Skip to main content, skip to search, or skip to the top of the page.

MSU College of Law

Using Social Media to Create A Student’s Brand

Social Media PresentationSocial media, blogs, and similar mediums can help lawyers and law students in substantially increasing their networking and career opportunities, according to an MSU Law graduate.

Pat Ellis, '14, legal project manager at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn, and Kevin O’Keefe, CEO and president of LexBlog, told more than 50 MSU Law students that effective social media practices can help develop a student’s brand, build a network, and establish expertise.

Creating an effective online presence can aid students in successfully launching an ideal career. Ellis started a blog during his second year at MSU Law, which allowed him to create dialogue with other lawyers and academics. Not only was blogging beneficial for him, but he also wrote a paper that explored using Twitter for legal research. The paper is potentially going to be published by a law review; however, publishing that same paper as a blog post generated more readers and conversations than a law review article.

In order to make a blog work for you, aside from having a good design and great content, you should also link it to your social media accounts, post regularly, and track your visitors so that that way you can follow who is interested in what you have to say.

Law students should “listen, engage, create, and curate” online content and add their own point of view, Ellis said.

A one-page resume is no longer an effective mechanism to project all you have accomplished; creating a LinkedIn profile detailing everything you have done is far more effectual. According to Ellis, you should keep your online presence relevant by completing your profile, following firms and organizations that interest you, being open to connections, and being relentless by following up with contacts.

For Twitter, it is important to find and follow a relevant niche group, and create connections by retweeting or favoriting posts.

Establishing connections and engaging in online conversations is the new version of networking, according to O’Keefe, who presented via teleconference.

“The goal is reputation and good relationships,” O’Keefe said. “All your work will be about relationships and the Internet is an accelerator of relationships.”

Skip to main content, skip to search, or skip to the top of the page.