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

Noticed a few minutes ago news of a 7.8 earthquake in China. Didn't get the news from CNN or the Internet, but from Twitter.

Robert Scoble, who presumably picked up word of the Earthquake via Twitter, shared the news with those of us following him on Twitter.

When I couldn't find any news of the earthquake at CNN or Google News, I went to Tweetscan, which allows you to monitor Twitter discussion by keyword. Sure enough, plenty of news on the earthquake. Including from people in China.

And look who's 'Tweeting' news of the earthquake in addition to 'citizen tweeters,' the New York Times and Reuters. Amazing.

Discussion on Twitter now is that the mainstream media may have first picked up word of the earthquake from Twitter before their traditional sources.

What we're seeing in action is a breaking news world wide backbone that can disseminate news faster than anything main stream media can match. All with a crazy tool that asks 'What are you doing now?'

Update on how news breaks:

In order to follow more Twitter feeds, people are also monitoring the word 'earthquake' at summize and quotably.

People at Twitter are now telling people who felt the quake to report it here.

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Josh Fruchter, in sharing my post on lawyers using Twitter, raises a good question.

...[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. ;)

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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
• 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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The number of lawyers using Twitter as a social networking tool is starting to grow.

Seeing them all trying to figure out what Twitter is, I thought Common Craft must have kicked out a Twitter in plain english. Sure enough.

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Aren't many lawyers using Twitter yet (there's a few of us), but those who are may be interested in Chris Brogan's post at Problogger on how to use Twitter to promote your blog. Since Chris started using Twitter, he's doubled his blog traffic.

• Ask a question. Instead of telling your Twitter audience that you've published a new post, ask them their opinion on the core topic you covered in a blog post. Asking a question engages your Twitter followers and solicits their experience.
• When comments ensue on one your blog posts send a note to Twitter alerting people to the quality of the conversation in the comments. It's not pitchy in nature. You're simply sharing that the best stuff came after the initial post.
• Even dare to ask for a Stumble. You can get a lot of referrers to your blog from StumbleUpon. If you think your post is 'somewhat momentous,' ask your followers if they think it's worth a Stumble. If you do a lot of sharing and promoting and helping others, you may get people to Stumble something for you.

For the unknowing, Twitter is Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page at Twitter and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

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Whether you like or not, journalist and founder Federated Media Publishing, John Battelle, referencing his presentation to American Express, says all businesses are in the media biz now.

...[N]o matter what business you think you're in - be it making widgets or providing a service, you're now in the media business, plain and simple. Those that recognize this shift will succeed, those that ignore it will atrophy and eventually become irrelevant.

Now, what do I mean by the media business? Well, let's start where all good businesses start: with the customer. Your customer's media habits have changed dramatically in the past ten years. More likely than not, your customers spend nearly 15 hours a week online - it's where they play, communicate, interact with services, and shop and research major purchases. In short, your customer has developed a major new media habit. The question is: Has your business?

Dam few law firms have recognized the shift. Millions of dollars each are spent in offline marketing and networking by hundreds of large law firms in this country. What money is being spent online is spent on websites, which are as much about online media as a hard copy brochure.

To remain relevant, law firms will need to have their lawyers blog so as to syndicate their content not only to the RSS readers of clients, prospective clients, and amplifiers of their intellectual capital, but also to the likes of Forbes, Bloomberg, and other major media players who are running syndicated blog content. The number of places to syndicate law content to is only going to explode in the coming years. And we're not even discussing audio and video yet.

To remain relevant lawyers will need to network with other media players, whether they be bloggers, reporters, editors, publishers, or producers. And that networking is going to need to be done via blogging and social networking sites ala LinkedIn and mediums ala Twitter.

Scary to those law firm heads and quality and assurance committees who don't understand this innovation? Yes. But letting the unknowing guide your future is going to lead to irrelevance.

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Micro blogging is picking up steam.

Dozens of answers to what Twitter makes us do. For those of you scratching your head about what the big deal is over Twitter, the answers may be helpful.