Social media and blogging for legal tech founders, the Jack Newton way

Legal tech entrepreneurs should take a page out of Jack Newton’s play book when it comes to picking up notoriety for your fledgling startup and getting your products out in the market place.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Jack, the CEO and Founder of legal tech giant, Clio, yesterday at Clio’s #ClioCloud9 conference.

I asked him about blogging and social media. What it meant to him and his company? How he learned to get comfortable, personally, using social media? And what he’d tell other tech startups.

Jack is as real and authentic on social media as they come. Spontaneous, unfiltered, genuine and caring, whether it be any social media, though Twitter is where you’ll mostly see him mixing it up with folks.

On blogging, Jack explained that he reached out to bloggers back when the company was just about to launch. They didn’t have any money for marketing, let alone for a booth at conferences.

By personally getting to know bloggers, he built trust with them, some became friends.

When it became time to launch Clio and garner exposure at the LegalTech Show in NYC years ago, the bloggers covered Clio. Twitter was just starting and like everyone else, Clio was figuring out just how to use it at LegalTech Show to get the word out in an engaging way – not in ad-like tweets.

The result being more exposure and business development success than Clio could have ever gotten with a booth. Marketing people were out of the question as Jack and his co-founder Rian Gauvreau only had enough money for a flight and one cheap hotel room they shared.

Jack thought ALM, the host of the conference, may have been mad, as Clio had such success at the conference without a booth or any sponsorships. Jack only had a registrant, not attendee pass, too boot.

I have gotten to know Jack and his wife, Tonia, even better, via Facebook. I feel I’ve gotten to know their children as they grow up, especially true when the CEO of a billion dollar company is sharing pictures from a family lemonade stand.

Tonia was especially there for me via Facebook and face to face after we lost Jill. Without the “Newton approach” to social media, this could never have happened and we’d never be such friends.

Jack wants me to tell you as entrepreneurs that social media and engaging bloggers is not about boasting about your company and its products.

Jack sees it a bit like cocktail parties going on from time to time. See one you’d enjoy and join the conversation in a real and authentic way.

Circle around Twitter where the lawyers, legal tech entrepreneurs and bloggers gather, and you’re apt to run into Jack.