Lawyers should not view this as gimmick. Imagine being able to get lawyers' and business peoples' reactions to cases, news, and legal stories in real time. Doing so you may be able to find the people with the most knowledge on the subject. Want to get real time information on items being discussed at a conference and who's discussing them? Turn to real time search at Twitter.

Here's a YouTube Video depicting the Twitter search results displayed on Google. Below that are three screen shots to show you how you can get to the Twitter results if you are not seeing them on Google.

If you're not seeing the results, click on the plus sign next to 'Web,' as depicted below.

You'll then see a left column displaying search options. Click on the Updates as depicted.

You'll then see real time search results referencing 'Tweets' referencing 'LexBlog' posted my me and three other people.

No one knows how real time search is going to play out, how it's going to be displayed, and how its going to be used, including Google. And especially legal curmudgeons who question any innovation.

But just as search of the Web had value before Google got the world addicted to search, there's value in real time search. We'll be witnesses to how Google and others develop it. We'll then become addicts all over again.

For making it easy for people to give you proper attribution on Twitter on TweetDeck, a desktop application many of us use to Twitter.

I share relevant blog posts of others with my Twitter followers. Rather than just post a blog title and a link, I want to attribute the blog post to its author. I do this by putting the Twitter username of the blog author in parentheses after the text in my Tweet.

See the below example of my Twitter post where I shared Attorney Sam Hasler's blog post, 'What Other Indiana Family Law Blogs Are Saying.' In addition to the post title and link, I gave Sam attribution for the link I am sharing with the '@schasler,' Sam's username on Twitter.

How'd I know that Sam's Twitter name was '@schasler?' I just keyed in 'has' in TweetDeck's autocomplete feature that came up after I hit the '@' key. Up popped Sam's Twitter user name in a brief list of people I follow on Twitter who also have 'has' in their name. See the below for what I mean.

If Sam used a Twitter username such '@Indianadivorcelawyer,' something many lawyers too clever for their own good do, I could have never recalled such a username. I follow a ton of people on Twitter and know Sam as Sam Hasler, not some pseudonym.

In addition to giving proper attribution in your Tweets because it's proper net protocol, using a Twitter user's name lets the person know you've shared a blog post of theirs. If the person didn't know you before, they do now. Getting known is how you get the influencers to follow you and how you network to build relationships.

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

Even as the microblogging space seems to be white hot these days, the world of longer-form blogging is still seeing impressive growth, with all major blogging platforms showing greater than 20 to 40 percent growth year over year, and record users, blogs and total readers, according to Compete.com data and a presentation from Google's Rick Klau, product manager for Blogger, who spoke at Blog World Expo this afternoon. Rick reported that his platform, Blogger, which I use, is now seeing nearly 300,000 words per minute, scaling to 417 million words per month, from more than 10 million content creators. (emphasis added)

I couldn't agree more with Klau (also a lawyer) that "Microblogs are complementary, not competitive, [they are] a driver of attention and engagement back to the blog."

As Klau reports is the case with his blog, Twitter has become the highest traffic generator for my blog outside of search. As is my practice, Klau suggested "Rather than trying to fight against the flow on microblogging, to embrace it, and make sure your content is available to these disparate networks, while remembering to engage where it lands."

Microblogging allows you to engage your audience on subjects on which you've wrote at length on your blog. Klau explained by pulling your blog content into Facebook or Twitter, you need not force a conversation (comments) back onto your blog. If you try to drag people from where they are comfortable communicating, you may lose the opportunity to engage your target audience.

Your blog will continue to be your brand and home base, just adapt to this world of microblogging, as Gray advises, so as to complement your blog.

It makes sense to participate wherever the content lands and wherever your readers are, without pushing to centralize the conversation on your site, but there is no substitute for long-form conversations and being passionate.

I'd suggest any law blogger begin to use microblogging. There's too much to gain through engaging your audience and further enhancing your reputation as a leader.

Though there will be some non-blogging lawyers microblogging, I think they'll find it minimally effective for client development without a place to build their brand through longer insight and commentary that a blog allows for.

Thanks to all of you who attended today's webinar, Why Twitter Matters to Lawyers, part of the ABA Journal's Legal Rebels' 24 Hours of Rebels. We had a great turnout of close to 500 attendees.

You can download the above mindmap that Kevin used in his presentation. You can also view a previously recorded webinar on Using Twitter for Client Development.

You might also enjoy reading about some Twitter client development success stories that legal professionals using Twitter have shared with us.

We hope this webinar was helpful. If you have any questions about Twitter or anything discussed in the webinar, feel free to contact Kevin (kevin@lexblog.com) or contact our Client Services team (support@lexblog.com).

If Twitter fits within your client development strategy, you've figured out how to use Twitter to brand yourself as an authority, and to engage your target audience so as to build relationships, that's great. If Twitter doesn't fit within your client development strategy, you don't understand it, you think Twitter's a waste of time, and other tools work better for your client development, that's great too.

I practiced law in rural Wisconsin. I had a couple of lawyer friends who curled for fun, and for client development. Yes, shuffleboard on ice with team members, a rock, and brooms. They spent hours on weekends curling and even traveled to curling tournaments around the state and country.

These lawyer curlers built relationships with curling bankers, insurance adjustors, and business owners through curling. They told me how they got legal work from these relationships built through curling.

What's the chance these two lawyers would quit curling for client development if I told them curling was a waste of time, that interest in curling was on the decline, that most people who started curling quit, it takes too much time, and that 80% of the conversation taking place while curling was mindless babble unrelated to the law and business?

I didn't curl. Didn't understand it as a client development tool. And couldn't imagine 'wasting that much time.'

But I sure didn't call those two lawyers out for telling me and others that curling works for client development. I didn't go on an anti-curling campaign to save any Wisconsin or Minnesota lawyers who were thinking of curling for fun and client development.

A couple years ago I was much like Larry Bodine. I saw little value in something called Twitter which allowed one to share 'what they were doing now' in short 140 character blurbs. 'My cat just rolled over' was not the makings of client development as I saw it.

In speaking engagements before legal professionals I wouldn't even let on that I had a Twitter account for fear people would think less of me.

Two years later, like many business leaders, lawyers, reporters, publishers, and association leaders, I see Twitter as a powerful branding, relationship building, and research tool.

On the branding side, I agree with venture capitalist and author, Guy Kawasaki, that Twitter is the most powerful branding mechanism since television.

We've all been a witness to Twitter's unparalleled growth.

• Ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide.(Alexa)
• Fastest-growing member community website, growing at six times the rate of Facebook in February. (Nielsen)
• Third most used social network with six million unique monthly visitors. (Compete.com)

Many legal professionals and I discovered how to use Twitter for client development. We're building meaningful relationships with our target audience of clients, prospective clients, referrals sources, and influencers of those three (bloggers, reporters, publishers, conference coordinators, and association leaders).

We're not spending too much time on Twitter, we're having fun using Twitter, we're using Twitter for client development, and we're getting clients as a result. See:

• Blog post listing sample of Twitter client development success stories from lawyers and legal professionals.
• Blog post on Twitter for client development for lawyers by being an intelligence agent.
• Lance Godard's Twitter interviews with practicing lawyers, many of whom use Twitter for practice and client development.

There's no time here to detail how we use Twitter in a smart, strategic, and time effective fashion. I've regularly blogged, spoke, and done webinars on the 'how to's' of Twitter for client development. Other seasoned lawyers and well respected legal professionals have done the same. (See Heather Milligan's blog posts on Twitter as one example)

All of us sharing how Twitter works were driven by our desire to help other legal professionals, not by, if you buy the Bodine argument, a vast conspiracy to see that American lawyers waste their time on mindless babble.

What of the many lawyers and business people registering for Twitter who didn't keep using Twitter? Welcome to the world of technology and Web 2.0 applications. Millions of people register for social networking websites and other Internet applications and stop using them.

Naysayers dissing technology is nothing new. It's recognized sport in the legal profession which hangs on to the past like grim death.

Many lawyers believed the use of a phone in rendering legal services was unprofessional and, of course, unethical. A small group of radical lawyers decided to use the phone, probably for perceived mindless babble.

When I began to teach lawyers how they could use blogs for client development, you'd have thought I killed someone. 'What a waste of time. No one reads them, especially a lawyer's target audience. They take too much time. Over 50% of people who start blogging, stop blogging.'

I heard it all. Like many things, I knew I was onto something, if for no other reason, because of the resistance I was meeting.

I may have brought out the anti-Twitter crowd by championing Twitter's use by lawyers. I may have provoked them further by pointing out what they didn't understand when they dissed Twitter. By arguing the merits of Twitter for client development on an ongoing basis I may have even created a forum for the naysayers to draw attention to themselves.

I'm sorry. I was just trying to help lawyers the best way I knew how.

For now, can't we agree that many lawyers and legal professionals are effectively using Twitter for client development? It makes no sense to tell others that's not possible and that to learn to use Twitter like these professionals is a waste of time.

Note: A copy of this post is included in a thread at LegalOnramp began by OnRamp CEO, Paul Lippe, entitled 'Bodine v. O'Keefe re Twitter and other Social Media.' Legal OnRamp is social network for in-house counsel and invited outside lawyers and third party service providers.

Each day I go into my email to see 50 or 60 separate emails informing me that 50 or 60 more people started following me on Twitter.

Being the nice guy that I am (or idiot) and wanting to get to know certain real people through Twitter, I open up each mail from a person with a real name, click on the link to the user's Twitter page, and see who the new follower is. I then follow back about 10% of the people who started following me.

How did these people who have nothing in common with me come to follow me? Machines.

People, starved for attention or wanting to spam me with 'law of attraction' or 'how to get 30,000 followers on Twitter' tweets should I mistakenly follow them, sign up for machine driven Twitter auto-follow services.

Some machine then goes out for them and automatically follows people on Twitter who have used a term in Tweets that these clowns said they have an interest in when they signed up for the machine service. The same machine unfollows people who do not fellow these people back - if you get the numbers you're following too high in comparison to the number you're following Twitter won't let you follow anymore people.

Believe it or not there are even legal professionals who use these auto follow machines. I can see that from the same people coming back to follow me when I didn't follow them a month earlier when they last followed me. The machines stopped following me when I did not follow back and now the machine is back.

This machine thing is nuts. It's like someone wanting to network and engage people in the flesh but sending out machines to do it. Imagine machines showing up at a Rotary meeting or a networking function at an industry event. Machines that say I am here to get you to get to know Bob Smith, but Bob lacks the social skills to do it personally.

These machine buyers remind me of Greg Storey's description of the folks who buy SEO gimmicks from snake oil sales people as deep-sea life forms so anxious to get discovered that they'll do anything to get noticed especially if it means fifteen seconds on Discovery HD.

I'll continue to spend my 10 or 15 minutes per day seeing who the people are who follow me on Twitter. There's too many good non machine driven folks I'd like to get to know. And even with the deep sea life causing us all grief, Twitter remains fun and an excellent way to both brand my expertise and build relationships with people.

PS to Larry Bodine: Add this post to your 79 factoids proving that any legal professionals who say they are successfully using Twitter for client development are lying. ;)

Then in the same 30 minutes you instantaneously shared 10 or 12 of those headlines, with a very short comment, with 1,000 people who looked as you as a reliable authority in your niche. The people you shared the headlines with included clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and their influencers (reporters, publishers, conference coordinators, civic leaders, association leaders, and the like).

Let's get crazier yet. Imagine many of the recipients of the information you shared in turn shared the information with their friends, business associates, reporters, and association leaders. Of course they gave you attribution as the source of the information.

As long as we're getting nuts, imagine a little button in their attribution to you which everyone knew to push to see what you did as a lawyer and who you do it for. Because of course those second hand recipients wanted to sign up to get these morning blurbs from you. They too saw you as a trusted and reliable source in your niche area of the law.

Imagine if I told my law partners in 1994 I was going to start to do the above as a means of tasteful and effective client development? "Sure, When cows fly. Go make in your office and take your medicine."

Well, with the use of a newsreader and Twitter the above is not only doable, it's something I try to do each day.

Not only do I learn by skimming the latest news so as to improve my company's service to clients, but my brand as a thought leader in my niche is going through the roof.

Blog traffic up. Comments on my blog up. Speaking engagements up. Calls from reporters up. Calls from law firms asking me to speak at their firms up. Employee swagger at my company knowing folks are working at the known leader in the industry up. And most importantly, bottom line revenue up.

This 30 minutes probably produces a higher ROI than any client development work I do.

Let me give you a couple examples from my use of Twitter this morning.

I shared that use of Microsoft's Bing Search Engine was up for the third month in a row and had a 9% market share.

A few minutes ago I was able to see that 84 people had clicked on the link I shared on Twitter earlier this morning.

Among a number of other things I shared on Twitter this morning I tweeted word of my blog post referencing Larry Bodine's piece in Marketing the Law Firm Newsletter saying that Twitter was a waste of time for client development.

A few minutes ago I was able to see that 161 people had viewed my blog post via the link I shared on Twitter this morning.

In addition on both of those items I saw numerous legal professionals and other folks share what I tweeted with their followers on Twitter ('retweeting').

I have over 6,000 people who follow me on Twitter. The vast majority of those followers are lawyers, other legal professionals (managing partners, CMO's CKO's, CIO's), marketing & communications professionals, reporters/editors, publishers, conference coordinators and the like.

That group has a high percentage of what I'd call innovators, leaders, and influencers. They are go getters growing their businesses. They think outside the box. They spread what they read and hear via email, blogs, newspapers and conferences.

These folks have come to rely on me for news and commentary I see on networking through through the Internet, client development for lawyers, social media/neyworking, 'Web 2.0' and the like. I am their trusted intelligence agent.

This is the type of audience a PR professional dies for. And a tool to put me in touch with my target audience on a daily basis? Never happened before.

And as an added kicker I am nurturing and making meaningful relationships with the people I want to get to know. We're becoming friends of each other.

Start small. You are not going to have 1,500 valuable followers overnight. Growing an audience interested in news related to your niche area of the law from 50 to 100 to 500 can take time.

That's okay. You're strengthening your brand as a reliable and trusted authority in a niche and making relationships with your target audience everyday. It's the stuff law firm client development dreams are made of.

Call Twitter mindless babble that's beneath lawyers if you like. Smart lawyers and law firms will ignore such mindless rhetoric and use Twitter as a high ROI relationship building tool.

Where is a seasoned lawyer looking to build and foster relationships with clients, prospective clients, referral sources, and the influencers of those three (reporters, bloggers, publishers, conference coordinators, and industry associations) to go? Per Bodine, in addition to LinkedIn and few other worthwhile mediums for client development:

• Facebook, a great place for building relationships for younger lawyers, but not where I am telling senior rainmakers to spend their time.
• Martindale-Hubbell Connected, which may have potential, but is no where near the place where a lawyer's target audience and the influencers of that target is hanging out yet.
• A law marketing listserv run by Bodine, with some good discussion between legal marketing professionals, but with obviously little potential for networking.

The first third of Bodine's piece went way out of its way to belittle the power of Twitter as a relationship building and networking tool. This should comes as no surprise as Bodine is making a name for himself in bashing Twitter.

The basis for his argument appears to be that most lawyers don't use Twitter and that 40% of the discussion on Twitter is mindless - as if the conversation among lawyers and local business leaders in the country club on men's golf day is that of complex legal matters.

Based on the results I am hearing lawyers are getting by building relationships through Twitter, and getting clients as a result, I am beginning to think that Twitter offers the highest ROI of any networking/relationship building tool.

It does not take a lot of time to key in 140 characters sharing niche legal and business news/commentary with an accompanying link and retweeting commentary from an A-List of bloggers, reporters, business leaders and the like. Both build followers and valuable relationships.

Plus you'd have to be flat out nuts these days not to be monitoring real time conversation on Twitter mentioning your firm, clients, competition, and keywords & phrases related to the niche in which you practice.

I suppose if Bodine were around in the days of Alexander Graham Bell, he'd be siding with the lawyers who thought a lawyer's use of a phone in rendering legal services was clearly unprofessional and, of course, unethical. A small group of radical lawyers decided to use the phone, probably for perceived mindless babble.

Let's keep an open mind as to innovative client development tools for the American lawyer. What's so bad about just saying a medium appears to be working for some folks, I don't use it to much, I don't understand it, and we'll have to see how things play out?

Perhaps I shouldn't get worked up about misguided advice and opinions from someone who I don't believe understands Twitter, but Bodine's piece is in Marketing the Law Firm Newsletter, a part Law Journal Newsletters published by American Lawyer Media.

Bodine's piece will passed around by managing partners and chief marketing officers clinging to the past. The piece risks needlessly keeping the legal profession lagging behind the industries, corporations, and consumers we serve. That's a disservice to the American lawyer.

9/23 Update: In the original post (before updating) I mistakenly labeled Bodine's opinion piece as an article in American Lawyer Media's Law Technology News (LTN). I originally saw Bodine's piece on American Lawyer Media's Law.com website under a heading 'Law.com LegalTechnolgy | Featuring Legal Technology News.'

I mistakenly and stupidly assumed Bodine's piece was put out by LTN, not even catching the different names - 'Law.com LegalTechnology | Featuring Law Technology News.' Bodine's piece was not published by LTN.

The gist of my post (before updating it) called out LTN for labeling Twitter a waste of time for client development, something I described as a disservice to the American lawyer on LTN's and ALM's part.

I apologize to Monica Bay, Editor of LTN, her team at LTN, ALM, and you my readers for my mistake.

ALM employees, including Monica Bay, have a history of effectively using Twitter as a communication and relationship building tool. The last two LegalTech shows put on by ALM included panels on the power of Twitter, both of which panels were spearheaded by Monica Bay. At Monica's invitation I participated.

What I did was more than taking a cheap shot to LTN and ALM, it was sloppy blogging and exercising poor judgment on my part. I will try to do better.

Kevin found Sylvester’s vlog (a vlog is a blog, but with video in every post) intriguing. And perhaps you will, too. I interviewed Sylvester about his vlog, and asked him how lawyers can build relationships with journalists via the Internet, and learn from what he does. 

“I could pick any courtroom and come out with a good story,” Sylvester said. “They are the height of human drama.”

Sylvester, a journalist for 32 years, has been on the court beat at the Wichita Eagle since 2000. His vlog, What the Judge Ate For Breakfast, is home to video clips showing compelling testimony from inside Wichita’s courtrooms.

“It shows a side of the courtroom that the people don’t really get to see,” said Sylvester. His time in the courtroom can be bizarre, especially when people show up and it turns out they know one another. Wichita’s population is roughly a half million people.

Sylvester was the first in his newsroom to embrace video. In the spring of 2008, he started tweeting live trials on Twitter. According to Sylvester, people really liked it. Now, his tweets feed onto his vlog. The videos deliver a full picture of what the courtroom is about.

“I’m trying to give people an insight as to why things happen,” he said.

Many lawyers use the vlog as an educational tool. “They [lawyers] can show their clients what to expect at a sentencing or plea hearing,” he said.

Some lawyers even use the vlog to see how they perform, or how other lawyers perform too. On occasion, Sylvester will interview lawyers to add context, and then other lawyers can learn by listening to their commentary.

Sylvester calls social media the wave of the future. You can find him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and of course on his vlog. His advice to lawyers is to just start using the different tools. Sylvester knows lawyers who use Twitter to find other lawyers in particular practice areas, to find experts, and to do research.

“Lawyers and judges need to get more comfortable with these different avenues of disseminating information, because I believe it’s the future of communications,” said Sylvester.

I couldn’t agree more.

Want to learn more about engaging with the media? Check out the next installment in our free, exclusive client webinar series, "Engaging with the Media: How to Become a Go-To Source". It'll be held Thursday, September 24, at 12pm ET/9am PT.

To register yourself, visit our Event Center. If you need the password, direct message Support on Twitter. Or, feel free to contact Client Services via email, support@lexblog.com, or by phone at 1-800-913-0988.

I take O'Reilly's statement to mean both discovering people you don't know, but you'd like to know, as well as getting to know better the people you may already know of.

Powerful statement. And one a lot of us may want to take to heart in our use of Twitter.

With so many people on Twitter trying to get tens of thousands of followers, you're going to get a lot of people you don't know following you. As I posted a couple days ago, following others manually, or via software, is the modus operandi of people trying to get followers for the sake of getting followers. The idea being thousands will follow them back.

The last couple days I've been weeding out the people I am following to fall in line with the 'O'Reilly Twitter philosophy.' Though I have some fine tuning to go, I'm limiting who I follow to the people I want to discover and the people I want to get to know better.

I really had no interest in getting to know the hundreds or thousands of so called 'social media experts,' 'abundance for all groupies,' or the mass marketing spammers who were following me.

Who do I follow on Twitter now?

• Clients and LexBlog team members.
• Lawyers.
• Other legal professionals, including employees of law firms and companies providing legal professionals with various services and products.
• Law students.
• Law professors.
• Journalists.
• Mainstream media and trade media tweets.
• Various technologists
• Leading new media professionals.
• Leaders in business, including those in technology, marketing, finance, publishing, PR, and the like.
• Innovators.
• Innovative college professors.
• Leading search and SEO professionals.
• Leading non profit professionals.
• Interesting people and leaders in Seattle and the Northwest, including my hometown of Bainbridge Island.
• Various athletes.
• People with similar personal interests such as baseball, running, and skiing.

I'm sure there are other interesting folks who fall outside one of these groups. I'm equally certain there are some great people who follow me that I don't follow back.

I'll acknowledge that with following over 5,000 people (and growing), I'll never to get to know you all. And God knows I don't even try to see all the stuff you Tweet.

But when I do follow the river of Tweets going by, at least I'll know they're coming from someone I may want to get to know better. And that's a good thing.

Look no further than the people who start following you on Twitter. People with 20, 40, or 60,000 followers. People that you have no idea who they are.

Why the chase the for followers?

• Ego?
• Insecurity?
• Need to feel important?
• Trying to sell services and products by spamming others?
• Whoring themselves out to other spammers?
• Trying to increase their measure of influence?

I don't know. But just because someone has a lot of followers on Twitter does not mean they are offering anything of value on Twitter or that they have any expertise in anything, let alone social media and social networking.

Don't believe for a second that it takes influence, expertise, or the desire to foster meaningful relationships to get followers on Twitter.

Some people seek lots of followers by following thousands and then un-following those who do not follow them back. Heck some folks do this repeatedly in an effort to get you to follow them. I can't count the number of email notices I get from Twitter that the same person is following me again.

And now for the lazy you can buy software that'll get you thousands of followers on Twitter. Do a Google search for 'software to get twitter followers.' Here's the type of crap you'll see promoted:

• Huge-Sized Twitter© - Explode Your Twitter Followers - Just $27, Money Back Guaranteed
• Buy Quality Twitter™ Followers Now - Buy Followers Packages For As Low As $37
• Endless Twitter Followers - Get 1000 Followers Per Profile In A Day. On Autopilot! Free Trial
• Twitter Adder - Professional Twitter Marketing Tools - Automatic
• Get Rich Using Twitter - Totally Automated Easy To Use Follow By Keywords - Make Money
• Hummingbird Auto-Friend Follower (for people looking for friends automatically)

Geez. Makes me think of Rodney Dangerfield's one liner "I was so ugly as a kid, my mother used to tie a pork chop around my neck so the dogs would play with me."

I'm sorry if LexBlog promoted some of this follower chase by LexTweet displaying legal professionals using Twitter in the order of how many people were following someone. We're working on ways to change that.

If you're looking for followers on Twitter, do it the old fashioned way. Share news and information of value to your target audience. Word gets around and more people will follow you. Follow others you'd like to get to know and learn from. Share things of personal interest outside the law. You'll find that others with similar interests will begin to follow you.

But don't fall into the trap of chasing followers or feel the need to follow everyone following you. They may just be seeking 'Auto-Friends.'

Others feel the same way — see my recent post on Twitter client development success stories, in which I feature the responses that poured in from lawyers and legal professionals when I informally polled them on and off-line about their experiences.

Want to know more? Check out the next installment in our free, exclusive client webinar series, "Using Twitter for Client Development". It'll be held Thursday, August 27, at 12pm ET/9am PT.

I'll cover, among other topics:

• What is Twitter?
• How is Twitter being used by attorneys and other industry leaders today?
• Who are some of the "big guns" in the legal industry using Twitter? What are some examples of how they use it?
• What value does Twitter hold for business professionals/attorneys?
• Which Twitter applications are worthwhile and which are lame?
• What are some etiquette tips on using Twitter for professional social networking?

Response to our client invites has already been strong with almost 120 registered guests. To register yourself, visit our Event Center. If you need the password, direct message Support on Twitter or contact our Director of Client Services, Pam Garfield.

Listen into every word at a cocktail reception of lawyers, industry professionals, reporters, and corporate executives following a one day seminar for corporate leaders and in-house counsel. Pull out isolated 140 character phrases from the conversation. Think they'll all be priceless words of wisdom on which one could hang the next large business deal? Hardly.

You'd be just as apt to hear someone talking about buying a recent puppy, which vodka they like best, or the recent weather as offering valuable insight and commentary on the law or industry happenings.

But that does not dismiss the value of you, as a lawyer, attending that reception. The opportunity to engage and connect with your target audience so you can get to know each is invaluable. Developing relationships through networking opportunities is the stuff client development in the law is made of.

Plus, much of networking and making connections with your target audience is done through conversation about subjects other than the law and business. Relationships flourish based on getting to really know people. And that means getting to know things relating to each others' personal lives.

Heather Milligan, Director of Marketing at Los Angeles' Barger & Wolen LLP, referencing a recent post of mine, explains how useful Twitter can be in client development.

In the legal world, we hear from GCs time and again that, with all things being equal, they hire lawyers they know, like and trust.

Social networking isn't about "selling" a product or a service; it is about expanding our networks and connecting with people with similar or like interests. It's about becoming known, liked and trusted by those in a position to hire or refer us business.

Kevin O'Keefe was amongst my first follows on Twitter. As we learned by using the tool, I would "listen" in as Kevin would Tweet baseball games. I got to know Kevin, like Kevin and trust Kevin through Twitter and other social media and networking tools.

While a lot of people were still questioning Twitter, we spent time over coffee, over the phone, texting about how social networking could impact client development for lawyers.

One thing became extremely apparent early on: Twitter was extremely powerful (and quick) in identifying a broad network of people with whom we could network and develop relationships. We just had to figure out how to convert these relationships into new business. Turns out, it isn't that complicated.

In the case of Twitter, many lawyers and other legal professionals are finding it invaluable in networking and building relationships with their target audience. The fact that much of the information shared is babble or that you don't use Twitter for client development is irrelevant.

Interesting how something I didn't use a year ago is now something I can't live without. It's like I've lost my connection with the outside world. How do I share news and info on blogs, social media, and client development I'm picking up on my feeds this morning with all of you?

A lot of legal professionals see no use in Twitter, viewing it a waste of time. For them a Twitter outage means more productivity in America.

For me and thousands of other legal professionals who have found Twitter an effective way to foster meaningful relationships with clients, prospective clients, and referral sources as well as the influencers of those three, we're losing client development time. Oh well, I'm sure there was a time when the phone system went down for extended times.

As noted by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch this morning, Twitter's overcome early reliability problems.

Twitter declared their scaling problems over in early 2007, well before the serious problems even started. And as much as the Great Twitter Outages of 2007 and 2008 frustrated early adopters (there were so many outages that we just started reporting uptime instead), these outages are much more serious. 45 million people worldwide now rely on Twitter as a communication platform.

I don't expect long term service reliability issues with Twitter. Fred Wilson whose VC firm is backing Twitter, speaking to an event I attended a few weeks, made clear Twitter is using its money on infrastructure to scale growth. Fred explained, and I agree, it made more sense now to grow the heck out of Twitter than to build software systems to generate revenue.

Proof of Twitter's infrastructure spending is Twitter and Twitter search running lightening fast of late on the Amazon cloud.

First morning ferry ride commute without Tweeting news and updates in a very long time just coming to an end. I've survived.

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.

Those are the same reasons people use Twitter per a study on 'Why People Use Twitter' from TNS and The Conference Board.

• 41.6% percent of Internet users who used Twitter did so to keep in touch with their friends.
• 25.8% to find news and stay updated.
• 21.7% for work purposes.
• 9.4% for research.

Lawyers should also note that Twitter users under age 35 were more interested in broadcasting their status while older users were more likely to use Twitter for work-related purposes.

The more we find out about Twitter and its use the more Twitter makes sense for legal professionals. Agree?

Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.

How does Twitter work for your law firm or businesses?

Twitter is a communications platform that helps businesses and their customers do a number of useful things. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you've had a great--or disappointing--experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

Sounds a lot like engaging others and building relationships. And isn't that at the heart of client development for lawyers and law firms?

Twitter's not something you'll grasp overnight. That's okay. 95% of lawyers don't grasp the concepts of marketing themselves or client development offline either. You learn from trial and error.

Sections of Twitter 101 include:

• What is Twitter?
• Getting started
• Learn the lingo
• Best practices
• Case studies from 10 companies
• Other resources

You can also download the slides or printout a pdf of Twitter 101 a for use in your law firm.

The response has been pretty overwhelming — attorneys and legal professionals from firms large and small have shared their positive stories of what an active Twitter presence has done for them.

Here are some of their stories and anecdotes:

• Connecticut employment attorney Daniel Schwartz (@danielschwartz) of Pullman & Comley. “Twitter story: Got invited to the ABA Diversity summit and speaking engagements bc of my use of Twitter.”
• California defamation attorney Adrianos Facchetti (@adrianos), has gotten several speaking gigs and connections with local reporters, attorneys, and consultants (more details after the jump).
• Washington DC LEED AP and construction attorney Chris Cheatham (@chrischeatham) of Watt, Tieder, Hoffar & Fitzgerald, LLP, a 200-attorney firm, has made connections with huge names in green building, including United States Green Building Council executive committee member Rob Watson (more details after the jump).
• Cleveland health care and private equity attorney Jayne Juvan (@jaynejuvan) of Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, LLP, a large Ohio firm: "Even more so than my blog, I've used Twitter to demonstrate that I'm knowledgeable about business news and the economic crisis, as well as developments in corporate law" (more details after the jump).
• Both California attorney-mediator Victoria Pynchon (@vpynchon) and California civil litigator H. Scott Leviant (@hsleviant) wrote: "I'm speaking at LegalTech b/c I met @heathermilligan on twitter."
• New York Internet and intellectual property attorney Deena Burgess (@DeenaEsq): "Twitter has been great for my business. Developed many client relationships through it."
• New York law professor and technology attorney Jonathan Ezor (@ProfJonathan): "I've had quite a bit of success with Twitter, in terms of meeting new folks, getting prospective clients and good PR...Beyond that, using Twitter has helped me counsel about the risks of using Twitter."
• John Smith (@JohnKellenJames) VP/Partner at Kellen James, a National Performance Consulting firm: “Had several good meetings today as a result of connections made through Twitter at #LTWC”
• Michigan estate planning attorney Howard Collens (@howardcollens): “Made a nice contact with a local title company through the power of Twitter.”
• Patent and trademark attorney Erik J. Heels (@erikjheels) shared this summary of his successful Twitter campaign.
• Texas appellate lawyer D. Todd Smith (@dtoddsmith) writes: "The TX AmLaw affiliate called and asked me to write another article about Twitter."

See more stories and details after the jump:

Chris Cheatham:

I have been on Twitter a fairly short time but I am completely convinced it is an extremely powerful networking tool.
 
I write about green building legal issues.  My prospective clients are in the green building industry.  Through twitter, I have met the following:

1.  Elaine Lipman Barnes (@elbarneshouse).  Elaine is one of the original green builders and now manages a $1 billion green schools fund in Ohio for the State.  One Billion.  I made direct contact and have since had conversations with someone who manages a one billion dollar green building fund.  I even did an interview blog post on Elaine:  http://www.greenbuildinglawupdate.com/tags/elaine-lipman-barnes/
 
2.  Ron Sims. Ron Sims (@ronsims) was the King County Executive. As you all so nicely mentioned on your blog, Ron tweeted that he liked my blog and had shared it with all of his King County attorney's and staff. By the way, Ron is now serving in some executive role in the Obama White House. Not a bad connection to make through Twitter.
 
3. This one might be my favorite. When I first started my blog, I sat down with my fiancee, who knew more about green building than I and asked her who I would want to talk to if I could talk to anyone in the industry.  She mentioned Rob Watson, the Father of LEED. Rob helped establish the United States Green Building Council, he is on the Council's executive committee and Rob is also in China as some sort of green building ambassador. Anyways, I quoted him in one of my blog posts from a previous interview he had done.  I then realized he was on the twitter as @kilrwatt.  So I asked him to take a look at the post. He had some criticisms, which resulted in an email exchange to clarify some points.  All of a sudden, through Twitter, I was talking to the Father of LEED about one of my blog posts. Here is the string of posts I did from my interview with Rob.

Jayne Juvan:

I started using Twitter only weeks ago. The first week following my launch, a gentleman spoke at our firm about social networking and highlighted both my blog and the fact that I'm on twitter to all attorneys in our firm. Since then, I've been the twitter "go to" person, answering questions for many of my colleagues, even including our firm's executive chairman. Additionally, even more so than my blog, I've used twitter to demonstrate that I'm knowledgeable about business news and the economic crisis, as well as developments in corporate law. I work with private equity funds in health care, but also am very interested in financial regulation. I've since received several calls from acquaintances wishing to discuss the state of the economy. I've been stopped at the elevator and on the side walk to talk about my tweets. And today, I landed a new client because of my blog and my twitter page!  I was linked up with an old high school friend who was on my speech and debate team, we found that we have a lot in common, and we've decided that we may collaborate in the future. Twitter and blogging are both very powerful, and I couldn't imagine my practice without them and without LexBlog!

I'll be part of a panel tomorrow, June 25, from 2:15-3:15 p.m.: What is Twitter and How Can I Use It? I will be arriving in LA around 3 p.m. today, so if anyone wants to get together to chat about blogging, social media, or just to get together for beers, don't hesitate to call my cell, 206 321 3627, or drop me an email. If anyone is getting together dinner tonight and has an extra chair, I'd welcome the company.

As to tomorrow's Twitter session Monica Bay, the editor-in-chief of Law Technology News, will be moderating, and the other speakers will be LexThink founder and "Innovational speaker" Matt Homann, California appellate and technology lawyer and blogger Denise M. Howell, and Baker Hostetler associate Nina K. Goldberg.

LegalTech New York was a great time earlier this year. As for that conference, you can follow other conference attendees on Twitter over at LexTweet. If you're attending LegalTech and not in the Twitter feed, let me, @kevinokeefe or @lexblogsupport know and we'll add you in.