Business through Facebook? Not directly, but it can happen through relationships you build in Facebook.

I am not a big user of Facebook, but I can see how one could get work through it. Let's say you meet someone with similar interests through a Facebook group. If you're a lawyer, perhaps they're a young in-house lawyer. You start following each other in Facebook - you share recent pictures of recreational activities with your families, you start playing scrabble in Twitter, etc. You are building out a network.

Will you get new business from the person tomorrow? Probably not. But you now know another business person whose company may need your services at some time or know of someone who may. It's a lifetime of building relationships that leads to work.

'Dig Your Well Before You Get Thirsty' is the title of a book Harvey McKay wrote years ago. His point was to build out a business network for professional success.

I'm not telling you to drop everything and jump into Facebook this weekend, just saying to be open to new things. Things that work for some folks and that don't work for others.

If I said lawyers can get work by playing golf at a country club, that doesn't mean you drop everything and start taking golf lessons and join the club for fear you would lose business if you didn't.

Golf courses are very pretty on a beautiful day and the mental challenges and nuances of the sport are attractive. But I suck at golf and don't have the patience. Probably why you'll find me at LinkedIn.

...[I]f a lawyer spends substantial time each day blogging, and updating Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other networks to which they belong (Pulse anyone???), what about life outside work? At some point, it seems to me, there isn't enough time in the day to participate regularly on EVERY site, and still maintain a healthy work life balance.

Other lawyers do regularly tell me that these goofy social networking tools you're talking about are great for you, but I'm a practicing lawyer and I simply don't have the time.

And I'm sure it seems that those of us referencing and using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and the like must be spending a lot of time on these mediums. That's not necessarily so.

In one case, you use them for news - so you go there when you have the time for catching up with what's going on just like you would browse a local newspaper. Here the news and information is coming from trusted friends. They're sharing links and quick snippets of news and information. And like a newspaper, you don't read every story, you glance and browse when you have a few minutes.

In another case, you use social networking tools for networking. Duh. And like networking in real life, you do it when you have the time. And knowing that it's networking that leads to some of your best work, you work networking into your schedule. Otherwise your family goes hungry.

It's 4:30 p.m. on a Friday here on the West Coast and I haven't used any social networking tools or sites today except for leaving a comment on Josh's blog just now, posting a correction to my blog early this am, and writing this post.

So though I am a 'user' of these mediums that some may call mad and all time consuming, they do not absorb all my time. I was involved in meetings with my CFO, VP of Client Development, and Creative Director until 2 or 3 today and then working on client development matters after that.

Having said that, the seeds I planted yesterday via Twitter and LinkedIn are bearing fruit today. Took me 20 or 30 minutes yesterday to publish a blog post with links to a powerpoint and webcast of a recent webinar I did. Then shared the post with folks on Twitter.

Between people getting my RSS feeds and people following me on Twitter, I've seen mention of that powerpoint and webinar all over the place today - blogs, other folks mentioning it on Twitter, and in copies of emails my readers sent to their business associates telling them about the powerpoint and screencast. Also received some nice emails thanking me for sharing the materials.

I also spent 15 minutes on LinkedIn yesterday inviting people I had the occasion to meet via the net recently to join my my professional network at LinkedIn. I received notice today that a number of those folks accepted my invite as well as one or two thank you notes for my asking them to hook up on LinkedIn.

Bottom line is social networking tools can be used effectively without them becoming all time consuming. And like Josh guesses, 'one has to try different services and then see over time which network pays the biggest dividends, and then focus on that one.'

Now, just don't ask my wife and five kids if I spend too much time on the net. ;)

Read today on a listserv that Martindale-Hubbell, in trying to keep a 100-lawyer client in their directory, told the law firm that Martindale would be the new Facebook or LinkedIn for lawyers in due time.

Martindale is saying they will be the next LinkedIn? If that's true, it seems to be totally irresponsible statement.

LinkedIn:

• As of March 2008, LinkedIn had more than 20 million registered users, spanning 150 industries.
• As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%.
• Founded by co-founder of Socialnet.com & leading exec at PayPal and funded by Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the European Founders Fund, all tier one VC's funding Silicon Valley companies.
• Reached profitability two years ago.

Martindale:

• No management team that I know of that has experience with building social networking sites.
• Unique visitors to Martindale.com down 13.4% over last year per Compete.com.
• Struggling with the launch of a corporate blog, something much simpler than software infrastructure and management team needed for successful social networking site.

As far as becoming the next Facebook? Seems rather silly. Makes as much sense as Martindale saying we'll become the next place where all young lawyers will hang out to socialize online. Does anyone really believe that will happen?

Martindale has been a great company as a lawyer directory. But to try and create something that's vogue today by boasting that we're a new company that's introducing Web 2.0 solutions is irresponsible and is only going to damage to reputation of the company.

I'm registered at Facebook. I've played with it a little because of the buzz and all the invites I receive to be friends from others at Facebook. But with invites from people I don't even know and tens of invites to join groups which I have no clue how to use, I just don't get the value. And there's little, if any, risk in LexBlog losing business in my not participating.

From Doc:

The 'friend request' list... is one I've whittled down from a much higher number. If I could gang-whittle them, I might be more interested, but the routine still involves declining to check off which of many different ways I met somebody ('both owned the same dog', 'set up by a mutual ex-boss' or whatever), and other time-sucks. Not to mention that the site takes many seconds to load, or to bring up email, or whatever. At least for me......

Anyway, life's too short, and this list of stuff is too long. If you're waiting for me to respond to a poke or an invitation,or a burp or any of that other stuff, don't hold your breath. Or take offense. I've got, forgive me, better things to do.

From Rob:

I've read recently expressing dissatisfaction with the Facebook experience for one reason or another. I'm barely on Facebook any longer. Early adoption works both ways, I think. We're going to see more of this. We did already, actually - in Bubble 1.0.

And in only the way Greg can make a point,

Now I find myself in new awkward territory with more and more requests by other business owners, peers, and professionals to become "friends" inside these same social sites and I don't quite fully grok this new layer of "networking". Does it really matter that I've posted a note on someone's page? Are we missing out on some large contract because Airbag is on Virb but not MySpace? Should I cry myself to sleep because I'm not in someone's top three, five, eight, whatever? Second Life sucks--oops, can I say that with my outside voice and not be an outcast?

My gut tells me that no, no one is really loosing business because they aren't actively participating in some sudo electronic version of RL (in real life) but it makes for an Ok mind-numbed distraction.

Facebook is a force in our society. It has financial value as a company. Millions find Facebook an enjoyable way to pass time. That's great.

But as a something lawyers need to participate in so as not to lose work, I don't see it.

Update: As I write this, I am presenting at an ALM/National Law Journal webinar on lawyer marketing via 'Web 2.0' and social media tools. Carolyn Elefant, who's done extraordinary things marketing herself as a solo attorney, and Mark Britton, CEO & cofounder of Avvo, an online lawyer directory, have both highlighted the merits of Facebook during their presentations. They're also citing some lawyer successes with Facebook. More to come. Maybe I'll be proved to be a Bozo again.;)

He's what he found:

• Linklaters (with 895 members)
• Allen & Overy (846)
• Baker & McKenzie (669)
• DLA Piper (623)

Technorati Tags: Facebook

• Over 150,000 registrants daily. That's 1 million a week since January.
• 35 million users today. Of course that number will be off a million one week from today.
• Half of users are outside college. That number was zero in Sept. 2006.
• 0ver 40 billion page views in May 2007.
• Average visitor stays 20 minutes.
• Most growth is among people over age 25.
• 47,000 Facebook groups.

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• Facebook a growing force for lawyers and business people
• Facebook turning mainstream for us old guys?
• Social networks (LinkedIn, FaceBook & MySpace) in plain English

Technorati Tags: Facebook