Social Media

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Don’t worry – I know I haven’t finished my Facebook series yet, or even gotten very far underway.  But because we’re expecting some major changes with Facebook with the rolling out of the new "timeline," it makes sense to wait until it’s out before moving forward.

So in the meantime, I thought I’d get started with our Twitter tutorials, particularly since I had a request from a non-legal family member on behalf of a colleague for some assistance!

Before we get started, I’m sure there are many of you who will roll your eyes at my recommendation to use Twitter.  I mean, what can you really get across in 140-character bursts? 

So very much.

I’ll give you my background on Twitter – several years ago, I launched a very small gifts company, selling designs on tee shirts, etc. through Cafe Press.  As a marketer, I was looking for ways to build buzz around my designs without having to spend any money.  I found a list of suggested ways to do this, which included signing up for Twitter – something I’d never heard of.Continue Reading Twitter Tutorials – Getting Started

So now we’ve created a very basic Facebook profile, and just as we did with LinkedIn, it’s time to expand on that. 

When Facebook welcomes you, they want you to fill in your profile information, activate your mobile phone, find people you know and control what information you share.  We’ll go through each of these steps, as well as the "why" behind them, in the coming days.  Today, we’re going to focus on step one – filling out your profile information.  Continue Reading Facebook Tutorials – Creating a Profile Part II

Now we are on to a new set of tutorials – Facebook! 

You may be wondering why I would choose Facebook as the next social media tool to delve into – isn’t that for kids?

No!

Also, during our LinkedIn tutorial, you may remember that I posed a question in LinkedIn’s Answers feature to illustrate how to do it – and people answered.  My question was whether Facebook or Twitter was more valuable for lawyers.  Of course, the answer is – it depends.  But overwhelmingly, the responses of the group were "Facebook."  So Facebook it is! 

One of the most valuable things on Facebook is pages (and groups), but since we have to have a personal profile in order to use those, we’re going to start there. Continue Reading Facebook Tutorials – Creating a Profile Part I

And here we are – with the exception of possibly one more post on My Travel from TripIt (which is still acting a bit wonky), we are at the end of our series on LinkedIn! I hope that you’ve gotten some useful tips, and you feel as though you’re starting to use LinkedIn to its full potential.

This morning, Cordell Parvin asked me to share with him what my top LinkedIn tips would be, and I think these would be a good starting point for our final how-to.  They are: 

  • Have a full and complete profile so that people can get to know you. 
  • Make LinkedIn one of the pages that automatically opens when you open your browser – then you don’t have to remember to check it.
  • Reach out to someone in some way every day – comment on a status, recommend an article, "like" someone’s post. 
  • Participate actively in groups – ask questions, post relevant articles (not just your own), engage with other participants.
  • Take the relationships offline – offer to meet someone in your network who is local for coffee or lunch and look to meet up with those in other cities when you’re traveling. 

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – The Wrap Up

Last week, we talked about how you can follow companies on LinkedIn (and why you would want to!). Today, we’ll chat about creating and maintaining a company page. Attorneys, your firm may already have a company page, so make sure to check this out first – this may be something that your marketing department is handling.

We already have a company page for the ILN, so I won’t be creating a new one of those.  But I am in the process of launching a new website for my photographic services, so now is a good time to start a company page for that. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies – How to Create a Profile

We’re nearing the very end of our series on LinkedIn tutorials – so please let me know if you have any questions that you think haven’t been addressed, and I’ll answer them in our last LinkedIn post next week! 

Today, we’re going to talk about the Company feature on LinkedIn.  There are a few different ways you can use this:

  • Create and edit your own company page.
  • Follow other company’s pages.

Today, we’re going to focus on how to follow other company’s pages, and tomorrow we’ll look at creating and editing your own company page. 

Let’s see what LinkedIn has to say about it in their Learning Center. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Companies

Another one of LinkedIn’s features is their "Answers" section.  This is a place where you can share business knowledge with others on LinkedIn – you can ask your question to get fast, accurate answers from your network and other experts, showcase your knowledge by answering questions, and stay up on the latest information in your industry.

I’ll point out a caution here – One of our attorneys mentioned to me yesterday with respect to recommendations that attorneys need to be careful of the rules about endorsements within their respective jurisdictions.  This is similarly the case for answering questions on LinkedIn.

I liken answering questions on LinkedIn to answering questions after a panel discussion or at a cocktail party.  Most questions you can answer in an academic way, that makes it clear you’re not creating an attorney-client relationship.  Other questions cross into a grey area, so you need to make it clear that you’re not offering advice.

With LinkedIn questions, since it’s optional, you don’t have to answer questions that you think enter into that grey area, or you can suggest to the person asking that they retain counsel.  So let’s go into this discussion of Answers bearing in mind this caution. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Answers

And I’m back. It was a rather eventful week off for me here on the east coast, with a mild earthquake as I was staining my deck, and then having to evacuate because of Hurricane Irene over the weekend.  My thoughts go out to everyone still dealing with flooding, power outages and damage – I was fortunate that my house near the bay never lost power (the yard floods on a good day, so a sump pump is a necessity) and that the damage wasn’t at all severe.  

Today, we’re back to talking LinkedIn, and I’d like to focus on recommendations.  Before we get into the how, let’s talk about about the why. 

Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Recommendations

Yesterday, we talked about how to get involved with groups.  The only thing left for us to do with groups is to create our own! 

You might not be sure if you want to, but perhaps you want to re-think that.  What if you want to start a group for those interested in legal issues in the construction industry in New Jersey? Check first to make sure there isn’t a group out there like that already, but then start your own – guess who’s going to join a group like that? 

That’s right, potential clients.

And you don’t want to be using your group to just promote yourself, but offer items of value to those people, and they’ll come to see you as the go-to resource for information that they need.  And THAT’S when they’ll start to think that you’d make a good attorney for them.  Plus, if you’re getting access through your group to the decision makers that you want to be meeting at potential clients’ companies, use the platform to send out invitations to an event – host a cocktail party for the group, get together at a local bar for some beer, invite them to a presentation you’ll be doing on a topic that’s of use to them. Take the relationships OFFLINE to cement them. The possibilities here are endless. Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Creating Your Own Groups

When groups were introduced on LinkedIn, it really revolutionized the way a lot of us used the site.  LinkedIn went from being a very one-dimensional platform to being a place where you could regularly engage with people who were interested in the same things that you are.

The first group I joined was one of the first groups created – my alumni group, Hamilton College.  Dan Nye, the former CEO of LinkedIn was a Hamilton grad, so he created this group and invited all of the alums to join.  They really took off from there.  The latest number I found is that there are over 871,000 groups on LinkedIn, which is just incredible.

But don’t worry, you don’t have to browse through all of them.Continue Reading LinkedIn Tutorials – Groups