Twitter for Lawyers

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It’s another Two for Tuesdays here, and apparently, I’m feeling the need for lots of alliteration today, as we’re looking at two tips for Twitter. 

Why bother with Twitter? 

Let’s look at a couple of stats first, and then why those might be important: 

  • 255 million monthly active users (that’s ACTIVE users)
  • 500 million tweets sent per day
  • 77% of accounts are outside of the US

And lawyers may be a bigger deal on Twitter than they think. According to Kevin O’Keefe, the "median active Twitter user (tweets at least once a month) has only 61 followers." So it follows that…

If you’re a lawyer seeing yourself as a Twitter laggard because you have only a few hundred followers, fear not. You’re in the 80th to 90th percentile. Reach 1,000 followers and you’re at the 97th percentile of active Twitter users."

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Tips for Twitter

Who doesn’t love a good five-part series on Twitter? Don’t answer that. 

Today, we have the last installment from my presentation, which covers some frequently asked questions that I’ve gotten with regard to Twitter, as well as the questions that came in as I was preparing the presentation. 

What’s in a username? Should I use my name, or some fun little moniker? 

Some people will argue that it’s a good idea to have a keyword or subject as your Twitter name, but I (and many others) disagree. I think it should always be your real name. As we’ve talked about before, people want to connect and work with people they know, like and trust, and how can they really know you if you’re not transparent with your name? It’s also much easier for people to find you when your username is your real name. 

There can be some difficulties here, because Twitter only allows you fifteen characters. My full name has more than that, so I just chopped off the "s" at the end. You can work around this however you’d like. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part V

We’ve now talked about a couple of uses of Twitter for law firms, but there was a third one that I snuck in there during my presentation, and that’s finding intelligence. 

Social media in general is an excellent way to research clients and potential clients, as well as competitors. The information is current and constantly updated, and it’s coming to you, rather than you having to go and find it. 

How would you do this on Twitter? Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part IV

In my last post, I talked about using Twitter as a broadcast tool, and Nancy Myrland added some valuable comments to the discussion about making sure to incorporate as much personality as possible.

Today, we’re going to talk about what many people consider to be the most important use of Twitter – engagement. As Nancy always says "Twitter is a contact sport." 

So how do you engage with your Twitter followers? It’s the same as you would in real life – share others’ posts and tweets, comment on their tweets, start conversations and periodically reach out to them. Then, take these relationships offline – meet people for lunch who are in the same city as you are, or when you’re traveling or at a conference. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part III

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s jump into the meat of Twitter for law firms. In my presentation, I went through what I consider to be the three uses of Twitter for law firms, beginning with the dreaded "broadcasting."

When I was initially using Twitter, I would have completely advised against this, but I’ve changed my mind. Twitter has become an excellent source of news, and pretty much every news source is using Twitter to share headlines these days, like CNN, Fox News, the NY Times, the Huffington Post, etc. If a law firm has individual attorneys and marketers who are using Twitter under their own account names and engaging with people, then I have no problem with the firm’s branded account being used primarily as a news feed. There are many firms out there who have been using Twitter this way, and they’ve been very successful in getting journalists and other influencers to follow them. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part II

Last week, we gathered for another meeting of the NJ LMA city group…only this time, I was the presenter! I’d volunteered to talk to everyone about Twitter, and after accepting questions beforehand, I put together a presentation that tried to be as interactive as possible. 

I started with my background on Twitter – I joined Twitter in April of 2008. Although I initially joined for other reasons, I soon found a group of legal marketing colleagues that I could bounce ideas off of, find inspiration through, see what real concerns both marketers and attorneys have, and eventually become friends with. Using Twitter, I started to get real-time news from people in the know, both in and out of the legal industry. I connected with thought leaders in other industries and saw how they shared content, both theirs and others, to become considered go-to sources. I started to do the same. Continue Reading Twitter: Effectively Leveraging Twitter as a Business Development and Marketing Tool – Part I

Today, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a webinar presentation from my friends Nancy Myrland of Myrland Marketing and Lance Godard of JD Supra. The Social Media Special Interest Group for the Legal Marketing Association has been putting on monthly webinars, and this month’s focused on Twitter. 

Since it is a member benefit, I won’t give all the secrets away, but I did want to offer the highlights: Continue Reading Let’s Talk Twitter: An LMA Social Media SIG Webinar

We have looked at a LOT of information about Twitter this week, and we’ll finish out the week with our final post on the anatomy of the home page.  

Yesterday, we continued our conversation about the left hand column, which focuses on the tweets in your stream, replies, retweets, searches, and lists (which I’ll cover in a later post). So today, we’re going to take a look at the right hand column.  

The right hand column serves as a sort of Twitter snapshot for the day, from your perspective. Continue Reading Twitter Tutorials – Anatomy of the Home Page Part III