One of the important messages in terms of social media that came out of this year’s LMA Annual Conference is that “you cannot be a proxy for someone else’s relationship – the lawyers have to do it themselves.”  But in the busy world of attorneys, where time is quite literally money, what about ghostblogging? 

For…

The second social media panel of the day was one that we tweeters had been waiting for, since our friends and fellow “tweeps” (as people who tweet are often referred to) Heather Milligan, the Director of Marketing for Barger & Wolan LLP, Jayne Navarre, the Director of Law Gravity LLC, and Russell Lawson, the Marketing Director at Sands Anderson Marks & Miller, P.C. would be presenting.  The topic was Social Media Strategies for Small to Mid-sized Law Firms.  Jayne began by introducing the attendees to the term “social web” as a catchall for technologies like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and blogging.  Russell commented that entering social media is “like drinking from a fire hose,” echoing sentiments from the earlier panel.  Because of this, he said that he did research before engaging online.  Jayne asked them what their greatest challenge in social media has been – Russell said that it is getting people to engage frequently and Heather answered that it was finding champions in her firm who are willing to speak up in and about social media.  She added that legal marketers would be surprised at who the champions at their firms can be.  Laura Gutierrez commented via Twitter that educating attorneys about social media and time are her biggest challenges. 

In terms of strategy, Jayne advised that social media should be part of your day – it’s important to integrate it into your work flow and carve out the time needed to make it effective.  She said that social media tools are things that lawyers are already using, just reinterpreted through technology.  The role of the legal marketer is to help them transform what they’re doing into the 2010 version.  At the heart of it, social media is about engaging people, and if you’re not doing that, you’re wasting your time.  The panel pointed out that social media doesn’t require that lawyers stop other kinds of business development, like attending alumni events, only that they consider it as another tool they can use.  Russell talked about his firm’s use of social media, saying that he is having a tool built that will allow him to feed attorneys topics daily, which they can then write about on the social web in blog posts.  He already sends a social media tip out twice a month to his attorneys, and his firm has started @sociallawyers to help educate other lawyers as to what his firm thinks works in social media.  To get buy-in from the attorneys within his own firm, they write an internal document called “Look Who’s Famous Now,” which shows the exposure that  lawyers are garnering online.  He said, “We think clients want firms who understand social media.”  Continue Reading LMA 2010 – Social Media Strategies for Small to Mid-sized Law Firms

One of the most well-attended panels of the conference was “Leveraging Social Networking – Real World Applications of Web 2.0 That Have Led to New Business.”  On the panel were John M. Byrne, Director of Communications at Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP and John J. Buchanan, Chief Marketing Officer at ILN member firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin.  The panel was moderated by Darryl Cross, Vice President of Client Profitability at LexisNexis. 

Though the irony of attending a panel on social media at a conference without any wifi for the attendees was not lost on those there, we made do Tweeting from mobile devices and using internet cards on laptops.  The panel started by saying that social media is a way to collaborate, and firms should do it to serve their clients and get closer to them.  Cross gave some statistics that lend credence to the idea that social media is a “trend” that is not going away: there are currently 400 million people on Facebook, 60 million on LinkedIn, and 50 millions Tweets per day.  91% of the users of social media connect through their mobile devices.  Though many lawyers are reticent to join social networks for privacy concerns, Cross pointed out that there is Sermo, an online community of 130,000 physicians who share and deal with highly sensitive medical information thorugh social media.  The message was that if doctors can do this, surely lawyers can figure out how to engage with social media. Cross also mentioned Martindale-Hubbell Connected, which is an online network for legal professionals (If you’d like to connect with me there, you can do so here).  Continue Reading LMA 2010 – Leveraging Social Networking – Real World Applications of Web 2.0 That Have Led to New Business

It’s that time of year again – the LMA Annual Conference rolls around in just a few short weeks!  It’s a great opportunity to make new friends and renew relationships, so I thought I’d keep a list of those attending as I’m advised, as well as their Twitter names (so anyone interested in the conference…

In Part I of this two-part series, I introduced my thoughts on the first half of the Ten Golden Rules’ webinar – “Thought Leaders Forum – What’s Next in Internet Marketing.” Presenters on the panel included Ten Golden Rules CEO, Jay Berkowitz, semantics expert and Bintro.com CEO, Richard Stanton, Facebook Goddess and Relationship Marketing Specialist, Mari Smith, Biz Web Coach, Jim Kukral, iClarity Founder, Maria Harrison, PeoplePond Founder, David McInnis, and author Rohit Bhargava. The following is Part II of my thoughts on the session:

5) Maria Harrison: Video is changing online advertising. In November of 2008, there were 12.7 million views of videos on YouTube, up a third from the same period in the previous year. The current use of video is mainly for entertainment, but this focus is changing as Generation X catches up. The reason this has taken so long is broadband access, but now that this is becoming less of an issue, video is becoming more important and useful. Maria noted that successful video advertisers will look to engage their audience, instead of interrupting their experience, so users will see things like in-page ads and self-service ad platforms, such as Google Video. She cautioned that return on investment is still key.

** Legal industry takeaway: With such strict advertising rules, I don’t think there will be too many law firms using online video for advertising purposes. However, there may be opportunities for educational videos produced by law firms. Firms should also think about innovative ways to introduce the use of online video, similar to Holland & Hart’s use of video on in their five-minute television shows featuring innovative clients, which aired on Frontier Airline’s Wild Blue Yonder network and online in 2007.Continue Reading Thought Leaders Forum – What’s Next in Internet Marketing Part II

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Ten Golden Rules’ webinar – Thought Leaders Forum – What’s Next in Internet Marketing. Presenters on the panel included Ten Golden Rules CEO, Jay Berkowitz, semantics expert and Bintro.com CEO, Richard Stanton, Facebook Goddess and Relationship Marketing Specialist, Mari Smith, Biz Web Coach, Jim Kukral, iClarity Founder, Maria Harrison, PeoplePond Founder, David McInnis, and author Rohit Bhargava. In a fast-paced webinar, chock-full of valuable information, I was able to glean a number of tips from these passionate industry experts, which can be of use in the legal industry. Following is Part 1 of 2 of my thoughts on this session.

1) Jay Berkowitz: The internet is becoming a place of microcommunications, where we get our news in bits and bytes. Jay used Twitter as a great example of this, a place where people can get sound bites of what other people and companies are saying. He gave us his three “E’s” for using Twitter:

• “Educate:” Use Twitter to teach people something, both by providing valuable content and re-tweeting (essentially re-broadcasting another Twitter user’s tweet to your own Twitter followers) useful information.
• “Entertain:” Jay used @the_real_shaq as an example of someone who effectively entertains his audience through his tweets, which keeps them interested and increases his number of followers.
• “Engage:” Reply to tweets you find interesting or thought-provoking and listen to what other Twitter users are saying. Jay mentioned @ChrisBrogan as a great example of someone who engages on Twitter.

** Legal industry takeaway: Twitter can be used to educate current and potential clients about your law firm or legal service, with links to relevant articles, comments on changes to laws or high profile cases, and retweets of valuable information from your colleagues in the field. Letting your personality come through on Twitter and engaging others helps to build your network. For more of my thoughts on Twitter, take a look at my post, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Why Lawyers Should Pay Attention to Twitter.”Continue Reading Thought Leaders forum – What’s Next in Internet Marketing Part I