Are smart clients social media savvy?

Matt Krantz (@mattkrantz), author and markets reporter for USA TODAY writes that smart investors are social media savvy.

With the SEC recently announcing dramatic changes that make social media fair game for companies looking for ways to disseminate information, investors blogs, Twitter, and Facebook are in the mix.

…[O]ne thing is for sure: Investors will need to reconsider their sources of information and potentially widen the places they go. Some also worry investors will be overwhelmed if they have to be on the lookout for financial data coming from multiple sources, be it Twitter and Facebook, in addition to traditional places. The concern is that once again, professional investors with the means or tools to survey the expanse of data sources will have the edge.

Interesting that the investment community believes that the professionals are viewed to have a edge with regard to social media. It’s the professionals who are presumed to be sophisticated enough to follow information on social media and to draw conclusions from what they’re viewing.

Could this be the be the case with the hiring of law firms? Could the more sophisticated buyers of legal services, whether hiring a lawyer personally or on behalf of a company, have an edge now that lawyers and law firms are beginning to use social media?

Hiring a lawyer is a big decision. Getting the wrong lawyer can lead to dire consequences. At least as dire as making a wrong investment.

Knowing that sophisticated buyers want to get all the information they can before making a decision and that such buyers will learn how to get that information via social media, can’t we expect savvy clients to be users of social media?