According to the gossip site, radar.com:

A photograph posted by Paris Hilton more than a month prior to her drug arrest in Las Vegas could blow up her claim that the purse she was carrying — which contained cocaine — did not belong to her. In mid-July, Paris Tweeted a photograph of a purse and wrote: “Love My New Chanel Purse I Got Today ” That purse appears to be identical to the purse she was carrying when arrested on cocaine possession charges in Las Vegas last weekend. It could be a stunning blow to Paris’ claim that the purse in which police found cocaine did not belong to her and that she borrowed it from a girlfriend.

Perhaps its too late for Paris—caught in a little white lie–but for legal defense teams everywhere this example should be instructive.  Okay, I admit we don’t know if the radar.com story is manufactured or if the TwitPic is just a fake, but I checked out the Tweet and it looks like she (or whoever manages her Twitter account) really did post that photo on July 15th. At any rate, her legal defense team better understand the implications of social media discovery!

When hired to navigate a legal dispute do you ask your client about their online engagement?

Debriefing clients about their online activity should be part of the intake form, I think. It should be routine now as more often than not what happens online ends up in court. Online communications on social networks and blogs, both public statements and those thought to be private, are being brought into legal cases and not just in cases of matrimonial or child custody suits. Social networking discovery can either work in your favor or against you, so it seems pretty critical that lawyers should dig up not only what the opponent might be saying online, but also know exactly how, when, where and what your client is saying in order to build your case. This is not a simple job. Digging deep is time consuming and often links won’t show up in simple social site searches. I’m predicting that if it hasn’t already, beyond electronic documents and email, online discovery will spawn a critical new skill-set for paralegals and competitive intelligence professionals.

Help your clients avoid trouble by offering advanced training.

A lawyer needs to manage their own social networking behaviors and those of their employees, but now it seems they must also manage those of THEIR CLIENTS! Why not offer training classes for your clients and their organizations? Talk about value add, this would be a terrific way to step into the gap, especially for smaller client organizations that may not have the infrastructure to support such educational training.

With the plethora of web-based services available for training, you could you could offer your clients a custom, virtual training room. If you don’t have the staff in-house, consider outsourcing this project to a training consultant who understands best practices of the social Web AND the nuances of how, where and why plaintiffs or defendants trip up online.  Or, you might consider creating a set of videos or podcasts for your clients and add them to your YouTube channel and link them from your website. At the very least, employment law attorneys should start including a session on this topic in the seminars they host for prospects and clients.

What, if anything, are you doing to help your clients navigate the legal ramifications of the social web?

Online reputation management is essential in the Internet crazed business environment. In-house counsel are being asked to get up to speed on risk avoidance related to employee online activity and their outside law firms have a real opportunity to lead the way. If you are looking for help for your law firm or if you’re interested in developing a curriculum to share with your client organizations, my company, LawGravity, provides educational programs and has been working in the legal industry for over 15 years. Contact us for help!

The Semantic Web (call it Web 3.0 if you will) is both fantastic and, like most new technology, a bit scary: Do I really like the idea of every little move I make becoming data to be tagged and processed electronically? What if it ends up in the wrong hands?  And what to think of the “Big Brother” effect? Spooky right? On the flip side, how cool will it be when your calendar displays the photos you took on a particular day and time.

I’ve been reading a fascinating book on my Kindle, Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business by David Siegel. The author reveals, among other hard to imagine transformations that within 10 years my refrigerator will provide my grocery-shopping list—it will inventory everything I put in it. It will know when I take it out and not return it, or even return it half-full. It will know my recipes, too. When I’m shopping in a store, the semantic web will make information available in a format that the cart can understand. The cart will tally up my bill as I place items into the cart, also sending that information to the supply chain. (Some supply chain information exchange is already happening semantically.) It will know my driving habits, health issues, entertainment choices, and more. AND, not only will it have the information but it will help me do what I need to do with it. It’s not one way (web 1.0) or two-way (2.0) but 360 degrees of interactivity!  For the most part, on the semantic web our lives will be a living digital habitat. We’re seeing the tip of it as our conversations on the social web today are creating a web of data that returns personalized recommendations based on what our “friends” are buying or reading, or it can prioritize the mail in our in boxes according to our patterns. (Check out Google Priority InBox )

Yup, it’s exciting and scary.  What will life be like? Seems to me there will be a serious trade off of human interaction for the conveniences this artificial intelligence offers. But really, will we have a choice? This semantic world is moving very fast in business, science, and medicine. Read the book and be amazed.

Digital Storage

My recent move to a new home and office revealed how natural the progression may be. Here’s why.

Moving your home and/or office is pretty stressful. Not just emotionally or financially, but physically. Unless you’re one of the lucky ones and can afford to hire someone to pack for you, you will TOUCH EVERYTHING IN YOUR POSSESSION. And sometimes you will have to LIFT HEAVY BOXES in order to move about as you are packing. While possessions are nice and they make a home, well, homey, when its time to move they are trouble.  For me, during my recent move, I toyed with the option to give them all away and start over at my new home.

This feeling started as I began going through my office storage closet. I had a least a dozen file boxes of articles, source material, and old hard copy conference handouts, forms, folders, and you name it that I was saving to reference some day.  I’d been lugging them around the past eight years—call me a nomad, this was my fourth move.

Sorting through the “stuff,” I realized how much great information I had stored away—and rarely accessed.

Needing to cut the baggage I reasoned:

Everything is digital these days in the form of blog posts, videos and podcasts. Everything I could possibly need in those hard copy archives could probably be found somewhere on the Web. Although I know there were classics and golden nuggets in those boxes, what goes around comes around again. So pitch them. Besides, in the past five years I’ve actually quit keeping hard copies of anything. I store and file snippets, ideas, receipts, forms, contracts, and more, digitally, on my Mac or in the cloud on deli.ci.ous, Evernote, or Google Docs: Lightweight, easy to access, and search from any computer.

When I got to box with the floppy discs, I wondered, where would I ever find a machine that could read them any more? And all those music CD’s? They’re heavy and I never use them now that I’ve transferred all the music to my iTunes—carefully backing up every thing to an external hard drive every 30 minutes all day long. (I remember when I packed up my LPs and stuffed them in the attic at my mom’s house thinking they’d be back some day…nah, except for collectors, keeping this “stuff” is just impractical if you want to fly light.)

I decided to keep hard copies of personal stuff like my Will, my family medical history and birth certificate, but in the back of my mind I thought…if they ever got lost how hard would it be to get a digital copy? Do I really need all this paper?

And photos. Over the years I’ve put more photos on my computer than in my photo albums. Plus when they are stored digitally, I don’t worry about them being damaged in a hurricane or God forbid a fire. So, I kept only those prints that seemed priceless (family history and all.) Besides, I love the feel of real photos. And Books. I love paging through a printed book and I hope they never go away. But, after schlepping over a half dozen HEAVY boxes of books this last time, I got to thinking when it’s time to move again I’d be glad to pack just one box—my computer.

All this to say, storing stuff in a digital environment is practical, the least of which is for moving and perhaps the greatest of which will be how the data will flow in the semantic web era.

I’ll be keeping an open mind on the semantic web for both personal and professional uses. I wonder how will it play out in the practice of law—beyond eDiscovery and virtual law firms? How will it improve the client experience or the flow and use of data in tracking cases, legislation, calendaring? We are only limited by our imagination as the technology is already way ahead of us.  Meanwhile, if there are any futurists out there: Penny for your thoughts?

I predict that just about EVERYONE on LinkedIn will have a good reason to add Legal Updates, the new application from JDSupra, to deliver legal industry content to their landing page. For lawyers, though, at least those who are posting to JDSupra.com, the new app is…

“….like peanut butter and chocolate….”

That’s what Ron Coleman, head of the intellectual property practice at Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP in New York and publisher of the award winning legal blog Likelihood of Confusion, thinks. I spoke to Ron on the phone the other day about LinkedIn and JDSupra after hearing about the new client he got in response to a document he posted on JDSupra. Here’s what he told me…

“I was fan of JDSupra early on. I saw it as a great way to sell what I had to offer — experience, originality and quality of work. It’s extremely easy to use and it provides another place for a profile which I use to point people to EXACTLY what I’ve done. I probably have an advantage over lawyers who don’t have the freedom to post things. I’m not hemmed in by institutional concerns.”

Despite the notion that the social Web is all about sharing, conversation and collaboration, for Ron, it’s about how the documents he posts on JDSupra are dynamically aligned with search engines; allowing anyone searching for him or his expertise to find it.

With the new LinkedIn Legal Updates application, it gives him another gateway;  a gateway serving a fairly targeted business audience. Any time you can leverage what you post—post once and distribute it widely across the Web without added work—is a real plus. When you have a captive, targeted audience, well, it’s like getting a double dip. And that’s exactly what the JDSupra app for LinkedIn is all about.

You can preview and install the application here.

You don’t need to have a JDSupra account to access and download the app to your LinkedIn profile. But if you do publish to JDSupra, you’ll want to connect your JDSupra account to the LinkedIn app so all of your content is fed seamlessly into the app and can be searched for or browsed within the application by anyone within the LinkedIn social network.

About that client…

So, you’re probably wondering about that client Ron got, right? Well, here’s the story.  A mid-west lawyer’s client was served with papers in New Jersey. With no attorney relationship in New Jersey, the lawyer went to Google. Instead of blindly searching for a lawyer, he started by searching on the name of the guy who was suing his client. As it happens, a link to one of Ron’s documents on JDSupra that discussed how he had successfully litigated against the same plaintiff turned up. The lawyer reads the document and figures here’s a guy who knows who we’re dealing with. He then called Ron and within a few hours sent him a $10,000.00 retainer to handle the matter.

Some helpful instructions for making the most of Legal Updates on LinkedIn.

Publishing on the social web is an excellent marketing tactic that as Ron knows, “enables you [and search engines] to point people to EXACTLY what you’ve done.”

For users, the beauty of JDSupra’s LinkedIn application lies in its simplicity of set up and customization. Here are some simple instructions:

1. Connect your JDSupra account to the LinkedIn app.
2. The heart of the app, EVERYONE on Linkedin can do it. Customize your LinkedIn page feed.
3. How to recommend, share, save Legal Updates.

There you go!

Got any good stories about getting new clients from publishing your content on JDSupra or LinkedIn? Share them below. For more social.lawyer stories check out my new site www.sociallawyers.com.

Setting up a blog is easy. Whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you, it will probably be the last easy thing you do in your life as a lawyer who blogs. The rest of your life as a lawyer who blogs will revolve around an empty white box—a box longing to be filled with your nifty ideas and brilliant insights. Trouble is, nifty ideas and brilliant insights are not enough. As a practicing lawyer you also must write quality content to reflect the level of quality that represents you. For some (probably most) lawyers who blog, both new and experienced, it can be a real challenge to keep meaningful, nifty, brilliant, and high quality blog content flowing.

So, let’s look more closely at how to write a great blog post. First, if you’re going to blog effectively, you should keep these three basic goals in sight at all times.

Three Goals.

1. Write blog content that is attractive to readers.
2. Write blog content that others want to share and promote.
3. Write blog content that opens connections to new people.

Next step is to add variety.

Style.

Every blogger has his or her own writing style and voice. In most cases this remains consistent throughout the blog. A consistent voice helps readers get to “know” you better. In some cases it can be like hearing the lawyer think out loud. (This can influence business decisions!) But, you’ll probably want to mix up the format of the content you present to keep it interesting for both you and your readers. For example, you may have some posts that simply report pure information while others will go into a longer form of analysis or a how-to.

Fresh format ideas can be found from reading other blogs outside the legal industry and modifying them to meet the criteria of your law firm’s blog policy and your ethical responsibility to the legal profession. In addition, sites like PRO BLOGGER or Copy Blogger offer valuable tips and inspiration for your journey. Meanwhile, here are a few new ideas I compiled from my own journey. (And Here and here are a few old ones too!)

Format.

• Dissect a problem. Is there is a common mistake people make related to your area of practice? Define the problem and describe a few suggested ways to avoid it. Don’t give away the punch line, but give readers enough to take away a practical pointer or two.
• Tell a story. Do you have an instructive experience to tell? Put it in story form and share what you have learned with your readers.
• Teach. Imagine yourself a law professor. Create a “tutorial” series. Break down complex concepts into simple to understand steps. For example, you might explain how venture capital deals are created; the various structures used, the types of individuals involved, sample goals for the individual parties, etc.  The key for teaching posts is to keep them simple, use lots of subtitles, sections and even illustrations. (See more on Visuals below)
• Share a statistic. When you come across an interesting statistic, build a blog post around it. This could be as general as labor department data points, trending worldwide mergers by geography, or the number of insurance claims filed annually in the state of [fill in the blank]. While you could include an analysis or connect the dots to some pending legislation in the content copy, often the graphic itself can be the focus of the post, providing a fairly work free entry.
• Promote your clients (and even their customers.) This type of post, when handled appropriately, is sure to generate good will and add some new readers, not to mention the SEO juice you, your client and your client’s customer will get from the links you place within the post. Try an interview style that serves up a story of how one of your client’s customers benefited from their product or services. You could do a friendly review of a new product line, or invite them to do a guest post on a management issue or etc. (Make sure to disclose your relationship.)
• Re-purpose your press releases. Turn your press releases into a news story for your blog. Include links to publications where the story was originally covered and get bonus points.
• Go off topic. Blog readers often find your content via a general web search. That’s why its important to employ smart usage of keywords and tagging. Though your blog is focused on your area of expertise, sometimes throwing in an off topic post can generate new readers and give regular readers something extra. It could be a topic that is related to the legal industry but not necessarily “your” topic. For example, although your blog is about international law, you could write a post about general counsel who blog.
• Ask a non-legal question. Got a burning question? Ask your readers to help you solve it. Again,  it’s okay to go off topic from time to time to mix it up. For example, say you are trying to decide between a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad. You could create a post about your 10 key needs—things you are considering in your decision—and see if you don’t get some feedback.

Visuals.

• Graphs and diagrams. Graphs and diagrams are one of the quickest ways to communicate complex information and add visual interest. A visually simple graphic delivers value that readers will often share with others and even re-blog, helping you build new readers. Some of my favorite sites for ideas about the visualization of information are: InfoGraphics Blog,  Flowing Data, and Information is Beautiful.
• Photos and videos. Photos (and videos) are almost always featured in search results on major search engines, so, make sure to give the photo good keywords in the alt tag, caption and post title. Videos work well with teaching posts and can be easily re-purposed on your YouTube channel giving you added exposure. Feeling creative? Robert Thomas, Inversecondemnation.com, takes pictures of funny signs he sees around the court buildings he visits and adds them to his blog and Facebook page.
• Illustrations and cartoons. Bankruptcy Bill is the best example of blogger using this format successfully, though there are probably a few others. His character is used to illustrate relevant challenges businesses are confronted with in bankruptcy matters and also to make complex concepts simple. (You can purchase these cartoons!) You could probably find a local illustrator to hire or if you like snarky stuff check out Hugh McLeod at Gaping Void. (rights reserved)

Persona.

• Humor. While not everyone knows how to be both funny and professional, if you’re one of the lucky ones, injecting a humorous post into the mix can be a nice diversion for you and your readers. You may want to create a specific “category” for these posts like Friday Funnies or Coffee Break.
• Vision. Adding some visionary posts to your blog content mix can set you apart from the rank and file. Instead of just reporting on pending legislation or commenting on high profile cases in the news, with a little imagination you could craft an illustrative scenario that connects the impact such events may have upon a particular industry. While this may take some research and care in keeping your points general, writing this type of post can establish you as a thought leader. Thought leaders are highly valued by blog readers.
• Subtlety. If you typically go around spewing marketing messages, then doing so on your blog will be totally consistent with your persona. Go for it. If you don’t, well, be subtle. In my experience, the competent lawyer blogger does not ever need to “sell” their services. Their content does it for them. Content that is generous—meaning you share experience and expertise fairly freely and often—is more effective than any pitch you might make. Of course, a discrete link from relevant content back to an article on your law firm’s Web site is totally okay and qualifies as subtle in my mind. Other subtle promotional options for your blog would include having a personalized “About Me” page rather than a cut and paste biography from your formal web site. And, as you demonstrate knowledge, good will and authority people will be more receptive to more prominent promotion, so go ahead try including a short bio at the end of each post and test it’s impact on your marketing efforts.

Posts.

On a final note, whatever formats you chose for your posts it’s important to respect your readers’ time. The best posts are written for time-starved people who struggle with information overload. Keep posts concise, well-organized and focused. The inverted triangle style used by journalists can work well for lawyers who blog. The widest part at the top, your introductory paragraph, represents the most substantial, interesting, and important information you want to convey while the tapering lower portion includes material in order of diminishing importance. It is sometimes called a “summary news lead” style. The format is valued because readers can leave the story at any point and understand it, even if they don’t have all the details. Using bullets and bold headlines at the beginning of your paragraphs will also make it easy for readers to skim. Not exactly what you are hoping for after you’ve spent hours writing your post, but the fact is, the most valuable posts, those that meet the criteria in the three basic goals, are typically those that take 60 seconds to read.

Got any suggestions for unique posting formats?

Coming soon from Thomson Reuters,  social.lawyer | transforming business development,  my new book about business development fundamentals translated for the social Web.

Who has time for business development when you’re really busy with client work? Since the beginning of 2010 I’ve been struggling to balance the time I devote to taking care of my clients-who deserve 100 percent of my attention-and the time I  can devote to writing my blog, following up with the great people I’ve met at conferences and on social online networks and building exposure for my business, LawGravity. Every time I’ve wanted to say,

“I’m too busy with client work or writing my book, social.lawyer, to spend time on marketing,”

I think about all the lawyers over the years that have told me, “I don’t have time for marketing right now, when things slow down, check back with me,” and I replied, that’s not a good strategy, I’ve had to bite my tongue. That would be on more than one occasion, recently.

Fact is, the social Web is an excellent destination for “having it all.”

Even though I wonder how many opportunities to connect to new people I’ve missed because lately I’ve been too busy to write any decent blog posts and I’m tempted to beat up on myself, I remind my self that….

How can ANYONE be too busy to set aside the job of expanding or growing their business?

It’s the easier path, I guess.

But then I remember that everything I do is business development. When emails are returned promptly, when I deliver projects on time or communicate their progress with detail, when I  keep my promise to send a proposal on Friday and deliver it on Thursday exceeding their expectations, or when I take fifteen minutes to help out a colleague or introduce someone to new a connection, that’s all business development. And I do it all the time!  Even when I’m busy. When I do all those things with excellence, people notice. When people notice, they actually do my business development for me by spreading the word—word of mouth marketing is very effective. It’s a natural part of the flow.

The social Web, social media or social networking all make it easier for me stay in touch one-to-many AND open up new opportunities.

Adding a social Web dimension to the communities I’ve nurtured over the years has been very valuable and in fact increases my business development WOM (word of mouth) exponentially. Not just in marketing terms, but also for the support my communities have been to my work. They are a lifesaver in enabling me to do both my client work and my marketing….it can work for you too! We all get by with a little help from our friends.

My client work is amazing (thank you wonderful clients!) and I just finished my massive book project — well not finished entirely. I’m still writing the last chapter. But the manuscript for social.lawyer has been submitted to Thomson West and that’s a huge relief. Except of course for the last chapter. And that, readers, colleagues and friends, is where I need your help, again!

Do you have a story?

Social.lawyer is full of strategy. In the book I’ve included a few stories that illustrate how lawyers are using social tools for touch points with clients, prospects, referral sources and the media to make my points. However, in the final chapter I want to give readers more stories! Stories from social lawyers who have used online tools to get exposure to new connections and turn those into relationships that resulted in new business. I’m looking for very specific stories. Along the lines of…I did this, then that happened and I did that and a connection introduced me to…or as a result of my blog I was contacted by….and I built a relationship that turned into a client, a new job, or a new opportunity. (Thanks in advance to Jonathan Handel who has a very fine story and also to Lance Godard who interviews lawyers in 22Tweets. He always includes a question about their online success. They’re really great if you’re looking for ideas. And, Robert Thomas the amazing story captured here. )

Of course we all know that it takes many different touch points and that often we can not point directly to one single action that returned the tangible result, but if the story can pull together the touch points -both online and offline– and map them to the result that would be terrific.

Just a few short paragraphs would do it. (I do not want names of clients or anything confidential.) Just your story that says…this is how I did it and yes, it can work for you too! Important to note that the book spends a lot of time talking about the buying process and how the fundamentals don’t go away just because your involved in an online community. It’s important to understand how people buy and sell things. It is not an ugly or crass reality, helping clients through the buying process is…well, helpful. I also talk a lot about how buying and selling takes place in the marketplace which is essentially a community where people gather to talk about what they do and eventually get to know each other better and trust each other with their business or referrals.

If you have a story you’d like to share with me and the readers of the VMO, please add to the comments here. If you’d rather share it via email send it along here or Twitter @jaynenavarre. Stories that are included in social.lawyer will be attributed or if you’d rather not, that’s cool too.

Doesn’t social media make keeping in touch easier when you’re busy?

The whole experience of writing a book is somewhat like a lawyer going through a big trial–I literally slept only 4 hours a night for over month while I frantically juggled everything from client work to personal obligations. I was totally focused on social.lawyer and it was really the only way I could do the best job on it. Still, I found a few minutes here and there to reach out to those in my network and keep my valued community connections in tact. I think that when marketing isn’t an add-on, when it is integrated into your work flow, even for a lawyer in trial or working a big deal night and day, there’s no reason reaching out to your community has to be a separate chore. And social Web tools and communities can really help. It’s a great way to keep in touch one-to-many especially if you have limited time.

How do you manage to keep up with business development when you’re really busy with client work? Do social communities and social tools help you? Or are they just another chore added on to your already busy schedule?

Folks, the 24^th running of the Annual Legal Marketing Association Conference, Grade 1 Stakes, hosted this year Denver, Colorado is about to take off…..they’re all loaded and they’re……OFF! Out in the lead is Pre-Conference Session, followed on the rail by Darling Nathan, Twitter, and #LMA10, neck in neck for third is Tweet-Up, Your Honor Award and Concurrent Break Out, following about three lengths off is Exhibit Hall, Night Out and Akina AfterParty, trailing the pack is Say Good Bye and dead last, is Long Flight Home. Looks like he has a lot of ground to make up.  Folks, this IS a horse race! They’re rounding the club house turn now, it looks like #LMA10 is taking a run for the lead…oh, no, no,no,  it’s Darling Nathan out in front and leading ALL THE WAY TO THE FINISH LINE…..It’s Darling Nathan!  LMA10 and YourHonorAward finishing out–in the money!

Okay, so now that I got that little bit of fun behind me…tomorrow, I’ll be joining my colleagues Heather Milligan @heathermilligan and Russell Lawson @russ23229 for a panel discussion on Social Web Strategies for Mid-size and Small Law Firms #LMA10SM. But you already knew that because I’ve been yapping about it for months now. We’re just so excited to join lawyers and marketers who’ll be attending our session at 4Pm on Thursday and for those who can’t here’s a preview.

This is a list of questions we’ll be taking during our session. Anything we don’t get to will be found in posts on our blogs and on our Twitter streams.

1. What was your greatest PERSONAL challenge when you first jumped on to the social web and what is your greatest PERSONAL challenge on the social web TODAY?
2. What is your greatest challenge in your role as MARKETER today and how has that changed from when you first introduced online social to your firm?
3. ­­­­­­­­What would you say is the greatest overall challenge for your LAW FIRM and THE LAWYERS? How are you, or how do you plan, to address these challenges as a marketer in your law firm?
4. How do you, as a marketer or attorney responsible for your firm’s marketing efforts, influence and organize the law firm’s overall objectives with social web tactics? Do you have a master plan and if so, what does that look like? Does it integrate offline tactics or is it a stand-alone plan?
5. How important is it to your overall plan to strike a balance between micro-managing the process and giving attorneys the freedom to experiment? Or, in your experience do they lean on you to experiment, guide, teach and lead?
6. How do you help your attorneys keep up with the volume of info on the social web and make sure they’re tapped into the right people? How important is it for the marketer to help attorneys set realistic and achievable goals that match their individual style, time restraints, and comfort levels? And how do you do that? With a small in-house staff, do you ever outsource that work?
7. What in your opinion are the pros and cons of hosting an attorney blog on the firm website vs. independently? How did you make your decision, what does it look like, and is it working?
8. How aggressively does your law firm cross promote its blogs and what does that look like? Who does it? Where? Etc.  Have you added or do you intend to add any social networking and social sharing features to your home website?
9. How important is it to your strategy to get attorneys to post comments on other people’s blogs?
10. What advice do you have about comments on lawyer or law firm blogs? How have you addressed that in the disclaimer or not?
11. Some law firm’s have editorial or ethics committees that want to approve posts. How does content approval work in your process? Do you have any advice on the process?
12. What do you believe is the marketer’s role in coaching, training or policing issues of attorney ethics or even simply social web engagement?
13. To be or not to be on a social network is still a hot topic. What are common objections and how do you respond?
14. Do you have a specific strategy for spreading out attorney participation across social networks or do you leave it up to them? In either case, how do you monitor or measure their involvement?
15. When you are introducing a lawyer to the social networking space, do you help them lay out objectives or let them just explore? If objectives are in place, what key strategies do you emphasize, how do you help them in an ongoing way?
16. What does transparency on the social web mean to you personally and is that any different than what you try to teach your attorneys? Is transparency and collaboration a deal killer for some of your attorneys? What, if any, is the difference in an AmLaw 100 firm, a small firm or a mid-sized firm? Is there a noticeable difference between their comfort zones regarding transparency?
17. The social web is a BIG topic with lots of nuances, but if you could pass along one piece of advice, what would that be?

Okay, that’s a lot when I see it in black and white,  so maybe we’ll never get past the first 10 questions, but we’re going to try to cover all this stuff. I hope you’ll follow along: #LMA10SM.  Or  visit VMO, legalwatercoolerblog.com and progressivemarketingblog.com for an after session round up.

What’s your, or your law firm’s, greatest challenge about the social web? Heather Milligan, Russell Lawson and I would like to know. We’ll be leading a live discussion at the Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference this week in Denver on how law firms can add strategy to their social web activity.

The excitement is really heating up.  Attendees are using Twitter (#LMA10), Facebook, Martindale Connected, LinkedIn and their blogs to discuss topics, travel plans and how they’re going to meet up when they’re there. If you’re going to be there, make sure your mobile phone’s location service is turned on and you can find out where your networks are hanging out around the conference on foursquare or Twitter. (Search jayne Navarre on foursquare or @jaynenavarre on Twitter and you’ll find me.)

Meanwhile, we’re making a last push to hear from legal marketers and lawyers about their questions and challenges so that we may add them to the live conversation. If you can’t make it to Denver this week, don’t worry. Simply post them in the comments here, or here, and we’ll jointly respond to them after the conference on our blogs; Legal Water Cooler, Progressive Marketing Blog or here on the VMO.

Here’s a preview of our discussion:

• Transparency and ownership in social media isn’t about the marketer, it’s about the lawyer building his/her brand.  However, a symbiotic bond (trust) between lawyer and marketer is necessary to create champions and buy-in within the organization.

• It’s all about the bio – everything you blog, post, transmit, or link to should reinforce your skills and the law you want to do. Help lawyers create that bio and an online footprint that facilitates conversation.

• Teach your attorneys the value of getting famous. Cross promotion of content on multiple sites and services is  key. Exposure of their credentials, knowledge and content becomes viral and achieve better results.

• Marketers can help attorneys set realistic and achievable goals that match their individual style, time restraints, and comfort levels. Encourage them to watch, look, listen, see what others are doing, and how often they are doing it in order to help them use their limited time to best advantage. Help them to prioritize the tactics that work for people like them.

• Give attorneys a good description of how search works. Help them own the first three results on Google.

• Lead attorneys to engagement. Teach them how to use the social tools, create dynamic content, and the importance of frequency and consistency in building relationships, but also teach them how to take those relationships to the next level—off line.

• Understand, first hand, the challenges attorneys face such as time, technologies and ethics and help them get organized with tools and strategies to weed out low performing activities, and by all means, stay on top of the ethics issues.

• Don’t let yourself get thrown off by every new application, network, or platform that comes along. It’s great to find interesting new tools, but let other people test them out first before jumping in and wasting time.

Here’s a question Lindsay Griffith would like the panel to discuss; “How do I keep up with the volume of information on the social web and make sure I’m tapped into the right people?” We’ll report back to you.

So, what’s your greatest challenge on the social web or in your law firms?

UPDATE: LINDSAY GRIFFITH RECAPS OUR SESSION ON ZEN AND THE ART OF LEGAL NETWORK MAINTENANCE BLOG. CHECK IT OUT FOR ANSWERS TO THE CHALLENGES POSTED ABOVE. THANKS LINDSAY! Comments welcome!

It’s no trivial thing: the social web opens access to some amazing people that I would not otherwise had the opportunity to meet. It really works – on many levels.  It’s absolutely fascinating to me; geography, culture, time, and professional status are no longer an obstacle to growing my network. It gets more interesting every day.

I recently met attorney Robert H. Thomas, one of the preeminent land use lawyers in Hawaii (I live in FLORIDA!). He blogs at inversecondemnation.com and @invcondemnation on Twitter. I had an opportunity to take our online conversation off-line to chat with him on the phone the other week. Here’s his story…..

Inversecondemnation.com

Robert’s been in private practice for 30 years. Up until four years ago, he published articles, gave presentations, was active in the American Bar Association, and hit the local cocktail circuit as much as he could in order to build his practice. Marketing was slow going. Then, in 2006,  he published his blog, inversecondemnation.com, and everything changed.

Inquiries accelerated and the pace of his workload intensified. Today, he tracks almost ALL of his new business and ALL of his connections with journalists, including national and global media interests, back to his blog.

Blogging is like getting to hear your lawyer think out loud before your hire them.

No small task, he landed two Fortune 100 companies as clients; a direct result of his blogging. They didn’t contact him to submit a proposal; they contacted him to do the work. They found his blog on a Google search, and after reading his posts they knew he had what it would take to do the work they needed.

Contrary to his prior networking experiences at ABA events, people began approaching him as if they already knew him. They read his blog, they knew his voice, something about him, and it made him much more approachable. His networking effectiveness increased noticeably.

Journalists started calling him for background on related legal cases after his blog took off. He now knows everyone in the local media and many national and international journalists because he blogs, twitters, and cruises around LinkedIn (LI). At first he fed them background on cases that were not his, but he nurtured the relationships to become a trusted source. Now, when Fox News is looking around Hawaii for a story, they contact him and ask for HIS stories.

Not a solo journey.

To build readership for his blog, he ventured into social networking. He originally split up social networking duties with a partner; he took LI and the other guy took Facebook (FB). His partner reported that FB turned up too many “x-girlfriends” so he stayed clear , at least for a while. Then the ABA Eminent Domain section launched a FB page and he was sort of forced into it.

Still a bit skeptical of the FB value proposition, he’s found some rather original ways to participate. He stays away from political discussions and other conversations that have the potential to be heated. Instead, he takes pictures of signs in the courthouses he frequents and posts them to the group page and his profile. Funny signs like the one he found in a Hawaiian courthouse: “Court Room Attire | Regular Street Wear and Work Wear Acceptable Footwear Mandatory.”

Leveraging content.

Robert takes an open approach to sharing content because he knows the value keywords have in getting found by search engines.

Cross publishing his blog content to other networking sites or document sharing sites like JDSupra has a multiplier effect. For example, often the same article will return higher in results from a JDSupra posting than his own blog. This led him to start posting his legal briefs on document sharing sites, but not without first getting major resistance from some partners who were concerned about giving away work product.

He argued that this type of transparency is valuable to business development. Any work product he would share is already in the public domain. He reasoned that anyone can get it from the courts online, so why not have it out there where Joe Public can find it and associate it directly to him. If another lawyer wants to lift case cites from the brief, so what.

“We’re not selling documents, we’re selling brains. It’s not like they can download the brief, plug in new names and win a case.”

Only he can craft his case and argue it. The brief is only part of the package. Makes sense to me. (Good lawyering!)

The keyword play he gets from posting his briefs works really well in online search and makes it a smart integrated strategy.

If it all sounds easy, it’s not. It takes work, time, and commitment.

Quick to point out, Robert views his blogging and social networking activity as a critical, vital, and exciting part of his practice. He writes a half hour a day, every day, and posts three to six times a week, plus promotes his ideas and thoughts on Twitter and LinkedIn. Vacations? No sweat. He loads up his posts and times them to go out while he’s gone.

His blog is mostly pure information and little analysis so it takes less time to craft a post, however, it’s a skill set that not everyone can master and identifying topics to report on daily requires good organizational skills. An unexpected benefit of publishing his blog; his writing has improved and his subject matter knowledge stays fresh. He noted that this really pays dividends when writing client communications and other legal documents as well as expands his industry knowledge.

The results of his work have inspired his colleagues to successfully launch law blogs.

The story of inversecondemnation.com is not as uncommon today as it was when Robert first started blogging. Although he wasn’t a trailblazer, he was a member of the first wave of lawyer bloggers.

Now, two of his colleagues at Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, also blog.

Mark Murakami produces www.hawaiioceanlaw.com, which, as the title indicates, focuses on maritime and environmental issues, although it is not limited to Hawaii. Mark is a former Coast Guard lawyer and ship captain, so he brings some experience to his blogging. He is just over the two-year mark on his blog.

Tred Eyerly produces www.insurancelawhawaii.com, which focuses on coverage issues, again, not limited to Hawaii law. Tred is the chair of the ABA subcommittee on coverage issues and has developed a very expansive reputation as an expert in this area of law. He’s in his third year of blogging.

Robert’s final comment to me on the phone was:

“I’m shocked that not more lawyers are taking advantage of the reach and exposure social media provides.”

Me too. While writing isn’t for everyone, there is something for everyone on the social web. If you need help finding what that is, drop me a note. I welcome the conversation and another new contact in my network!

Got a story? I’d love to hear it. Feel free to email me or share with everyone in the comments. Thanks!

Using the social web for corporate communications and interactivity is UP, UP, UP according to a new study by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. The study looked specifically at Fortune 500 Companies’ usage of blogs, Twitter, podcasting and video blogging.

The research, conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Eric Mattson CEO, Financial Insite,  (Fortune 500 and Social Media) revealed that three out of 5 of the top 5 Fortune 500 companies have public facing blogs.

Who’s blogging in 2010?

Wal-Mart (#2), Chevron (#3) and General Electric (#5). And consistent with the 2008 list, Exxon Mobil (#1) and Conoco Phillips (#4) do not have blogs.

An up tick in blogging across The Fortune 500 industries include:

• Computer Software, Peripherals, Office Equipment
• Specialty Retail (Home Depot, Toys R Us, etc.)
• Telecommunications
• Food Production, Services and Drug Stores
• Commercial Banks
• Insurance
• Semiconductors
• Information Technology
• Motor Vehicle

And it looks like these companies are playing by the rules of social interactivity as the research reveals that 90% percent of the Fortune 500 blogs take comments, have RSS feeds and take subscriptions.

Tracking similar trends in law firms, the report shows that smaller, more entreprenurial businesses, such as those listed on the Inc. 500, are blogging at a higher rate than the large Fortune 500 Companies; the main difference being possibly related to the size of the company, internal structure or corporate philosophy regarding open communication with its stakeholders.

Who’s All a Twitter?

Of the 108 blogs documented in the study, 93 (86%) are linked directly to a corporate Twitter account tripling the numbers from the 2008 list.

“One hundred and seventy-three (35%) of the primary corporations listed on the 2009 Fortune 500 has a Twitter account with a post within the past thirty days. Of these companies, four of the top five corporations (Wal-Mart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric), consistently post on their Twitter accounts. The number one ranked company, Exxon Mobil, does not have a Twitter account at this time.

“Interactivity with readers was examined by the number of @replies or “retweets” and by checking the dateof the last post to determine how current it was. One hundred and twenty companies (69%) consistently responded with @replies or retweets within the past thirty days. These Twitter accounts are kept up-to-date with current news and information. There is consistent interaction with other users and on-going discussions that are easy to follow.”

What can law firms take away from this raw data?

A few things come to mind.

• While this raw data may not be terribly instructive in any practical way, it sure confirms a major transition in corporate communications.
• Law firms need to understand why this is important to their clients and how it’s impacting their culture and business.
• “We understand your business” tag line people need to experience the feeling of social transparency first hand in order to know their clients’ business.
• Law firms need to open lines of communication with the public – not just for “hey look at how great I am” messages but for contributing dialogue for the greater good.

What do you think?

Link to a PDF download of the study.

If you’re a lawyer or other legal industry professional engaging on the social web I’d love to hear about your social web strategy for engagement. Why? Because next month I’ll be speaking at the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Denver along with  Progressive Marketing Blog author, Russell Lawson of Sands Anderson and Legal Watercooler Blogger Heather Milligan of Barger Wolen and we think your experience will be valuable to attendees. Our presentation is focused on building social media strategy for small and mid-size law firms.

It’s been my observation that lawyers in smaller firms, smaller markets or larger regional law firms have a lot to gain from getting their social media game on (that also holds true for lawyers in a large law firm but located in a smaller city or remote area). There are tons of reasons why, the least of which is how quickly engaging on the social Web can enlarge your circle of influence opening up new markets for your services.

But, I’ve also observed that as the social Web evolves, lawyer involvement can be a bit scatter shot. And like everything in life, there’s always room for improvement. That’s why having a plan can help. The best marketing doesn’t just happen; behind it are objectives, strategies, goals and measurement.

I’ve dumped what I’ve learned from the past three years on the social Web into the simple outline that follows.  I’m sharing it with my readers in the hope that they can help. So, readers, what have I missed? What would you add?

Strategic Planning for the Social Web

The Social Media/Networking strategy has three primary categories: Design, Develop and Assess and one ancillary category: Innovate. Your online plan works best if you can align the key objectives of your current off-line marketing or business development activities with your key objectives for your online activity. Be specific, but keep in mind that nothing is necessarily exclusive and that the best plan may be pretty inclusive, and of course, flexible.

Design

• Who –do you want to attract or connect with, i.e., clients, referral sources, general counsel, other lawyers, industry leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists, finance professionals, doctors, alums, politicos, journalists, current friends, family, etc?
• What –is your point of view, i.e., broad, narrow, specialty, niche or general?
• What –is your persona, i.e., expert, collaborator, influencer, leader, or learner?
• What –is your content, i.e. pure information, opinion, education, how-to, analysis, current events, commentary, etc.?
• Where –do you want to be seen, i.e. community, industry, government, private, public, search engines, blogsphere, legal circles, etc.?
• When –will you need to see mini-milestones? When will you surpass your benchmarks, i.e. three months, six months, 2 years? (It takes time!)
• Why –will specific tools be helpful to you or your team in reaching benchmarks, objectives, and goals? Tools are not exclusive.
• How –will you have them all in play at once?
• How –will they build on each other?
• How –much time are you willing to commit? How will you do it? Will you need a team, outside support, in-house support, clerical support, an editorial calendar, or other infrastructure accommodation?

Develop

• Systems –budget, office network permissions, hardware, e.g., laptop, mobile devices, net-book, etc. Define distribution channels such as CMS, CRM, paid/unpaid services, email accounts, password storage, joint accounts, home network access, and etc.
• Tools and techniques –browsers, software downloads, cloud-ware,  services, aggregators, networks, platforms, memberships, and monitoring tools (paid or free?).
• Services –content, publishing, blogging, conversation, photo sharing, video, podcasting, micro-blogging, aggregators, and management tools.
• Roles and responsibilities –content, editorial processes and procedures, co-bloggers, guest bloggers, publishing calendar, time management, commitment, vacation coverage, ethics considerations, collaboration, clerical support, cross-platform promotions and policies.
• Positioning –placement, audience social-technographics, your persona, profiles, key words, size and type of networks that might work best, tone, communication style, topics, conversation and commenting strategy.

Assess

• Metrics –search engine results, subscribers, readers, link stats, number of qualified sources in your network, clicks on your video, or downloads of an article/presentation/document/PDF/podcast.
• Milestones –increased touch-points, online to offline conversations, qualified comments on your blog, group activity converted to new network contacts, getting contacted as a result of a keyword search or answer to a question, getting contacted by a journalist, or being named to a list, high ratings on a list, being added to another bloggers blog roll—all pertinent to being seen as an influencer.
• Benchmarks –relationships converted to new business, relationships converted to new referral sources, new audiences, wider dissemination of content, number of reblogs or links from influential media or others.
• Review and Revise.
  

Allow time for innovation

• Uncover new milestones
• Find the gaps, fill the needs
• Discover new tools -experiment –trial and error
• Reach out to your networks in new ways
• Listen to other innovators, your clients, your readers
• Listen to instincts
• Assess your organization
• Refine design, redevelop

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!