Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Blawgs, Law Firm Marketing

DLA Piper's new social networking site provides the firm with the dual advantage of saving on sending out hard copy news about the firm, but more importantly it lets trainees feel part of the DLA network.

I read with interest Bob Ambrogi's recent endorsement of Spock, a new social networking - community site that 'searches the internet to help you find information about people in your life.' Until then, I didn't give much thought to the invites I was receiving from friends to join what I thought was some Internet cult group of Star Trek followers. You know - Spock, half Vulcan & half human.

With Bob's endorsement and continuing email invites from folks I know wanting me to join their 'Trust Network on Spock.com,' I decided what the heck. I'll register, accept the invites, and see how this Spock thing works.

The first thing you're prompted to do at Spock is expand your network - locate and connect with people in your life. You can search for anyone or just people within your network. And you can do it by keyword, as opposed to just a name.

I'm a lawyer so I key in lawyer. Rather than get everyone in Spock who's a lawyer (knowing there must be many 'Spock lawyers'), I limit my search to only lawyers in my network. My search results in only one person in my life.

Yes, Hillary Clinton. And Spock wants you to expand your network to folks in the network of those already in your network. So I click on Hillary's related Spock people. Sure enough.

I tell you, I hardly know the Clintons. Sure, if I ran into them on the street I would recognize them. Though I doubt they would recognize me. I've never been invited over to the house for a Christmas open house or anything. Chelsea's never done anything with any of our five kids.

But I guess when Hillary and Bill are next out in Seattle raising money I ought to 'send a message' to her through Spock. Invite her to swing by the office or see if she and Bill want to come by and meet Jill and I for a beer.

And Wow, if she gets elected. When I'm in Washington, just ping her through Spock. Stay in the Lincoln Bedroom without having to make a $25,000 donation to the Democrat party. This Spock thing is so cool.

I forgot to tell you that on the next line below Bill and Chelsea in Hillary's related people I should connect with on Spock are Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards, Laura Bush, and Barbara Bush. Wait till I tell the kids!

Wonder if Hillary knows Monica is in the family network still?

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Social networking, whether it through be FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, StumbleUpon, or whatever Web 2.Joe community you might have, has always seemed fleeting to me as compared to the networking I do through blogging.

Darren Rowse hits on the same thing in his post on 'Blogging vs Social Networking.'

I chatted with an ex-blogger recently who lamented that he ended his blog 12 months ago to spend more time exploring social networking. His words still ring in my ears (paraphrased):

'I was offered a job through my blog....
I have 9000 'friends' at facebook and myspace....
I used to know most of my readers by name and knew that they all knew mine - even though there were only 200 a day....
I know a lot more people see my profile on facebook - but most of them just are hunting for friend bait....
I used to spend hours writing things that meant something on my blog....
I now spend hours updating people on the lattes I drink and people I meet on Twitter....
I had a brand of my own on and on my own property on my blog....
I now have a brand on someone else's property....'

His ultimate reflection was to wonder what he could have achieved if he'd invested the amount of time and energy into this blog as the time and energy he invested into his social networking.

.....Social networks (as well as other social media and web 2.0 sites) have the ability to reinforce your brand, drive traffic, introduce you to new audiences and open up new networks - but in my own business the primary vehicle that I use at present to drive forward what I do remains my blog.

My blog is my place, my voice, and where folks I meet on the net can track me down.

If I do a nice job looking around for good discussion on blogs & news sites, enter into the discussion by referencing what someone's said (like what Darren's said here), and comment on other blogs, I seem to meet the people I want to meet. And people seem to get to know me for my passion and expertise.

I can spend all day trying to figure out how to use social networking sites, let alone actually using them, and not accomplish as much as I can through blogging.

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Corporations seeing Facebook and MySpace as all the rage are trying to capture the excitement by building sites that allow employees to share best practices and other meaningful info. Problem is, writes Ben Worthen at WSJ's Business Technology blog, that 'many corporate efforts are Euro Disney - people just aren't coming.'

Rob Koplowitz, an analyst at Forrester Research, explained the problem to Worthen.

That's because [corporations are] confusing the way people are communicating with what they're communicating about. No one is inherently interested in social networking; people are interested in talking about something they're interested in, like chatting on MySpace about the latest Britney Spears meltdown.

Corporate social-networking sites and wikis are no different from other knowledge-management projects. All it takes is one employee to use email instead of the new system and the whole value proposition - a system where employees can find all the information they would ever use - falls apart. This is especially true with projects that only work when people participate because at the end of the day, people aren't really interested in the subjects they're reading about. 'They're interested in getting their jobs done.

Good suggestion Koplowitz offers and one that I see working best with law firms.

Start it virally. Don't force everyone to start using it all at once. Instead, identify a handful of smart, respected and influential people and get them on board first. Then open it up to anyone who wants to join. In that sense, it's just like MySpace: If people see the cool employees using it, they'll want to use it too.

Like blogs, law firms can expect social networking to grow because of successes small groups will have. Rather than a firm wide inititiative, perhaps a practice group is the place to start. And it's going to be a practice group filled with members who find social networking part of their life outside the firm.

Starting LexBlog, I get to work with young people who network online like mad - for both personal and business communications. If they had told me I would be using the platforms I am now to network with them when we started working together, I would have told them they were crazy. It was viral and through my observing the benefits of social networking that got me there. It'll be the same with law firms.

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Unlike other social media/networking sites such as Digg, I do get traffic from users clicking on links to my content at StumbleUpon.

Muhammad Saleem at Pronet Advertsing may have explained why.

Both Digg and Netscape send almost zero traffic until you get promoted to the sites' homepages......On the contrary, you only need 3-4 thumbs of approval from Stumblers before a decent number of visitors start coming in to your site. The more 'likes' (thumbs up, or votes) you get, the more traffic you will get.

People often discount StumbleUpon because the traffic spikes aren't as sudden and as huge as those resulting from Digg. While it's true that the spikes aren't as huge, if you look at the total traffic trends over longer stretches (i.e. a week or two) you will see that the visitor count equals out.

But I'm stupid. I can't really figure out how I would use StumbleUpon to network with members who would cite my content and me theirs. The people who cite my posts on the blogosphere, in effect promoting me by word of mouth, are lawyers, marketing & PR professionals, journalists, students, and the like.

Would it be possible to network with folks like this at StumbleUpon? If so, please tell me what I am missing. If I am missing how StumbleUpon works, let me know that as well.

I'd like to know and so would the lawyers and legal marketing professionals that I advise.

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