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

Those of you who follow Robert Scoble know that over the last few days he's been deleting people people he follows on Twitter (down from over 100,000 to less than 2,000).

The reasons, among probably others. Too much spam via direct messages from people he follows back after they follow him. And there's no way to get to know 100,000 people.

Robert's one of the guys who's taught me what I know about blogs, social media, and how people relate to each other online. (no side comments about that's why I am so dumb) He's on to something with his deleting followers on Twitter.

You have no idea how much crap I get from people I follow who start following me. Who was the idiot who started teaching that Twitter is a targeted direct mail campaign tool. People without any money or common sense use as Twitter direct messaging as an alternative to calling me unsolicited at my office or home offering me products and services I have no interest in.

And I'm not only talking about the clowns who get as many Twitter followers as possible so they can claim to make 'Thousands of Dollars a Week' sending out direct messages. I'm talking about the LexisNexis' and Martindale-Hubbell's of the world who when I followed one of their Twitter accounts, I got an automated direct message hawking one of their publications or services.

Scoble says he's "unfollowing idiots like @techstartups that send auto DMs. I +hate+ that practice!" I'm doing the same.

Historically, I've followed a Twitter philosophy of following people I learn from, people I want to learn more about, organizations in the legal industry, mainstream media, and people with a real name (not a company or pseudonym) who began to follow me.

I felt it common courtesy to follow those who followed me. Following thousands of people I never tried to see everyone's Tweets. But it did allow folks to reach out and direct message me (you cannot direct message someone who doesn't follow you on Twitter).

I'm now unfollowing people who send me these type of automated direct messages after I follow them. They're junk. And they're coming from people who haven't gotten to first base in understanding how Twitter is used as a relationship building/client development tool.

• Today was so exciting! Made $124 in 20 minutes! if ur interested, go read: http://earning-freedom.com - from Christopher Missick
• Thanks for following Martindale-Hubbell Careers. Please come visit us at www.martindale.com/careerce.... Feel free to DM for any questions or just to share ideas. - from MHCareers
• Hi! Tweet me one fun fact about you, and I'll tweet you one fun fact about me. - from Julia Kline
• Thanks for following please check out my blog http://hublawyer.com/ Will be great if you can add some comments on it. - from Christopher Hardin at LawInfoBlog
• Thank you for following! For quality legal resources you can count on http://www.lawinfo.com from lawinfo
• Thanks for the Follow! Get a Free Credit Report: http://adjix.com/fubc - from Bellevue_News
• LexisNexis® New Zealand is a leading global provider of content-enabled workflow solutions to professionals in law firms, corporations, government, law enforcement, tax, accounting, academic institutions and risk and compliance assessment. - from LexisNexis_NZ

Unlike Scoble, I'll probably continue to follow thousands of people on Twitter. The majority will be legal professionals, both those who follow me and those who I find on Twitter who are not already following me.

I like most lawyers and legal professionals. I think they're good people and Twitter allows me discover more about them and to exchange thoughts outside of email. It also makes sense being CEO of a company offering a service to legal professionals that I'd like to build relationships with more legal professionals.

But I'm on board Scoble's campaign of unfollowing the Twitter spammers of the world. You ought to start unfollowing them too. Viral action of the masses does more to bring social etiquette to the net than anything else.

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Lawyers using Twitter for marketing? Yes, it's true.

This micro blogging tool with posts or 'tweets' limited to 140 characters, which I was afraid to admit in public that I used, is generating some discussion among legal marketing professionals.

First, Twitter broke into a legal marketing listserv discussion last week. 'What is it? Does anyone see any value to using it?' Then today, legal Internet marketing expert, Steve Matthews, comes out with an excellent intro to Twitter for lawyer marketing, including 7 steps for test driving Twitter.

Don't expect Twitter to take the legal industry by storm yet, but take note of what Steve says you ought to now.

...Politicians in the current US election are levering it, news outlets like CNN & Canada's CBC are offering headlines that can be mixed into your reading stream, and companies like Southwest airlines are using it to interact with customers & take feedback.

It's widely considered the fastest growing tool of web influence, and will at some point have a trickle down effect for the legal industry.

And though this may sound absolutely insane, LexBlog may pick up some very good work through Twitter - with larger law firms. And until a month or two ago, I thought Twitter was just a distraction. Let me share 4 stories.

1. Working one night last week I was 'tweeting' about the Mariners game while I was listening to it on MLB.com. A lawyer in DC who owns a piece of a minor league team, who had been following me on Twitter, replied back with a direct message about baseball first, which then led to his request to discuss doing some blogs for a number of lawyers back there.
2. I 'm regularly exchanging comments via Twitter with a person in IT & Business Development in a top 5 law firm. Very good chance of leading to work with that firm.
3. A week ago Sunday Robert Scoble, one of most widely followed bloggers in the world, 'tweeted' to his 21,000 followers on Twitter that he liked following my blog and following me on Twitter. Robert said he liked what I wrote and said and that I was a smart guy (take that for what it's worth). Anyhow, it brought a huge immediate increase in people following me on Twitter. Where that goes I don't know, but a lot more people are following me on Twitter, including some reporters and lawyers.
4. I expanded my relationship with high profile PR person via Twitter which led to a speaking engagement at a major national blogging and new media conference.

Interesting thing about Twitter, and I don't think most lawyers or firms are ready to use it, is that the people who may follow you are heavy influencers of others. They are people who blog and otherwise virally spread what they hear. If you are providing incite on a niche through Twitter, word can be spread very rapidly.

You can benefit from Twitter in three ways, that I see today. First, a way to socially network with people, some of which networking may lead to work, speaking engagements, and the like. Two, a means to amplify your message, i.e., spreading what you what you may be blogging, writing, or speaking on. Three, if you blog, you are going to get news from other bloggers whose content you may want to reference in your blog or work.

By the way, if you are going to experiment with Twitter, use an application such as Twhirl. It makes things much easier to understand and follow than using the Twitter home page alone. And if using Twitter on a mobile device there is m.twitter.com.

Related posts:

• Twitter in plain English video
• How to use Twitter
• Using Twitter to promote your blog
• Strategic law firm intelligence via Summize and Twitter
• Twitter madness & the Scoble effect
  

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Sitting here blogging in a coffee shop on Bainbridge Island this afternoon when emails start pouring in saying folks have started following me on Twitter. That screenshot on the left shows you how fast. Some of the followers I know, most I don't. They're from all over the world.

I'm thinking someone wrote a script that's causing 'spam followers,' if you will. I'm getting ready to set up a filter in my mail app to send all emails saying someone was following me on Twitter into spam. I was just thinking the last week that Twitter is a cool tool that I'm figuring out how to use. Then this.

So I 'tweet' that 'I am getting hit by 'spam followers,' has anyone had that happen to them?" Saad Kamai replied that 'Somebody recommended you in Twitter, so i guess its natural to get a couple of new 'followers.'

Couple new followers? More than that. And who has that type of draw? That type of influence to recommend an unknown (I am one) and get folks to start following what you are saying?

Then the answer from Phil Ferris in West Cornwall, UK: "Scoble recommended you a few minutes ago in a Tweet. I call it the Scoble Effect."

Quick look back in Twirl, my Twitter application, and sure enough.

Scobleizer: I love reading @kevinokeefe who today linked to a thing about lawbloggers doing journalism. He's a lawyer and a blogger and smart too.

Robert apparently picked up via a tweet of mine that I had posted about lawyers and investigative journalism.

Wow Robert. I'm honored. Seriously. But you'll need to give folks a warning of what's coming - when you're ready to Scobleize them.

Like Jerry Yang when he called Jeff Bezos 12 years ago and said Yahoo was going to name Amazon the 'site of the day.' Bezos thought sure and couldn't figure out why Wang was asking. But Yang wanted to warn him of what's to come. Bezos had bells on each employees computers (a few only) that rang with each book purchase. Guess the next day when Yahoo did the site of the day the bells rang all day.

Good thing I have the bell notifying me of new emails on mail app turned off. Otherwise the folks in this sleepy little coffee shop would, like me, wonder what the heck's going on.

Let there be no question as to the influence one person can have on others through blogging and social networking.

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Scoble's spot on this morning that building a big blog audience is not what matters in blogging.

Robert was referencing what advertisers care about, but the same applies equally to you lawyers trying to achieve blog success.

So, what should you care about per Robert? (with my added commentary)

• Are you getting content that no one else is? Some lawyers are all over niche subjects that no one is covering. Cover a niche and you will not be able to keep your target audience away with a stick.
• Does that content cause conversations to happen? If you use Google Blog Search, do you find anyone linking to it? Conversations take place by others referencing points you raise, not necessarily via comments on your blog.
• Does that content get noticed in the niche you're covering? Do you get noticed by conference coordinators and trade magazines?
• Even more importantly, does it get the most credible and authoritative to link to you? Who are the bloggers most respected in your area of law or in industries who want to represent? Who are the reporters covering your niche? Get referenced by them and it's ten times as valuable as any ad or any PR person plugging for you.
• Don't ask how big your blog audience can be. That's not the end game. Ask how far can I take myself as a lawyer. Ask can I take myself to the top in my niche area of the law.

Again, blogging isn't about search engine dominance (though you'll do very well) and getting a huge audience, it's about establishing yourself as an authority in a niche through entering online conversations with the key influencers in your field.

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