Are innovators consuming information from law firm client alerts? Are blogs and social media more likely to engage?

Those are questions law firms may want to ask themselves.

Look at what New York Attorney Nithya Das told Rachel Zahorsky for a story on Das’ business development success through social media.

Venture capitalists don’t consume information through client alerts. Instead they read blogs, click on links posted to Twitter and pay attention to the things that show up in their RSS feeds. The medium [to communicate] has definitely changed.

Das, who I had the good fortune to meet when she presented at a PLI Conference on social media I chaired this spring, was called upon to help propel Goodwin Procter’s Founders Workbench, a resource for emerging growth companies, into the spotlight among clients and colleagues within the venture capital community.

Das’ advice was Founder’s Toolbox, a companion blog to the Founder’s Workbench website. She wanted to gain traction in the startup community and knew that couldn’t happen through a website alone.

From her personal blog, HungryDesi, Das knew that content alone doesn’t capture an audience or engage people.

We had to get the firm engaged on Twitter and spread the word to the entrepreneurial community that we’re a resource.

When I first started food blogging, somebody said that if you want to drive traffic to your site, you really need to embrace the community and join it.

Bingo. You need to go out where people are. You need to start interacting with them. You can’t let fear and self loathing that you’re in a regulated industry like the law stop you.

As Das’ says, “The medium to communicate has definitely changed.” Sending out client alerts, though safe, may be marking you and your firm as clinging to the past for innovators.

Das is s delightful person and a natural for business development. Perhaps too natural. She’s left Goodwin Proctor and joined AppNexus, a real time ad platform, as legal counsel.