You may have heard that the best way to counteract negative reviews online is by outnumbering the bad reviews with good reviews – as a matter of fact, I mentioned that in my last video. But did you know that there is a right way and a wrong way to do that?

One big no-no in responding to a negative online review is to post fake positive reviews to counteract the negative review. This is one tactic that has been frequently employed by some reputation management companies. It is an absolute no for lawyers. It violates what I sometimes call the “golden ethics rule” for legal marketing: lawyers are prohibited from disseminating false or misleading information about themselves or their practices. Fake or made-up reviews fall squarely into this category, whether they are posted by the lawyer themselves or by a reputation management company or other third party.

And that brings me to the next question: should a lawyer write the review for the client, and have the client approve or “sign off” on the review? This is a bit more of a grey area, but I wouldn’t recommend it, even if a client asks you to just “write something for them and they’ll sign it.”

The most effective reviews or testimonials are those that are written in the client’s own words, and are based on the client’s experience. But you do want to make it as easy as possible for clients to write you positive reviews, and there are several ways that you can do that. For example, you might consider one or more of the following:

• Having a third party (like Legal Ease Consulting) interview the client for you
• Establish a firm interview team that conducts post-matter interviews of clients
• Suggest areas clients they can discuss in their review (such as responsiveness, timeliness, etc)
• Send clients links to your Google Business Page to leave a review
• Request LinkedIn recommendations from clients

If you want help getting some great client reviews, testimonials or case studies, send me an email to see how I can help.

See more about marketing:

• How Posting Checklists Can Help Your Marketing
• Three Ways to Use the Calendar to Find Content Ideas
• Mentoring Women in Your Firm
• What Does It Mean To Be Yourself And Add Value On Social Media?
• Should You Use AI to Post on Social Media?
• How to Auto-Archive Email
• De-Clutter Your Email Inbox
• Publish Content Consistently with an Editorial Calendar
• Notify Employees of LinkedIn Posts
• 3 Things to Do For a Productive New Year