Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Social Media, Twitter

I'm regularly asked by lawyers during strategy calls 'Should I use Facebook, I'm already on Twitter?' Of course others ask 'I have a Facebook account, is there any value to my using Twitter?

Both allow you to share short firm comments and links with friends and followers. But as Benjamin Siscovick, a venture capitalist with IA Ventures, explains, Twitter and Facebook are very different. Each serve unique purposes and provide distinct benefits to their users.

Facebook is all about sharing with friends. Everything about Facebook is oriented around replicating the real-world social graph. In fact, it was Facebook’s early focus on creating ‘trust-communities’ of people who know each other (in it’s formative days at the University level) that distinguished Facebook from other early social networks and set it ahead of the pack. As a result of this focus, when you share and consume content on Facebook you are deliberately doing so with and from a select and contained group of trustworthy friends.

In contrast, Twitter is all about shared interest. Unlike Facebook, the Twitter social graph is not rooted in real-world relationships but rather in real-world interests. I follow people and people follow me because we are interested in similar subjects and we share content that is thoughtful, informative and relevant to each others lives.

Twitter is wide open for me. I follow people who share information of interest to me or whom I want to get to get to know. The result is a personalized information network which I follow for relevant news and commentary as well as a powerful knowledge base I can tap into by asking questions. Doesn't matter if I personally know the people I follow or not. The value is still there.

It's the same on the distribution side. Twitter is wide open (not limited to people you already know), something that provides distinct advantages to a lawyer looking to enhance their reputation in a niche area of the law. Per Siscovick:

...Twitter allows one to share content which is personally interesting and relevant with anyone in the world who cares to listen. Compounding its distributive power is Twitter’s Retweet feature which exponentially expands the distribution capacity of a given tweet by allowing anyone to instantaneously share content created by others. In this capacity, Twitter serves as a mechanism through which to form and cultivate ones (increasingly important) digital identify and is a pipeline to plug-in and actively participate in the global online conversation.

I've been using Twitter for a few years. By sharing news, information, and commentary on marketing and client development through blogging and social media for lawyers, I have built a good following of lawyers and professionals interested in the subject. The result is an enhanced reputation and relationships with lawyers and other business professionals I could have never dreamed of getting to know.

I've been slow to use Facebook, perhaps because I can't slow down enough to use the Internet for other than business communication. But I'm beginning to enjoy using Facebook to re-connect with friends from school days and relatives. I also enjoy getting to know personally the people I got to know first in a professional business setting - whether we've met face to face or not.

Bottom line, there's value for lawyers in using both Twitter and Facebook. Just make sure you learn how to use them and understand their differences.

Caveat: It goes without saying to those lawyers who understand social media, but neither Twitter nor Facebook should be used to autofeed your content. No one joins Twitter or Facebook to receive that sort of abuse. By doing so, you're apt to embarrass yourself.

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There's little question that Facebook is becoming a 'central nervous system' for Internet exchange much like AOL was in the '90's.

Just over 71 percent of U.S. web users have Facebook accounts per an iStrategyLabs‘ infographic rendering of Facebook demographics.

Though the college age group may have seen the greatest growth on Facebook last year, look at the below numbers to see just how big the jump was for the demographic group law firms are looking to connect with.

• 24.8% of Facebook users are age 25-34, a 29.7% increase in the last year
• 29% of Facebook users are age 35-54, a 32.3% increase in the last year
• 9.5% of Facebook users are age 55+, a 58.9% increase in the last year

The greatest percentage growth is taking place in the older age groups. These folks are leading organizations and creating wealth in this country -- and the world. These are the very people lawyers are looking to represent.

Just because your clients and prospective clients are flocking to Facebook does not mean your law firm should run out and start a Facebook page. It does not mean you as a lawyer should start automatically running each of your blog posts and Tweets onto your Facebook profile/newsfeed.

Facebook is about relationships and engaging people in a social environment. Lawyers are equipped to do this sort of networking, they've done it for years. Heck, it's the stuff traditional client development is made of.

Facebook is an opportunity only for those lawyers and law firms who are willing to take the time to learn what Facebook is all about and how it can be best used by them.

When I started using AOL to market myself as a practicing lawyer in 1996, I used AOL like those gravitating to AOL were using it. As a community. As a place to exchange information and knowledge through message boards, chats, and the like.

I didn't know how AOL worked for client development. There was no book on it. If anyone would have called themselves an expert on marketing/client development on AOL, they would have been laughed at.

I watched. I observed. I tried things having no certainty that what I was doing was the correct way of behaving. I learned.

It ended up that I built relationships with AOL members. People shared with other AOL members, and people offline, the information I shared on AOL. I established trust with the people I directly exchanged information with and with others who observed my exchanges on message boards and in chats.

Through this behavior on AOL I further enhanced my reputation as an authority in my area of practice. I got work within my state and from other areas of the country.

I did not use AOL as way to get my name in front of people, distribute content, or to build a brand. I used AOL the way others were using AOL.

I expect it's going to be the same for Facebook. Use it the way others are using Facebook, not the way you as a law firm would like to or heard you ought to.

And that's okay -- individual relationships, the stuff at the heart of client development in the law, appear to be what works on Facebook.

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Reading Time Magazine's Person of the Year article on Mark Zuckenberg I read of the following about the dangers of Facebook:

According to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 81% of its members have seen a rise in the number of divorce cases involving social networking.

Imagine a time when Americans began to use phones en mass. If we polled divorce lawyers, wouldn't the majority have seen a rise in the use of phones in communication between people having extramarital affairs? Even facilitating communication between those folks?

How about with the advent of the automobile? Wouldn't the majority of matrimonial lawyers have seen a rise in people traveling to their extramarital encounters in automobiles?

The way we communicate and connect with one another is changing. The change is going to be far greater than those before us ever experienced during the industrial and telecommunication revolutions.

Facebook and social media are facilitating this change. Big time.

Just as I told jurors when trying a case, 'Don't check your common sense at the door.' By doing so you're apt to draw the wrong conclusion.

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Australian accountant, Ashley Summerville, penned five compelling reasons that professionals ought to leave Facebook and join LinkedIn.

I'm not proposing that lawyers and law firms ignore Facebook all together. Facebook, by sheer numbers, would be the third largest country in the world. Like AOL was in the late '90's, Facebook is arguably the central nervous system of social interaction on the Internet.

But when I walk into law firms and they want to talk about Facebook before LinkedIn I question the firm's client development priorities. I put LinkedIn first and Facebook fifth in social media solutions delivering the highest ROI for law firms. Use of an RSS reader, blogging, and Twitter coming in two, three, and four, respectively.

Facebook's wonderful for staying in touch with those close to you socially. I enjoy following and sharing with friends, relatives, fellow school alumni, and close business associates on Facebook. However, I don't put Facebook above LinkedIn, something that's generated a lot of business for LexBlog, on the client development front. Law firms shouldn't either.

Why the emphasis on LinkedIn over Facebook per Summerville?

• Target Audience – the average age on Facebook is 20 something... It’s a great place to meet people, swap videos, and chat. But it’s not a business platform. LinkedIn’s average age is 41. Most everyone is a business professional trying to meet other business professionals.
• Business Groups – LinkedIn is designed around business groups. You can join these and instantly connect with people with similar interest. On Facebook, there may be fan pages, but it’s often just that, fans! No real dialogue goes on.
• Recommendations – you can build relationships with people on LinkedIn and once they know/trust/do business with you, will give you recommendations. These professional endorsements give you an element of credibility that you don’t get elsewhere.
• Integration with other platforms – you can connect to LinkedIn from multiple social media portals, such as BusinessWeek, AMEX Open Platform, and even from Facebook.
• Knowledge Exchange – I’ve kept the best for last. The conversations I have on LinkedIn are with the best people in their fields. You can learn a huge amount just by listening. Ask questions and see what comes back. The quality is very high. And unlike other sites, the conversations rarely degenerate into slanging matches. You can also receive the comments by email every day or bundled into a single email every week.

Seattle Attorney Dan Harris, publisher of the China Law Blog, told me over lunch last week that he's found LinkedIn incredibly valuable for networking and client development. His feeling is that Facebook is for people you already know.

What are you finding as a lawyer or legal marketing professional? How is LinkedIn working for you? How about Facebook?

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I'm a heavy user of LinkedIn. I've been using LinkedIn for a few years; I connect with people daily, run my Legal Blogging Group, and network with professionals for business development and recruiting. There's no question LinkedIn has added to the bottom line of LexBlog in a significant way.

Though I've been a member of Facebook for years, only this year have I started to experiment with it. Note that everything I do online started as an experiment. I'm not afraid of not knowing what I'm doing to find out what works and what doesn't.

Facebook feels more social from a personal standpoint. I've reconnected with cousins I've not spoken with in 40 years. I share pictures from Mariners games. I enjoy hearing about the family activities of friends and close business associates.

But I'll admit Facebook has all the appearance of becoming the central nervous system of Internet communication, collaboration, community building, and networking. AOL ruled the Internet in the mid and late 90's, acting as the de facto entry to the net for everyone. Facebook, with its rapid growth and the features it's adding, feels that way today.

So, the value comparison of a LinkedIn Group versus a Facebook Group by Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal was a timely one for me. I need to figure out if I need to double down on my group building by adding a Facebook group, in addition to my LinkedIn Legal Blogging Group, to the LexBlog Network.

For The LexBlog Network and you as a lawyer, marketing professional, or law firm leader, LinkedIn is the hands down winner per Smarty.

• LinkedIn discussions tend to be more focused, professional, and business-oriented than their Facebook counterparts.
• LinkedIn is much clearer and clutter-free with its groups being the one networking feature of this type versus Facebook's scattered approach of community pages, business pages, groups, etc.
• LinkedIn better protects members' privacy and guards against inappropriate posts.
• LinkedIn features handy moderation and management tools, with more being developed.
• LinkedIn's networking and communications features send members digest emails, update members about any threads they've participated in, and highlight the influencers.
• LinkedIn, like Facebook, displays your group contributions in the personal feed on your homepage which encourages more people to check out the group and accounts, resulting in a viral effect.

There's no question I'm going to continue to play with Facebook. Making friends and nurturing relationships is the stuff that life is made of. From 30 years in business, I know that friendship drives business development.

For now, and recognizing there are only some many hours in the day, I'll continue to spend my professional time and effort on LinkedIn.

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The 35 to 54 year old age group, a sweet spot for law firms seeking to build relationships with clients, prospective clients, and referral sources, is the leading age group for mobile social networking via Facebook and Twitter. This per a report from Marketing Charts on the exploding growth of mobile Facebook and Twitter.

Despite the stereotype of teens spending every waking moment on a mobile device, Nielsen data suggests their parents actually spend more time performing mobile web surfing. Only 7% of mobile social networking activity was represented by 13-to-17-year-olds and only 16% by 18-to-24-year-olds in December 2009.

The leaders in mobile social networking activity are 35-to-54-year-olds, who accounted for 36% of mobile social network usage in December 2009. Close behind them were 25-to-34-year-olds, who performed 34% of the month's mobile social networking activity. Users ages 55 and up combined for the remaining 7%.

The overall growth in the mobile use of Twitter and Facebook last year was staggering.

Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112% in the past year, while mobile Twitter access experienced a 347% jump, according to a new study from comScore.

In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from 11.8 million mobile users in January 2009. While only 4.7 million mobile users accessed Twitter from their mobile browser in January 2010, this represented 347% growth from 1.05 million mobile users in January 2009.

Building relationships by engaging your target audience is the essence of client development for you as a lawyer or law firm. Client development success for law firms is not all about websites, search engine optimization (SEO), and pushing out digital alerts and newsletters by email. It's about listening to your clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three. And then engaging them. The result is relationships and legal work.

In order to listen and engage your target audience as a lawyer or law firm, you need to go out to where your audience is. Today your audience is increasingly at Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites. It behooves you to start learning how to engage your target audience at these places.

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"Wee Willie" Keeler, one of baseball's most prolific hitters, when asked about his success, said "I keep my eyes clear and I hit 'em where they ain't."

For lawyers the key to client development success is going where the people are. The people preferably being your target audience of clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three.

Today those people are flocking to Facebook in huge numbers. This from an article on Facebook growth in Thursday's Greensboro Business Journal.

Facebook picked up nearly 1.5 million U.S. users in January, dethroning Yahoo as the second most visited web site in the country, according to Compete.com.

Facebook traffic grew from 132.1 million to 133.6 million, while Yahoo's fell by 100,000 to 132 million.

.....The average time users spent using Facebook per month, however, grew nearly 10 percent to about seven hours, far above the roughly two hours that Yahoo.

If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world.

I have the enviable job of playing in the Web 2.0/social media sandbox so I can advise lawyers what's real and what's a waste of time when it comes to business development. Through the end of the last year, I advised sticking with the big three of blogging, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

I labeled Facebook as an 'up and comer.' Something to keep your eye on, but not something I'd be spending significant client development time on. I thought Facebook more social in nature (not that that's a bad thing for business development) than professional business oriented. No longer.

Facebook is getting too big to ignore. More people are hanging out on Facebook than any other place on the net. And they're not all kids. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. Why? They want to stay in touch with their grandkids.

Ignore the staying in touch with grandkids thing. Focus not on why people are drawn to Facebook, focus on the fact that people are drawn to Facebook. Facebook is no longer a community for college kids and recent grads (couldn't get in without college email address a few years ago).

Facebook, like AOL was when I came to the Internet in 1996, is where everyone is going when they come to the Internet. Go ahead, dismiss Facebook because the leaders in your law firm are ignoring it. My partners thought the Internet and AOL were goofy and a fad when I started using AOL for business development in 1996.

I enjoyed a recent Knicks' game with Steve Rubel, a leader in social media/marketing/communications and SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital. I asked Steve what he sees as the most important social media tool for business development and marketing. "Facebook." He agreed with me that Facebook is apt to become, if it's not already, the operating system for social interaction on the Internet.

Sure Facebook is short quips passed back and forth. But as social media author and speaker, Shel Israel, once told me "Small talk leads to big things."

Business development is all about relationships. Lawyers build relationships by engaging their target audience, even if the engagement is through social conversation.

When our 12 year old Lab, Newman, was dying last Saturday night, I posted a picture of him on Facebook. I just felt the need to express how hard it was a to lose one of our family's best buds. Nine heartfelt comments were posted by the next morning. Nine business professionals who took the time to care. That's true engagement, even if not a business exchange.

That's just one of the experiences I've had in my Facebook experiment of commenting on people's posts, pictures, or fan pages on Facebook over the last couple months. I'm far from an expert in knowing how to use Facebook for business development. But there's something here and I plan to keep on experimenting.

I'm not sure I have any other choice. With the world going to Facebook, how can I ignore it and survive as a successful business leader?

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Just when you think you've seen it all from lawyers who have not a clue how to use social media or how to network through the Internet, I get this.

An email from someone apparently associated with a Seattle law firm inviting me to become a 'fan of The Ten Biggest Mistakes That Can Wreck Your Washington Accident Case on Facebook.' I'm not joking. Look at the below.

It gets crazier. Look at this Facebook 'fan page' the lawyer posts links to. Posts such as a car accident location where a teen was injured in a rollover.

Nice. Take text from a police report or news story referencing someone's child being seriously injured with the apparent goal of getting more face time on Google or Facebook. I wonder what law school or CLE program teaches you that.

Marketing like this is why I've decided not to handover LexBlog's social media marketing to the 7th grade class at Sakai Junior High on Bainbridge Island.

Fortunately, 90% of people will see this type of stunt for what it is. An over zealous lawyer who is in over their head when it comes to social media.

Unfortunately for our profession, this type of lawyer marketing is just feeding the public's perception of lawyers as the least trust worthy of any profession. That's a shame as it means injury victims and their family members are less likely to seek help from a good plaintiff's trial lawyer - they don't trust us.

I practiced as a plaintiff's trial lawyer for the better part of 20 years. Being a board member of my state's trial lawyers' association and active in ATLA I came to know trial lawyers as some of the finest and most caring people in the world.

When I got active on the Internet while still practicing I was blown away by the opportunity trial lawyers had to show what we were made of. I answered 4 to 7 questions a day posted on AOL legal message boards by injury victims and their family members. I hosted AOL legal chat rooms a couple nights a week answering more questions.

I saw the Internet as a great equalizer for plaintiff's lawyers. Without having powerful lobbying groups and PR campaigns we could influence public opinion. Good lawyers without huge advertising budgets could get the best work by word of mouth generated by helping people. Wow!

Seeing this lawyer use Facebook like this is terribly, terribly disappointing. Maybe he's a great lawyer. Maybe he has tremendous care for injury victims and their family members. But please learn how to use the Internet and social media.

Other lawyers doing things the right way deserve better. The people we seek to protect and serve deserve better.

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My name is Lisa Kennelly and I'm a former sportswriter who's left newspapers and joined the LexBlog team. I'll be bringing you some interviews and news tidbits, as well as links to hot discussion topics from the Legal Blogging group on LinkedIn.

Here's a topic over at the Legal Blogging group that Kevin has blogged about in the past, one that continues to be relevant as more lawyers and professionals expand their online presences: How to get the most out of Facebook.

Like publicity, any social networking is good social networking. But is Facebook a worthwhile time and energy investment to get business or drive blog traffic? Or is it still primarily, as one group member questioned, a "cyber-leisure spot"?

If you're already a member of the Legal Blogging group, join that discussion. If you're not yet a member of the group, you can request to join.

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