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

Led by Facebook and Twitter, time spent globally on social media sites was up 82% in 2009. Time spent by Americans increased by 210%. This from a social media study from the Nielsen Company.

Eye opening findings from the study include:

• Social networks and blogs are the most popular online category when ranked by average time spent.
• Americans spend more time on blogs and social networking sites with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009.
• Facebook was the No. 1 global social networking destination.
• The time spent by users on Facebook has increased to six hours per month.
• The time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively.
• Among the top five U.S. social networking sites, Twitter continued as the fastest-growing in terms of unique visitors, increasing 579% year-over-year, from 2.7 million unique visitors in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009.

Where Americans are spending their time is clearly depicted in the below graph.

And 45% of US law firms block the use of social media and social networking sites in the work place?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

91% of those Inc. 500 companies polled in a recent survey are using social media. The results of the study performed by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth are reported in an article just out in Inc. Magazine. The 'Inc. 500' represents the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.

The study covered six types of social media tools, including blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking, message boards, and wikis. Highlights from the survey include:

• America's fastest growing private companies adopt social media marketing initiatives at much higher rates than other companies.
• 91 percent of companies use at least one social media tool, compared with 77 percent of companies surveyed in 2008.
• Of the six social media categories covered, the one that continues to be the most familiar to Inc. 500 companies is social networking, with 75 percent saying that they are 'very familiar with it.'
• Twitter is the most widely used, drawing activity from 52 percent of the respondents.
• 26 percent cited Twitter in particular as an important vehicle for communication with outside partners.
• 34 percent of companies reported that they were using social media to communicate with vendors and suppliers.
• Interest in some older social media tools such as message boards and podcasting has declined.
• 44 percent of companies without a company blog say they plan to start one.
• 36 percent intend to use some form of online video.
• 68 percent were monitoring mentions of their company name or their brands on social media sites compared with 50 percent just two years ago.

Eric Mattson, CEO of a research firm named Financial Insite and one of the head researchers in the study commented:

Inc. 500 companies are focused on doing anything they can to grow faster and social media is an innovative tool that may give them an edge over their competition.......From a big picture trend standpoint, these results show how prevalent and widespread social media is becoming in every aspect of business now.

If you're a law firm not using social media, how are you to engage and network with corporations who are effectively using blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like to build relationships? Aren't you going to be viewed as an outsider looking in? To leaders of America's fastest growing companies, isn't your law firm going to look behind the times?

If you're leading a law firm looking to get business from the Inc. 500, and which good sized general practice law firm wouldn't be, I'd be asking those questions. I'd be asking the same as a lawyer. I'd be recognizing that if my firm doesn't get aggressive in the use of social media, we're going to lose work to the competition.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

For decades law firms have leveraged the intellectual capital of their lawyers for client development purposes. The goal being to establish the firm's lawyers as thought leaders and trusted authorities in their areas of practice.

Other than lawyers speaking and networking at legal and industry conferences, the primary means of sharing this intellectual capital to establish brand expertise and word of mouth reputation was through the traditional media.

Public relations professionals got media coverage, either highlighting law firm accomplishments or having lawyers serve as sources and be quoted as experts for reporters. Lawyers wrote articles for mainstream or trade publications.

With the rapid deterioration of newspapers and mainstream media, can law firms realistically expect traditional media to be there much longer as a means to share the law firm's intellectual capital? Add to that the declining number of Americans who read magazines, newspapers, and the like or watch traditional news shows on television.

Just yesterday, the New York Times David Carr, who covers the business media, lamented that business news, as we have come to know it, is over.

So you might expect the business press to be striking up the band and restocking the cigar cabinet. Instead, Forbes, a magazine that sells a beau idéal of capitalism, announced last week that it was cutting a quarter of its already decimated staff. The Wall Street Journal's Boston bureau -- historically a hothouse of game-changing business coverage -- is being closed.

Fortune magazine had already cut back to 18 issues a year from 25 and this week will be whacking anew at staff along with other Time Inc. magazines. BusinessWeek was sold for parts to Bloomberg a few weeks ago.

So, while the business of business may be back, the business of covering it with heroic narratives and upbeat glossy spreads most certainly is not. And probably never will be.

......Writers and editors who cover business now know that the jig is up, that those bespoke suits are put on one leg at a time by men that seem far less Olympian than they once did.

A recent survey of bloggers commissioned by Technorati and conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland is also ominous news for traditional media.

• 73% believe blogs are taken more seriously as source of news and information.
• 60% believe most people will get news and info from blogs in next 5 years, with 40% believing newspapers will not survive the next 10 years.
• 63% say that blogging has led them to become more involved in things they are passionate about.

Admittedly the survey is limited to bloggers, but there's little question the public's consumption of news and information from blogs is rising geometrically while traditional media and print viewership and readership is on the steep decline.

Businesses, including sports teams, have turned to blogging to get their message out. There were no longer reporters around to do so.

With the advent of the Internet a decade ago law firms began to archive articles and related content on their websites. But getting the firm's target audience to read that content on the firm's website has met with very limited success.

Already, nearly half of the largest 200 law firms in this country are blogging. Their blog content, in addition to being consumed directly by clients, prospective clients, and referral sources, is being automatically syndicated to mainstream media such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Such syndication taking place without any effort from the law firm or the need for a reporter.

By citing and commenting on lawyer's blogs, other business, legal, and industry blogs are further syndicating law firm blog content. Law blog content is also being shared via other social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

With the decline of traditional media and the growing number of current business leaders and the entire next generation of business leaders consuming their news and info via new media, do law firms have any other alternative than to blog?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The public's growing use of Twitter or other services to share updates provides fertile ground for lawyers to network and engage their target audience.

Per a just released survey on Twitter and Status Updating from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.

Of particular note for lawyers is that median age of those using Twitter and social networking sites.

• Median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year.
• Median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008.
• Median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40.
• Median age for Facebook is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.

No question, per the Pew Foundation, that we're going to see nothing but growth in the public's use of Twitter and social networking sites.

[I]t is clear that a 'social segment' of internet users is flocking to both social network sites and status update services. This segment is likely to grow as ever more internet users adopt mobile devices as a primary means of going online.

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Their Internet & American Life Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life.

Related Posts

• Twitter for client development for lawyers : Being an intelligence agent as good as it gets
• Twitter 101 for law firms and other businesses : From Twitter
• Twitter client development success stories - lawyers and legal professionals chime in

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Professionals who blog to share their expertise and attract new clients for their business are succeeding in doing just that. This per a survey of over 2,900 bloggers commissioned by Technorati, an Internet search engine for searching blogs, and conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland.

• 71% have greater visibility in their industry.
• 63% said clients purchased products and services.
• 56% find they are regarded as a thought leader.
• 40% are asked to speak at conferences.

But it's only 15% of 'professional part-time' bloggers who are blogging for financial gain, to share their expertise, or attract new clients for their business. 72% of bloggers are hobbyists who blog for fun or to express themselves. The remaining 13% are blogging full time for their own or another company.

No question the survey supports the proposition that lawyers who blog to enhance their reputation and grow their practice are likely to succeed. Of particular interest though is that almost five times as many bloggers blog not for client development, but as a hobby.

The hobbyist manner of blogging may well explain why some lawyers do not experience professional and business gains from blogging. While professionals blog primarily about about the topic of their blog and avoid personal musings, per the survey, that's not the case for hobbyist bloggers.

The survey's findings may be found in the PowerPoint of Technorati CEO, Richard Jalichandra, embedded in Michael Arrington's post at TechCrunch. Jalichandra presented the findings at Blog World '09 on Friday.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Picked this video up from Linda Skrocki, Sr. Social Media Engineering Program Manager at Sun Microsystems. It's powerful, powerful stuff. Expect to see it run as the opening few minutes in upcoming presentations of mine.

Linda's a social networking/media evangelist who runs from top to bottom Sun's widely respected online community efforts. I just added her blog to my feeds this morning.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

I couldn't help but feel in reading Tresa Baldas' National Law Journal article on employers limiting access to social media that employers were actually bragging about cutting off access to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.

Back-to-back studies, the most recent issued Tuesday, show a big chunk of corporate America is banning communication wonders like Twitter and Facebook from the workplace.

According to the latest survey of more than 1,400 U.S. companies, more than half (54 percent) said they prohibit employees from visiting sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace while on the clock. The survey, by Robert Half Technology, a provider of information technology staffing services, was based on telephone interviews with U.S. companies of 100 or more employees.

Another recent survey delivered even graver news for the social media world. According to an August survey by ScanSafe, a Web security provider, 76 percent of companies are now choosing to block employees' use of social networking -- up 20 percent from February -- which is now a more popular category of sites to block than those involving shopping, weapons, sports or alcohol.

Law firms are leading the way in the blocking craze. Per Baldas:

Indianapolis-based Barnes & Thornburg has blocked all access to Facebook. Twitter is still available, however. Gunster Yoakley & Stewart of West Palm Beach, Fla., blocks Facebook and Twitter for all its support staff, including secretaries and legal assistants, but lets lawyers use the social media tools.

Even crazier are the findings of an informal survey of 231 law firms conducted by Steve Matthews and Doug Cornelius and published in the ABA's Law Practice Magazine which found 45% of the law firms blocking social media. Of those law firms who blocked social media, what mediums did they block?

• Facebook 85%
• MySpace 77%
• Twitter 26%
• LinkedIn 14%
• YouTube 55%
• Blogs 22%

The main reported reasons for blocking:

• Loss of productivity
• Viruses
• Confidentiality
• Bandwidth consumption

What's happening screams ignorance and lack of trust. Neither of which are high on the list of traits for law firms heading anywhere.

Maybe things have changed since I started practicing law almost 30 years ago. Back then law firms got their best work by word of mouth. Both lawyers and non lawyer personnel were expected to represent the law firm well in all they did (some things we were more proud of than others). We knew the more our employees came in touch with other people, the greater the opportunity people got to know them, and when the need for a lawyer arose, the people our employee's met would think of us. Novel concept? Hardly.

Heck, I can remember being pushed out the door to Rotary and Kiwanis meetings. No small feat when they kicked off at 7:30 AM with grown women and men singing from song books that looked like those Sister Mary Rose passed out in the second grade. But the whole idea was to meet doctors, realtors, bankers, and other local business people.

I vividly remember my senior partner, George, asking me to be more like Gerry. Gerry played golf at the country club and hung out in the grill afterwards. He went to all types of civic events. All the stuff I didn't like - and frankly felt uncomfortable participating in. But George wanted me to grow my practice.

Now we have one of the most effective mediums - the Internet - for time and cost effective networking and we're telling lawyers and other legal professionals they can't use it. Can't use it because of fears born out of ignorance. That's nuts.

I don't know about the leadership in your law firms, but in the law firm's I led, I valued three things: 1) Personal growth of my employees (to be better people, for their sake and for their families); 2) professional growth of my employees (I wanted my employees to go anywhere they wanted, I wanted them to chase their dreams); and 3) to have fun (we spent more time awake working than we did at home, so we sure as heck better have fun at work).

Professional growth, personal growth, and fun needed to be based on trust. I wasn't walking around looking over people's shoulders to make sure they were working. My employees knew the big picture of service to our clients. My employees had important things to do. I placed great faith in them. I didn't need to breed distrust by having rules dictating personal behavior in the work place.

To find problem and fault in things you don't understand (many in law firm management have not a clue about social media) and use this ignorance to demoralize employees and hamstring those looking to use the Internet for networking is a step backward.

Leaders in law firms looking to compete in a world that's changing faster than ever before need to adapt, to learn, and to empower the employees who work with them.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (11)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

A recent analysis compiled by Burson-Marsteller, one of the largest public relations agencies in the world, and Proof Digital Media, it's digital media arm, found that the largest 100 companies in terms of revenue as compiled by Fortune Magazine's annual Fortune 500 were active on three key social media: Twitter, Facebook and Blogs.

The study found that 54% of the Fortune 100 were using Twitter to reach out directly to stakeholders, while 32% were using a blogs and 29% were actively using a Facebook Fan Page to engage. Despite the perception that Twitter is the newest kid on the block among the three platforms, 76% of Fortune 100 companies that were using just one social media channel were using Twitter over Facebook and Blogs.

And the Fortune 100 are using Twitter effectively.

94% of Fortune 100 Twitter accounts distribute company news updates and announcements while fully 67% are at least partially serving a customer service function.

If your prospective clients are using social media, how do you, as the Managing Partner or Chief Marketing Officer of a major law firm ignore social media? Is it a defensible position to say that the legal profession is above social media? With the over 50 demographic among the fasting growing segment using social media, you'd like foolish saying social media is just for kids.

The law is a profession, but it's also a business. Innovative executives and in-house counsel I'd classify as 'go getters' have to be influenced by your law firm's take on social media.

You can't pick up the Wall Street Journal or turn on CNN or Fox News without seeing yet another use of blogs or Twitter. Social media is being discussed by CEO's, VP's of Marketing, and the Fortune 500 public relations professionals. "What is social media? How are we as a corporation going to use social media to communicate with our customers, extend our brand, and keep up with the competition?"

A Law firm's use of blogs, Twitter, and other social media in a smart and effective fashion is not going to be lost on the people employed by the Fortune 500 who are hiring lawyers. Rather than your firm's use of social media being frowned upon or viewed at with suspicion, your law firm is likely to be looked at as an innovator, dedicated to client service, and employing lawyers who are thought leaders in their area of practice.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

If If you're looking for evidence that social media works for marketing, you could do a lot worse than today's story in The Salt Lake Tribune by Paul Beebe.

Per Beebe, social media (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) has become so ubiquitous that businesses are using it to fuel sales and profits through social interaction with customers and clients.

• Five years ago, just three Global 500 companies were using social media, today the number is close to 200. (Shel Israel, a Silicon Valley-based social media writer)
• Almost two-thirds of retailers have invested in the social-media frenzy in some way and another 22 percent plan to get involved in the next year. (Technology research company Forrester Research)
• Traffic to Facebook is up almost 200 percent over the past year. (Nielsen)
• Twitter has seen an increase of almost 1,500 percent. (Nielsen)
• Twitter tops the list of social media used by Fortune 100 companies (54% using), with corporate blogs at 32%, while 29% have Facebook fan pages. (Burson-Marsteller and its Proof Digital Media subsidiary)
• 107 of the 150 companies attending a recent trade show staged by Shop.org, the digital division of the National Retail Federation, were using Twitter.
• Delta Airlines is evaluating additional opportunities within the networks they are actively using, such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as other networks, such as Twitter, and are developing a comprehensive strategy to enhance their existing efforts.
• The companies using networks and blogs to stay closer to customers, for sales, marketing, customer support, recruiting, investor relations and product research. It is absolutely not a fad. (Shel Israel)

Look at the personal experiences and stories of the small business people Beebe spoke with:

• Kalani Mack, the owner a Salt Lake fast-food alternative to expensive steak houses, attributes the opening of a second restaurant solely to Facebook, on which the restaurant has 1,1759 fans. Mack uses Facebook to promote new menu items and events at the restaurant, and gather customer feedback. "It was like a brick hitting me, I just realized it could be a powerful tool for the business, and the business could be a profile itself. Just being in contact with customers directly that way was huge. I'm not sure what kind of value it brought them, but I noticed that they enjoyed being in contact with their favorite restaurant."
• Melissa Coates, an account executive at a Salt Lake City-based designer of mall kiosks and trade show exhibits uses Twitter to develop relationships with businesses and find clients. Coates started following those companies who had Twitter accounts at the Shop.org trade show. She hoped they would follow her. "I don't know how many followed me back, but a lot did. I went to the show wanting to target 10 companies. I got seven companies that wanted to do business. I was kind of shocked."
• Grant Gordon, a co-founder of a software company and who 2 years ago saw nothing in Twitter, uses Twitter to drive awareness of his company and keep up with trends. "All these experts, executives and prominent recruiters are on Twitter all the time. They will post articles they've read, things that are happening, questions. If you are not listening to that conversation, you are completely out of the loop. If you are not participating in that conversation, you really are not heard."

Lawyers and law firms ignoring evidence of social media success like this do so at your own peril. You have more in common with the above companies and small business people than you think.

In addition, companies and small businesses using social media are more apt to hire law firms who do the same.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link