Twitpic : Effective social media tool for lawyers

Twitpic is a website that allows you to easily post pictures to Twitter. It’s often used by citizen journalists to upload and distribute pictures in near real-time as an event is taking place.

You may post pictures via an iPhone or other mobile device by emailing a picture to a twitpic email address you are assigned. The caption of your picture, which you put in the subject of your email, will accompany a link to the picture in your twitter post.

You may also use twitpic to post pictures to Twitter from an application such as a TweetDeck.

Why is twitpic an effective social media tool for lawyers? Because it lets those who follow you on Twitter get to know you a little better.

Face it, as lawyers we are not only not the most interesting people in the world, but people downright dislike us. However, people are interested in what you’re interested in. Your sharing your personal interests with people builds relationships that grow your network, a network that grows business over time.

I asked Heather Milligan, Director of Marketing at Barger & Wolen in Los Angeles, why she thought Twitter may be an effective client development tool for lawyers. She told me something to the effect of ‘Clients are not interested in lawyers per se, but they are interested in what the lawyers are interested in.’

Twitpic by its very nature lets people know what you are interested in. You’re sharing things you see and value enough to not only take a picture, but to share the picture with others. As more people following you on Twitter find you interesting, they mention you and what you blog or twitter about to others – both on and offline.

Nikki Black twitpics her gourmet touch each evening, tweeting a picture of what always looks like a pretty good dinner. Any given evening, Nikki may have 50 or 60 people look at a dinner plate from her kitchen.

The result? Nikki has over 1,500 followers on Twitter who are getting to know her even better. Those followers in turn talk more about Nikki. And people across the country remember Nikki is a lawyer in Rochester, New York. She’s got a growing network and reputation that lawyers with huge PR budgets would kill for.

I twitpic about various things. Arriving in a new city, pictures of my kids, or my family at a baseball game.

This summer I shared a picture of roaring fans at Wrigley Field after the Cubs’ rookie catcher just drove in his 3rd run of the game. Des Moines lawyer Rush Nigut direct messaged me on Twitter a minute later saying his kids had their picture taken with Geovany Soto when they threw out the opening pitch at a Des Moines Cubs minor league game the summer before. Received a call from Rush the week I got back from vacation regarding new 2 new blogs for his firm.

Are you sharing too much of your personal life with twitpic? Not really. When you sit down with a new client or business associate, the conversation starts off focusing on personal items. You’re more apt to talk about your kids’ soccer games or who won last night’s NBA game than to lead off with ‘I’m a no nonsense guy, give me just what I need to start work on this matter.’

To give you a further idea of how I use twitpic, here’s a number of pics from the last two days followed by some responses I received.

From a law blogger meetup in Toronto on Friday evening.

I shared that it was great to be back in New York City with this pic upon walking out of the subway.

I shared some pics while out for a beautiful run through Central Park this evening. Yes, I tweeted while running. The first is from Columbus Circle entering Central Park.

Here’s upon reaching the reservoir running loop at the North end of Central Park. (yes that’s ice)

Looking back at the Manhattan skyline from the North side of the reservoir before heading back into a cold wind.

And back at the ice skating rink on the South end of the park, where I pointed out the Trump sponsorship signs you can’t see in the picture.

I find sharing photos like this a lot of fun. Turns out some of my followers on Twitter thought so as well.

• UK’s Mike Semple Piggot (@CharonQC): Hi Kevin… I’m watching you as you wander through `North America! Great stuff. Enjoy NYC. Keep the bulletins going. :)
• San Diego copywriter Beth Ziesenis, (@AvenueZ): So beautiful… My run was through an industrial park today. And very hot.
• New York lawyer John Hochfelder (@johnhechfelder): What the heck Kevin, are you literally tweeting while on the run?
• Columbus Social Media Account Manager, Anna Young (@ayoungone): Loving your pictures of NYC. It makes the cold snow look so much nicer.

Give twitpic a try. It’s a lot of fun. And though you may not see the business development side, client development begins with strengthening relationships.