Raise your hand: How many of you are stuck in the PUSHING TOO MUCH INFORMATION trap of social media? Right, just as I expected…too many.

Pushing information on social media is like using a garden rake to comb your hair. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

Just today, while explaining the finer details of a successful Twitter presence to a #lawyer, I emphasized the old don’t-toot-your-own-horn let others toot it for you approach to social media. To be interesting, be interested—and not just about what you think. It is most important to stimulate the conversation and draw attention to the ideas of others, inserting your expertise and opinion where it adds value, or entertainment in some cases.

Still, we forget: As witnessed by the incessant stream of look at me Tweets (including those with links to perhaps interesting articles, but no commentary) showing up in my Twitter stream because I follow a lot of law firms and lawyers. That is PUSHING. Cringe. It is pushing your own boat against stream instead of letting the stream lead.

I’ve said it before, here and here, social media is supposed to be social. When you are in a social situation, to establish new relationships you must be aware of those around you at that very moment. You will do best to draw them into a conversation—and yes, that usually means you have to place a higher degree of focus on who you’re speaking to and what matters to them rather than shining a light on yourself. Let others raise your profile. It will deliver greater benefits and it’s really not that hard.

While there’s nothing wrong with pushing information—there’s always luck and timing—expecting meaningful results for the precious investment of resources diminishes greatly when you do not understand and act upon the classic tenants of social behavior and what motivates people to engage.

Later today I read a timely blog post by David Aaker on Harvard Business Review’s The Conversation, “Secrets of Social Media Revealed 50 Years Ago.” I’m sharing this link with you because I hope that you’ll be enlightened and inspired, like I was, by Aaker’s observations on how the findings of Ernest Dichter, who 50 years ago outlined the key elements of word of mouth persuasion. These elements apply so aptly to social media today.

“…[in] the absence of exceptionally entertaining communication, in order to employ social media effectively a brand needs to deliver extraordinary functional, self-expressive, or social benefits.”

Okay…stop here. How many law firms deliver extraordinarily functional or self expressive benefits. Not many. We’re all sort of “just a law firm on the Internet.” With a few exceptions: IMHO. That leaves us with delivering social benefits, agree?

“Listeners…[want] the speaker to be interested in the listener and his or her well-being without a bias. Is the speaker’s intention to sell a product or help me? What is the speaker’s relationship to me?

…[A] firm should promote a dialogue because a listener will be more likely to accept judgments from someone with whom there is an interaction going on. With a dialogue, it is much easier to communicate expertise, interest in the subject matter, and the right motivation because there is a chance to build up a relationship and use reassuring cues. In contrast, a one time, one-way communication will have a harder time demonstrating credibility and motivation.

Aaker concludes that:

“It is amazing that the nearly forgotten theory and practice of word-of-mouth communication and influence from five decades and more ago can be so relevant today.”

I encourage all marketing professionals involved in their entity’s social media outreach, as well as individual attorneys, to read the full article and take the points made to heart and action.

David Aaker is the Vice-Chairman of Prophet and the author of Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant and the davidaaker.com blog on branding. There is some terrific stuff here…check it out!

Where else on Earth would you find…

• A conga line of ranging 56,800 miles (90,900 km): Equal to 9.76 round trips on the road between San Francisco and New York City.
• 74 Elvis impersonators
• 1.3+ billion potential connections
• 1,091 Chocolatiers
• 79+ million job transitions/changes tracked
• 46 profiles with “beatboxer” listed as a position
• 428% year-over-year membership growth rate in Brazil.
• The most registered users named Lee, Smith and Kumar
• 951 years of back-to-back 5-minute phone calls made by 100 million professionals
• 50% year-over-year growth in iPhone skill index
• A dog or cat psychologist / psychiatrist  [4 listed as a position]
• Target industries with the fastest year-over-year new member growth rates in Education (175%), Facilities Services (121%), and Ranching (112%)
• 100% of Fortune 500 company executives
• A martini whisperer [listed as a position]

Congratulations, LinkedIn on your 100 million member mile marker!

Says Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO,

LinkedIn is used in over 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than half of our users coming from outside of the U.S. You can now connect just as readily with someone in Sao Paulo or Singapore as you can with your colleagues in San Francisco, London or New York.  You no longer have to live in the same city — or even the same country — to build and strengthen relationships that can help you succeed and grow professionally and fundamentally transform the trajectory of your career path.

Impressive!

Fifteen Ways Lawyers Can Use LinkedIn:

1. Create a profile | add to your online footprint—very high page rank on search engines, almost guaranteed first page results for individual name.
2. Use keywords in your profile title, summary, and experience to help you get found in “on site” searches.
3. Prepare and post a well-groomed and complete profile to position your personal brand – people hire lawyers, not law firms!
4. Create a personalized summary that expands on the benefits you deliver, not just features found on firm website page. Attract others to your network.
5. Encourage your employees to maintain complete profiles to show off your solid team.
6. Make introductions and get introductions from others in network.
7. Join client industry related groups.
8. Engage prospects by answering industry related questions.
9. Network in groups with your peers.
10. Use as a contact management system for getting and staying in front of your network via inMail, event announcements and press releases. (Use this in addition to the database used by your law firm marketing department and firm branded email blasts–it’s personal!) Stay top of mind!
11. Add apps to your profile to post docs, publications, feed blog content, JD Supra articles, Twitter updates, and travel schedules on Trip-it. Your activity shows up in your network “stream” keeping you front and center.
12. Share your presentation decks using the Slideshare application.
13. Use sharing and favorite or recommend buttons: Improves on-site traffic generation.
14. Customize links to your individual website bio page, firm’s main page, and blog or other personal website on your profile.
15. Promote and recommend others – the Golden RULE of business relationships!

ENJOY!

Are you still trying to get your arms around social media? Still feeling uncertain about it’s usefulness in marketing your practice or for networking your referral sources?

You’ve probably attended webinars, conference sessions, read whitepapers, articles, blog posts, and maybe even books, to try to find the most simple, direct answer to “what should I be doing?” And, you might even have come up slightly more overwhelmed, right? May I suggest that you…

Establish context.

I’ve spent the last three years speaking on social media to groups of lawyers, marketers, law firm administrators, and more, watching eyes glaze over densely illustrated slide decks with dizzying screen captures of sites and services. I’ve gotten my share of unsettling looks from the risk averse when covering the issues of privacy, policy, ethics, and other do’s and don’ts. I’ve fielded hundreds of questions from lawyers and marketers, only to realize that I’ve created more questions than I answered for them.  Truth is, I study this stuff, it’s my JOB, and even I am often challenged by the unstructured nature of social media.

I determined to fix that. Social media needs a little more structure. To that I said, ahaha! CONTEXT. We need context. Context gives structure to plans, why not social media.  So, if you’re tired of the buck shot approach and want to give your social media experience a little more structure…read on….there’s only one step…

1. Don’t do anything different.

Keep doing what you’ve always done (either consciously or unconsciously) when originating or expanding on business—help the buyer through the purchase process. That process of buying services hasn’t changed since the first day that the very first service was bartered or bought.

Whenever there is a high involvement purchase, you can be certain that the buyer WILL pass through these four phases:

1. Recognition
2. Knowledge gathering
3. Consideration
4. Selection

Your job as an attorney is easy; help the buyer through the stages.

The Buyer’s Process.

1. Recognition – the buyer seeks to recognize their options; i.e., “Who can help me set up a trust fund for my kids?” Now, without being aware that you, an estate-planning attorney, exist, how can they hire you? They can’t. You have to have exposure.  Marketing your practice via things like advertising, sponsorship, speaking, writing, website optimization, or word-of-mouth (referrals) are all good ways to “help buyers” who are looking for your services to find you. (I used the estate-planning example here, which is more B2C, but it is really the same, or similar, for B2B practices as well.)

2. Knowledge gathering – Once the buyer feels confident that they have sufficiently identified a manageable universe of attorneys they will move into the knowledge gathering phase. This is where they start talking to others, ask for specific reasons why they are recommending so and so, AND, they do an Internet search to learn more about you, as well as learn as much as they can about their options—your competition. (Give them lots to look at! Give them more than the one-dimensional website bio page!)

This is the stage where you need to stand out from the others. You can differentiate your self by carefully listening for the real needs then offering proof of your expertise in that regard. Or, you can maintain a high profile reputation among those who can recommend you. You can also differentiate by providing educational content through publishing articles and, hopefully you’ll be able to engage directly with the buyer through substantive conversations while having a get-to-know-you with them.  In this phase remember, you are not selling, you are educating – but really you are closing the engagement – more on that coming up!

3. Consideration – When the buyer determines that they have enough information, they make a short list and enter the consideration phase. This is when they analyze the pros and cons of each attorney based upon what they uncovered during the knowledge gathering stage. If you, the seller, have been helpful in the knowledge gathering stage, you may also be invited to the consideration stage.

In the consideration stage it is your job to stay top of mind with the buyer, dig deeper into their thought process and fill in any gaps or doubts. Manage this stage well and you increase the likelihood that their selection is YOU!

4. Selection – If you did everything right in the knowledge gathering stage, and helped them through the consideration stage, you have already closed the engagement.

SOCIAL MEDIA.

In the context of the buyer-seller processes use social media — social media gives you ample opportunity to hit all the phases: recognition, education, consideration and selection.

First, get to know which social media serves best in each phase, then use it! For example, having a search footprint that is full of content links – not just those that lead to your firm website bio – is great for exposure.  And, if some of those links lead to published content that serves to educate the buyer, not only about your services but also about your topics, you will be helping the buyer through the knowledge gathering phase. Then, if you add value to conversations, post questions and answers, participate in groups, network on Facebook, etc., you’ll not only address the knowledge-gathering phase; you’ll be keeping your name top of mind during the consideration phase. And the beauty of it all is that your online footprint keeps working for you even when you’re sleeping, or playing. Further, online content spreads and there by increases your exposure to new prospects, again, filling in the beginning recognition phase of the process.

Make sense? Hope this helps you in your knowledge gathering stage…let me know!

As always, standing by to help you grow your practice via social media, and more…

Everyone seems to be asking, what’s next for social media — we’ve got our LinkedIn profiles in place, we’re blogging, we’re posting on Facebook, we’ve got YouTube videos, podcast syndication, and we send out Tweets from both individual and law firm accounts, now what?

Try Community.

It’s time to trade the “casting-your-giant-net-hoping-something-will-swim-in-to–it” only approach to social media for an eco-system that nurtures, serves and replenishes.  Sound sort of fishy? It isn’t. And, there’s a great new book available that will give you plenty of reasons to do so, then walks you through some best practices:

Social Nation by Barry Libert.

Libert is the founder and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software that manages two billion conversations a month for 15,000 communities on behalf of 300 well-known companies. He is a cutting edge thinker and doer that credits his success to the communities that he’s been so successful in building. [Note: The VMO was given a complimentary copy of Social Nation to review. It did not disappoint!]

“The online social movement is taking the business world by storm. Customers, employees and onlookers are making connections with one another and your brand in new uncharted ways. Social Nation will show you just how important those connections are and how fostering them can help you build a more successful, profitable business.” from www.socialnationbook.com

Top Take Aways:

• Libert provides a lot of white space for you to move around in. He acknowledges that change is not easy, and that “building social leadership skills” is a journey.  He suggests that the more you practice community, the easier it becomes and the more rewards it delivers. There’s even a companion “test” you can complete online to assess your Social Quotient.

• He defines four driving forces in the shift toward a more social business world and explains them in detail:

• Today’s changing workforce
• Open business models
• Emerging technologies
• Social monitoring and measuring tools.

• He confirms that Community minded companies are creating extra-ordinary value, revealing findings from a study by Wetpaint and Altimeter Group, “The World’s Most Valuable Brands. Who’s Most Engaged?” The study shows that financial performance increased by as much as 18 percent on average in one year for those companies most engaged in social media. By comparison, those companies least engaged saw an average decline of 6 percent in revenues during the same period.
• Socializing requires more than just being there — you have to interact with others, instigate discussions, and respond during conversations. Noting that:

“In the past companies and institutions have traditionally focused exclusively on the bottom line while disregarding the people and the processes by which they got there. In today’s social world, the collective voice is driving business, leading to the conclusion that to reach that bottom line successfully, businesses must understand and embrace these social models, sensibilities and processes.”

Chapter after chapter, the jewels in this book are dripping.

Culture is the Company’s DNA

Letting culture lead the way means allowing your core values to become integral to every piece of your social nation building process.

Clients want more than transactions. They want connections.

The business world is changing. The more we listen and the more we understand someone else’s needs, the more successful we can be in today’s socially connected world. The less we listen, or try to pretend we’re listening (i.e. without authenticity) the more irritated and turned off other people will become.

Technologies connect people in faster more transparent ways.

Very few people can be successful in a vacuum. When we interact with each other we have a better chance of being successful.

The insight we receive from social interactions and communications that take place among and between our customers, employees, investors and partners can be turned into action-able activities –new service ideas, better customer support, improved marketing communications, enhanced community activity, involvement, and positive sentiment.

Social Intelligence is valuable for remaining competitive.

There is the potential to gain intelligence from every communication and interaction – to improve what the firm does, sells and how it responds in real time to community requirements. Learn from your engagement with others. Use the information to do what you do better. Help you make decisions. Insights you can gather from your current clients as well as those you don’t have yet. Which new services should we offer?

Empower your clients.

The most cost effective way to stay competitive is to retain existing clients. One way to achieve this is to anticipate and understand the needs of existing clients so that you can reach them before they even realize they have an “unfulfilled need.”

“Social intelligence offers business the means to proactively seek and act: To address problems and remain competitive. It can act as a bridge between what you can do and what others can do for you. It’s a tool that links a company willing to listen with the customers who want to share and innovate.”

The bottom Line

Using Internet technology to deliver real value, increase productivity and enable interaction can give law firms, businesses, non-profits, and other professionals an edge over the competition [while its still available].  So, stop adding to the noise and start making a difference.

Read this book and learn how. Then, come back and leave a comment about what you found most helpful for building your social nation…

Thanks for stopping by!

The Social Network, the movie loosely documenting the development and meteoric rise of the popular social networking site Facebook, was a fine Hollywood movie; I was easily pulled into the characters and the story. While I wasn’t expecting anything deep or revelatory, there was one strong take away that the movie illustrated well. The Face Book, as it was originally called, was created as a tool to impress [girls] in real life and promote real life hook-ups. And that, essentially, is still how social networking works best — as a starting point or a touch point for real life.

I am often privileged to speak on social media and networking to groups of lawyers, law firm administrators, marketers, paralegals and others. I chat with them about how they are using the social web and try to learn more about their challenges and help them map opportunities. To my surprise, many perceive the social web as being a virtual world that is an entirely separate animal-that it’s all about the virtual connection and any off-line spill over is just an extra benefit. I assure them that nothing is farther from the truth. Nothing has changed, really…

we’re not doing anything different, we’re just doing it differently.

I like to use the analogy that Twitter is like a cocktail party­­­­­­-the handshake that starts the conversation, Facebook is the country club where business and recreation mix, LinkedIn is a calling card, rolodex or chamber of commerce networking event, and peer-to-peer networks like Martindale Connected are like the Bar association meeting. When lawyers hear this, their eyes light up and the sense that this is a foreign virtual world dissipates.

Then they ask… “But how do you develop new business virtually? Most people want to know the lawyer before they hire them.” That’s true, they do and you don’t exclusively develop new business in a virtual world. I explain that online networking and other social media tools are great for exposure, keeping in touch, and reaching a new or broader audience. The way we use these tools should work together with off-line meetings, phone calls, networking, and introductions from referrals. The fundamentals still remain…what you do with those “introductions” is no different than sending a follow up email after someone hands you their business card at a off line event, only its the other way around…”let’s get together in Houston for coffee – I’ll be in your town next week and we can talk about your company.”

Watching The Social Network really sends this message home. What you do online can be pointing you to an off-line engagement. It’s up to you to leverage the opportunity. To see how this works, here’s an oldie but goodie story about Laura Guiterrez posted by Heather Morse on her blog The Legal Watercooler.

Technorati Tags: The Social Network movie, Facebook, lawyers, Laura Guiterrez, Heather Morse,

As social media channels grow and the “what should we be doing” buzz slowly moves across the legal marketing industry, more legal marketing professionals and law firm leaders are asking, do we need to hire an agency? If you’re big enough or serious enough, you probably do. And according to some of the heavy hitters in corporate America, maybe even more than one if you want to touch all the bases.

Big Brands Weigh in on Social Agencies

In a post by Kate Kay at ClickZ, the big brands weigh in.

“Depending on the agency and the need, we leverage them and their strengths,” said Singh of the social agencies Pepsi works with, noting that he has yet to find one agency that fulfills all his social marketing needs. “We shop by skill on the agency side,” he added.

Scott Monty, Ford Motor Company’s pioneering head of social media, told the social marketing panel’s audience, “We’re very methodical and very aggressive about our social media” efforts. He said Ford has a social media agency at the corporate level and works with Team Detroit – a joint venture of WPP agencies including JWT, Mindshare, Ogilvy, Wunderman, and Y&R – in crafting social campaigns.

Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, an agency that handles social media strategy for companies and brands including HBO, Diageo, and Bing, suggested that social agencies have varying approaches. Some, he said, are more focused on scale, reach, and frequency, while others are focused on engagement.

Microsoft is also learning as it goes when it comes to integrating social agency services. “We’re really starting to blend the ideas of our agencies and our media partners,” said Eric Hadley, general manager, for Microsoft’s online services division. He said the company typically writes quarterly or annual briefs, and brings in its agency partners to help decide who should handle specific projects. Hadley continued, “If you have the media agencies in silos it doesn’t work.”

Law Firm Marketing

The legal profession is typically slow to adopt, but most larger law firms (say 60+ attorneys) who are serious about promoting their brand do have public relations or marketing design agencies on retainer or in-house. And, within the past year, most of those agencies have added a social media service line or “expertise” to their offerings, but is that enough?  It may be wise to step back and take a hard look at how well they are covering all the bases and if it might be to your advantage to test additional options.

Where are law firms headed in the social media space?

Frankly, the argument is no longer about whether or not your clients and prospects are there, as recent statistics show that 80% on the U.S. online population is engaged in social media one way or another. Rather, the issue is that despite the massive scale and promise of social media, it is much more subtle than traditional marketing and business development communications. So, with all this new activity and subtlety, how do we keep all the balls in the air, how can we cut through the noise, and probably most important is what are we ultimately doing with all this activity? Do you need an agency or maybe two or three to handle your strategy and some of your tactics?

It’s no longer a novelty to launch a blog, build a mobile app or create a Facebook fan page.  It’s time to move on to questions like:

• How do we integrate all this connectivity with our CRM system? What does social CRM mean to the law firm organization?
• How can we use our activity to position ourselves favorably against the competition? Is creating our own social network an option?
• How can we use social to streamline our processes of recruiting and marketing and client service? Will virtual tools give us a new type of workforce – one with less overhead?

What other ideas do you see in the future for social media programs in law firms?

I’m excited to share with readers of the Virtual Marketing Officer blog a short excerpt about creating an effective profile on LinkedIn taken from one chapter of my new book, social.lawyers: Transforming Business Development, (by Jayne Navarre), which was published by Thomson West last month. (The book is now available for purchase on their website here.) Although the excerpt addresses a simple, yet practical approach to creating a profile, the book is not just a how-to tome on social web tools. It covers philosophical and strategic components, including a full chapter on social media and networking for the organization, as well as law firm policy and ethical best practices for participants.

About social.lawyers: Transforming Business Development

The book takes a fairly in depth look at what I believe are the most oft asked questions and oft encountered challenges in marketing a professional services practice, both online and offline. In fact, one of my primary objectives in writing the book was to debunk the hype surrounding social media and online networking and to cast light on the fact that….We’re not doing anything different in marketing professional practices, we’re just doing it differently!

Yes, there are a few attitude shifts needed to leverage these powerful new tools—the book addresses those early on. And, yes, the fact that content travels further and faster is something to get used to managing. But, overall, the fundamentals of business development, marketing, public relations, publicity, and communications with stakeholders has not changed:

• exposure is critical to getting found,
• relationships matter,
• corporate messages need human connection, and
• people purchase services from those they trust.

I hope you will read and comment on this excerpt and buy the book! If you are a blogger and would like to review the book, please drop me a note and a link to your blog. If it looks like a fit, I’ll send you a review copy. Meanwhile, here’s just a small snippet of one of the more practical sections of the book.

CHAPTER 5:  PROFILE AND PERSONA

Quick, what was on the last billboard you passed? Do you remember what it said? —“You’re faster than you think” (Nike), was it “Pick your style” (Levis) or “100% UrbanProof” (Nissan)? Do you remember the visual story? –Athlete in running shoes hurdling an oversized obstacle –a giant pair of blue jeans with a wired in joystick hanging from the back pocket –sleek silver automobile in a chic urban setting? When it comes to crafting your online profile for business networking, there are two things we can learn from the best outdoor signage—you need only a few important words in large print so it can be easily seen as people pass by at high speeds, and you need only one large brilliant image that quickly tells the story to keep people thinking about it miles down the road—to make it memorable.

Billboards are designed for high-density consumer exposure and so should your profile. Billboards must make a strong first impression, as many passersby are often seeing it for the first time. The same is true for your profile. A first impression may be the last impression you leave with someone if you do not take the time to give passersby something of what they need to know about you right up front.

Profile

Profiles on social networking sites conform to a fairly standard set including your name, title, geographic location, employment, education, summary of experience, Website addresses, interests, groups and associations. After that they vary according to the purpose of the community. For example, you may be able to add recommendations, third-party applications, PowerPoint presentations, articles, an in-site blog, or other community specific activities. However, community profiles are so similar in design that in order to save time, it is smart to draft one complete social-networking profile and store it in a document. Each time you join a new community you can quickly access the basics without starting over.

Your title is the first and probably the most important piece of your profile—those “few important words in very large print” that can be read and understood quickly by people passing by. For example, on LinkedIn your name and title are the only part of your profile that follows you throughout the community as you post to discussion forums, join groups, and answer Q&A. Additionally, a good title will contain specific keywords that improve your ranking in on-site keyword searches within most social networks.

In a networking situation, online of offline, the first question that someone you have not previously met will ask you is “what do you do?” (More accurately they are asking, “What do you do for others that you might be able to do for me?” That’s the real question you need to answer.) Think of your title as an elevator speech—that short sentence you use when introducing yourself to others in a business setting.

When someone asks you “and what do you do?” and you respond, “I’m a lawyer,” you’re probably getting a blank stare and dead silence—often a real conversation killer. The fact is, their reaction is not because you are a lawyer; it is because you are representing yourself one-dimensionally. People will typically project their preconceived notions onto a single word—like lawyer—when there is nothing to put it into a context. Some people hear the word lawyer and think Jack McCoy (Law and Order), while others think “ambulance chaser” and still others think “that smart woman who helped my mother manage her estate.” The best way to avoid being stereotyped is to give your answer context. In your title, reveal something distinctly memorable about what you do that others might be interested in knowing about you—you are multi-dimensional, right?

There’s little or nothing in the words “attorney,” “lawyer,” “shareholder,” or “managing partner” that reveals what you do for your clients or what you could do for the person with whom you are speaking—or for that matter, little that inspires further conversation. Your title should reveal more than simply your job title, i.e. “Jonathan Jones, Partner, Jones Law Firm” or “Jonathan Jones, Founding Attorney.”  At the very least you should tell passersby what kind of attorney you are or that the focus of your practice is business law, i.e., “Jonathan Jones, Global Business Attorney at Jones Law Firm, N.Y.C.” Better yet, you could add your practice area, plus a specific industry niche, i.e. “Jonathan Jones, Legal Counsel to Global Internet-Based Technology Companies, Mergers and Acquisitions, Complex Finance Structuring.” You have the rest of your profile to tell readers the name of your firm, where you are located, your role in the law firm and, of course, all the other things they’ll want to know once they have an initial idea about why they might want to connect to you.

Everyone is busy, social networking online can be noisy and the time you have to devote to business development on the social Web is finite. Make it easy for the right people to cut through the noise and reach out to talk to you. A good title can help them, in an instant, identify your interests and quickly assess what you do that you might do for them or someone they know. A thoughtfully constructed title, one that describes what you do for others, will decrease your missed opportunities—where preconceived stereotypes got in the way—and reduce wasted time in fielding invitations from people who will never earn you a penny of new business.

Bottom line: Your title on a social networking site is your billboard. It is the first impression that people get from you, about you, as they’re speeding down the Internet super highway.

Here’s a summary of contents:

Summary of Contents

PART 1. THE APPROACH

Chapter 1. Change

Chapter 2. Fundamentals Do Not Change

Chapter 3. How Things Work

PART II. STRATEGY

Chapter 4. Build a Better Mousetrap

Chapter 5. Profle and Persona

Chapter 6. Policy and Privacy

Chapter 7. Posting

PART III. IMPLEMENTING A STRATEGY

Chapter 8. Blogs and Twitter

Chapter 9. The Role of the Organization

Chapter 10. Social Lawyers’ Case Studies

Index

Cheers!

Something other than Autumn leaves is in the air. This week I’ve seen mentioned three high profile instances of individuals and institutions going on a social media blackout or brown-out and I admit my online activity has waned in the past few months — not because of choice but because I’ve got dozens of more immediate tasks (and relationships) to attend to. Anyway, here’s the rundown…

On Monday, it was Harrisburg University announcing an experiment to lock down access to social sites on all campus servers. According to Higher Ed;

On Tuesday, Chris Brogan posted this: Find Your Blinders:

Over time, I’ve been putting on very important blinders, one technology at a time. You see, our tools give us this “eyes wide open” blast-in-the-face exposure to information. We get text messages. We get tweets. We get email notifications. We get phone calls.

I have blinders on.

My phone doesn’t beep, buzz or blink when I get a SMS text message. I have to go find you when I’m ready to deal with you. My computer doesn’t ding or light things up when I get email. Not even my Twitter app.

I’m doing my best to direct my attention towards what matters: people, work, the future. Do I really want a tweet to draw me away from that?

On Wednesday, I opened the sports section of The Key West Citizen and found this:

NO TWEET ZONE – It’s a Twitter outage for Miami Football.

Miami’s football players just got the direct message: No more Twitter. The 17th ranked Hurricanes have been told to stop using accounts on the popular social network, the university’s athletic department said Tuesday making the announcement, yes, through it’s own Twitter feed. …. The goal is to limit distractions and focus..

The article by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press (Sun Sentinel version here) also reported that a random check of Miami player accounts showed no activity since the announcement and several players had deleted their accounts. I’m anxious to learn if the blackout will work and to what effect.

Are we getting burnt out? Anyone working on a social media diet?

The demise of social media and networking has been predicted by some for a while now, here and here, but still, online users are flooding the bandwidth and new sites are launched daily, while tried and true sites continue to tweak and improve their offerings. Just a few short months ago EVERYONE was jumping on board to try their hand at cruising the social scene online looking for both personal and business opportunities. Unfortunately, those with get-rich-quick business development hopes may be building a house of cards—burn-out is for real…if you’re not careful your intake becomes a slippery slope and before you know it you’re sitting in the mud puddle trying to figure out what to do next.

What can we learn from this?

I don’t know about you, but for me, I’ve always worn a media filter and social media is no different. I love the global access to ideas, people and conversations the Internet makes possible, but I have to keep it real. Any engagement with media, especially the user generated kind, is an add-on. As a business tool there are great advantages, but for me, these advantages only exist in the context of fundamental business principles, real people and real relationships.

I’ll go out on a ledge here to say that I think the generation growing up with the Web and all it’s social media accouterments is kind of making up the game as they go along. It is parallel in many ways to those fake reality TV shows. My kids will tell you — I banned them from watching. I’m sure they can still hear my nagging words: “Go out and live your own experiences.”

It may be time to take a step backwards and align online activity to supplement what was working before the social bandwagon rolled into town. Perhaps the bit of old-fashioned wisdom in the actions of Harrisburg U’s provost and UM’s football coach is the ticket? What do you think?

How are you managing your social media tether?  I try to take it one step at a time, manage my time, AND my expectations.

Cheers!

Is social media distracting lawyers from the real work of developing new clients?

A healthy little discussion on the Martindale.com Connected social network this week asked the question, “Has Social Media Gotten Lawyers Out of Focus?”

Particular emphasis was placed upon evidence that while it may be more “natural” for the young professional to use social networking and social media, it’s not helping them engage face-to-face in business development settings. [Paraphrased].

Should we blame social online forums for the lack of offline people skills or inability to do the real work of developing clients? I don’t think we should rush to that conclusion, do you?

It is true that many young professionals know how to navigate the social Web quite well; they may even spend a good bit of time there to the chagrin of an outsider who perceives it to be wasted time. But, the fact is their peers are present there—those who could or would one day hire the services of a lawyer—and communication channels are changing.

Communication Channels Change

As a law firm marketing professional for over 15 years, one who continually seeks out beneficial communication channels, I have seen first hand the evolution of various technologies used for marketing communications between lawyer and client—carbon paper, teletype, fax, photo copier, answering machine, mass mail, email, color photo copiers, floppy disc brochures, cd-rom seminar materials, e-holiday cards, websites, intranet, Extranets and more.

Each of these new tools was ushered into the management and marketing of law firms with varying degrees of skepticism so it is only natural that blogs, wikis, social networks, sharing, collaboration, search engine marketing, video, postcast, webcast, and mobileApps are receiving the same sort of attention. They all require degrees of change; and it’s not over yet. (Stay tuned for the semantic web – yikes! It’s really revolutionary)

That being said, what I have not seen change is:

• the need for human voice;
• effective language skills;
• an attractive personality;
• sincerity;
• confidence;
• the need to understand the buying and selling process; and
• the ability to build trust.

These fundamentals do not change, regardless of the chosen communication channel. As I write in my soon to be released book, social.lawyers: Transforming Business Development (West Publishing):

We’re not doing any thing different, we’re just doing things differently.

While some may think that the art of human engagement that leads to business relationships is being lost in the social media shuffle, I’d argue that not a single one of us skips down the road to becoming a rainmaker. It evolves over time with trial and error, coaching, mentorship, and of course simple maturity, both professional and personal, no matter what the forum. And that’s why it’s important to include some basic business training into every lawyer’s schedule.

Tools are NOT a substitute for fundamentals

Maybe it’s time to rethink a few things. Growing up on the social Web is not inherently a bad thing, but having a macro-training scheme can help. For marketing professionals, coaches, and mentors, the key is to make sure young professionals know the tools are not a substitute for the hard work of studying the psychology of sales and honing face-to-face people skills—provide fundamental business development training.

Business basics and client development fundamentals plus tactics that include the nuances of social web placement and best practices can be a winning combination; because this new media of marketing and business communication is not going to go away.

If social media is making you lose your focus, or if you never had focus in the first place, then perhaps its time to re-boot.

There are several things law firms can learn from the recent publicity of the JetBlue incident, particularly in the context of the social Web and reputation management, but three stand out.

1. Your stakeholders want you to succeed. They want to believe that you, their law firm, do the right thing; that you’re a valuable asset to their team and that others believe as they do.
2. Align your law firm with stakeholders, via engagement on the social Web, BEFORE a crisis strikes to give you access to, and credibility with, your stakeholders if and when an incident needs to be addressed.
3. Transparency on the social web is critical for law firms, especially in times of high media interest, and so it must be handled with care, for both the law firm and all involved parties.

Address crisis or rumor with effectiveness and style via the social Web

The recent Steven Slater/Jet Blue “Beer Slide” saga has had everyone in a tizzy lately; especially the media, JetBlue fans, executives at JetBlue who are normally quite chatty on the social Web, and their lawyers.  It appears that their legal counsel prompted Jet Blue’s silence in the early aftermath of the incident. Three cheers for the step-away-from-the-microphone advice during the initial brouhaha. In this case it turned out to be great advice.

Despite the negative squawking that penetrated the net – Where are they? Why aren’t they telling us what’s going on? – JetBlue pulled away from business as usual on the social Web until they gathered the essence and then posted a brief, but highly effective, entry on their corporate blog, BlueTales. They presented a side of the story with a compassionate, yet lighthearted, persona addressing the issues they were facing. They asked their online stakeholders to hold on.

What JetBlue did right.

In a simple blog post, they covered the issue with transparency –at least as much as legal considerations would allow at this early stage of the investigation— and the blog tool was the perfect delivery channel. (Note: they had already established a loyal following – see Lesson Two)

Lesson One: We love you!

In response to the blog post (193 comments so far), here’s what a few readers had to say

• …i love you jet blue
• …this is your chance to rise above all the nasty comments left online, by being gracious and forgiving. Offer his job back; don’t worry, he won’t take it; give him a stern lecture; and remind all passengers they MUST obey, by federal law, the orders of flight attendents, who are NOT just glorified waitresses and waiters. Here’s your chance: don’t blow it!
• Thank you for acknowledging your fine employees at this time. My family and I have always been very true, loyal customers of JetBlue.
• I think JetBlue should show the world, yes the world, that there is a lot of abuse in the service industry. Please show the world that there is a company that has empathy for their loyal employees. I feel your company is in the best position to teach the world it needs to be polite to people in the service industry and people in general. The world needs this lesson. Show us your empathy.
• This is a goldmine opportunity. You should definitely hire this guy, and have him make a bunch of funny YouTube videos about the dos and don’ts of carryon luggage. Have him try to shove a size 10 carry-on into a size 9 over-head, sideways. At the end he could have a little sign off (think Dan Rather’s “Courage!”) and then take the chute out of the plane, like Batman. If you don’t somebody else will, why not get the credit for being fair to someone who is viewed by many as a hero, and at the same time turn some lemon-like bad publicity into some earned advertising lemonade.
• I’ve flown with Jet Blue and I have nothing but good stuff to say! I don’t think this story will tarnish ur reputation. Your a great little airline keep doing what your doing it works I really like that Google maps thing that says where the plane is that is so cool!
• Jet Blue…..the most polite officers and crew. I only fly Jet Blue. Only had one tiny set back on Blue….No TV for 3 hours of my flight. But I lived. Thank you Jet Blue for being the best Airline to fly with…

Okay, okay, so we don’t expect law firm clients to be in love with their law firms in the same way they might love their preferred airline. BUT, take for example today’s headline story on the National Law Journal site.

Hunton & Williams has been hit with a $150 million lawsuit in Wisconsin claiming that the law firm maliciously squeezed a broker out of a contract and should pay up for the company’s losses.

The Richmond, Va.-based law firm issued a statement through a spokeswoman in response to the action. “This suit was filed by an adversary of one of our clients,” it said. “These allegations have no merit, and we plan to vigorously defend against them.” [Emphasis added]

What if, in a circumstance like this, there was a social channel (blog, website, discussion board, Facebook page, whatever) where the law firm laid out, after careful examination and with some transparency, the situation to the extent allowed by ethics and privilege? What if loyal clients added their comments? How would that impact the reputation of the law firm? How would that impact the clients’ perception that their voices mattered? How would it give readers what they wanted to hear and give them understanding?

Before you say, “noooo way would we open up the pipes and let people trash us,” I say, why is that? Why do you think you’d get trashed? Don’t you know you have clients who really do depend on you? Sure there might be people who would use the opportunity to grind an ax, but I’m going to take a guess that, over all, sophisticated readers would see right through that. Especially if you were being transparent, i.e. human, rational, reasonable business professionals who practice law and deliver value to clients.

Lesson Two: Align with stakeholders before the crisis hits.

For JetBlue, their social Web presence started long before Steven Slater, a veteran flight attendant, had maxed out on his tolerance for rude passengers, chugged a few beers, opened the evacuation slide, exited his job in dramatic fashion and entered the Internet media spotlight. They were there, amidst their stakeholders before the crisis hit. They were active on Twitter, Facebook, and their blogs. They were not only posting news releases and canned messages, they were engaging.  They had positioned themselves positively in the minds of their stakeholders. They were a “human” entity. (Which is also why there was shock when they didn’t give an early response. A two edged sword that had a happy ending.)

Law firms that are still on the ledge or are not taking the social Web seriously may be in for a surprise the next time they need to communicate with a broad base of share stakeholders. (See also Toyota Recall) Best to be proactive and get a social media presence now.

Lesson three: Be transparent, but handle with care.

I am not suggesting that law firms or anyone should try cases in the media. We all know that strategy. Sometimes it works and other times it hurts. However, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared and the social Web needs your attention.

When something dramatic happens, the media is looking for a story. They’ll get it where ever and however they can. In the pre-Internet days they would pull quotes and sentiment from passersby. That hasn’t changed, only now they have access to those sources 24/7 without leaving their desks, thanks to user generated content. To make matters more intense, passersby are telling their stories without the filter of the media.

Prepared statements from public relations departments and executives are becoming passé where the social Web is involved. Canned statements are ineffective unless they are handled with transparency and human perspective. The social Web demands it. Woe to the law firm who ignores it. Eventually it WILL catch up to you. On the flip side, speaking too early or too loudly may come back to haunt you. It’s a new PR approach, best to be prepared to handle it carefully.

Bottom Line:

Maybe if we–law firms–were more transparent, within ethical boundaries, people could be educated in the subtleties of the profession and attitudes would shift. After all, aren’t most civil disputes and legal actions the result of misunderstandings? The law is immense and difficult to interpret. What is your law firm doing to engage with their constituencies on the social Web so that you will have ready access to manage your reputation proactively?