as mentees can have multiple mentors to help achieve different goals;
• being involved in the mentee’s activities such as co-writing or editing a blog post; and
• if you’re a social media user, support your mentee by liking and sharing your mentee’s efforts on social media (if your mentee is not a social media user, you can still post/tweet about your mentee; one day, your mentee may join the social networking platform and can then share your post or do a quote tweet).

Mentees, don’t be afraid of asking your mentor for help to achieve a specific objective in your plan.

3.  Succeed by being accountable

Mentees, succeed with your plan by being accountable to your mentor, especially since your mentor has taken the time to review and refine your plan.

Make sure to meet regularly, assess the progress in achieving your objectives, and reflect on the activities to determine whether the plan needs to be adjusted.

Mentors, diarize follow-ups before your next mentor/mentee meeting to reinforce the accountability aspect of your relationship. For example, two weeks before your meeting, email your mentee to say you look forward to an update on the progress on x activity, and that you’re available to discuss any challenges sooner if needed.

4.  Learn to discover opportunities

If at least one person is a social media user, you can learn from each other. For example, you can discuss:

• how to use social media even to listen without having a social media account; and
• information and news you learn on social media like updates on the law and issues affecting client industries.

These discussions can lead to ideas for client alerts or blog posts, topics to raise during check-in calls or catch-up meetings with clients, and awareness of events in the community to attend.

Remember that social media is one tool in a lawyer’s marketing and business development toolkit. Social media isn’t going away and can easily amplify awareness of you if your social media plan is strategically executed. Consider how social media can fit into your marketing and business development plans. Get a head start with creating and discussing your 2020 plans now.