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!

I want social networking online to give me greater reach, not add to my workload. I’m always searching for ways to cut down on the amount of time I spend keeping in touch with my valuable online social networks. One way I’ve found to double up on my efforts is to sync some of my services, i.e. add my Twitter feed to my LinkedIn profile page. By syncing my Twitter feed to my LinkedIn profile page I post once and cover more territory without jumping back and forth between networks. Another very important management tactic I use is Twitter “lists.”

How to Use Lists on Twitter.

If you’re new to Twitter, here’s a little bit of info about Lists. Lists are helpful in organizing your listening to make your conversations more targeted. For example, you could manually create a “Media” list that includes all the people you follow who are members of the media. When you view the list, only posts from those people appear in the stream.

You can jump back and forth between lists, essentially blocking out noise created by unorganized, random conversations in your main stream. When you open a list you can easily scan what listed people are talking about and enter into the conversation where appropriate.

To create a list, simply select Create New List and name it. Then, scan through the people you follow and add appropriate people to the list. Or add to lists as you follow new people. Once you have a list it will appear in the right sidebar on your main Twitter page.

You can manually build lists for personal friends, industry segments, politicians, CEO’s, social causes, and so forth. One way to quickly add lists to your Twitter experience is to visit Listorious.com. There you’ll find a bunch of ready made lists that you can add and follow. You can also follow the lists that others that you follow have created. They show up in your lists with @theirname.

Now, thanks to a LinkedIn application, Tweets, you can also make a Twitter list from your Connections on LinkedIn.

How to Create a LinkedIn Business Connections List.

We know from experience that it takes a number of touch points to build meaningful relationships off line or online. If you’re looking to increase the value of the connections you already maintain on LinkedIn, you can add the Tweets Application to your profile. Tweets allows you to see who within your Connections is on Twitter, give you the option to follow them, and seamlessly create a “LinkedIn Connections” list.

Simply go to the APPLICATIONS DIRECTORY page, and select add the Tweets application.

Once you add the Tweets Application you’ll be directed to the Application page. The Tweets Application will initially recommend people in your network to follow. You’ll also find tabs for Overview, Connections, My Tweets, and Settings.

When you select the Connections Tab you’ll see a list of all your LinkedIn Connections with a Twitter account synced to their LinkedIn profile. (Remember, you must also sync your LI and Twitter accounts. It’s an option on your (edit) profile page.) From there select the LI Connections that you want to “Follow” and “List” on Twitter. The application will automatically add the list to your main Twitter page and by default it is made private – which means that no one else will be able to see or follow your LinkedIn Connections List.

Using your LinkedIn-Connections list.

When you’re on your LinkedIn home page, Tweets will feed the last few posts sent from your LinkedIn-Connections Twitter List. You can directly post your status there or you can click on the “see more” to jump to the Tweets Application without leaving LinkedIn. In the Application you can get the complete stream of your Connections’ updates and update your Twitter status, reply, retweet or add more Connections to your Twitter list.

When you’re in Twitter, you’ll find the list in your sidebar, click on the list and check out what your LI Connections are discussing or sharing. From there you can of course do all the stuff you normally do on Twitter. (Your lists also replicate to your Tweet Deck or other software that you might use to manage your Tweeting).

That’s it! If you need help with the Tweets Application on LinkedIn, go to the FAQs, type in Tweets in the search bar and there are a number of helpful hints.

If you have any tips for staying organized with your online social networking I hope you’ll share them in the comments below.

While no longer a novelty to Tweet a conference in social media circles, (see #SWSX), for the legal industry it is ground breaking. Just a short year ago we only had a handful of people experimenting with the tools during the Legal Marketing Association’s annual conference. This year we had an amazing group of social webbites taking it to the extreme. Every session was covered on Twitter via an army of volunteers. The transcript of the three day conference can be found here. #LMA10.

A year ago at the 2009 LMA Conference, I presented a very basic, very general  session on  social media and social networking. What a difference a year makes.  This year I had the opportunity to share a breakout session with two senior legal marketers, Heather Milligan and Russell Lawson, on how to integrate STRATEGY into social law firm marketing.  We had only a short 45 minutes to cover all the exciting ways we’re adding the social web to the marketing mix and so we decided to limit questions and discussion from attendees during the session. That, of course, didn’t matter to this group. Twitter was in the audience.  The questions AND insights offered via Twitterverse expanded and enriched the experience remarkably.

Lindsay Griffith wrote a very thorough recap of the session on the social web for small and mid-sized firms on her blog Zen and the Art of Legal Networking. Take minute to read it, and let us know if you have comments. Her recap includes excerpts of Tweets. It’s a great recap and shout out to Lindsay for taking the time to pull it together. So, even if you didn’t get to attend the conference, head on over to Lindsay’s blog where she also has recaps of other session.

Nancy Myrland at Myrland Marketing Minutes put together a cool Vimeo of the Tweet-up during the conference. Others have added post conference insight on their blogs, which I’ll try to dig out and add to this post. Meanwhile, if you have one, please feel free to add it to the comments here.

Bottom line. The legal industry is waking up to Twitter and it’s a brand new day. Now, if marketers can be of any inspiration to lawyers, I encourage everyone to join the party. If lawyers started tweeting substantive law conferences – we’d all be smarter and they’d be famous just like folks over at Russell’s law firm, Sands Anderson.

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.

It’s time to reassess Twitter. Is it a conversation or just another channel in the communications tool box? What’s the value proposition today? Has it evolved for the better or what? I’m looking for your help in answering those questions.

For those of us in the trenches; e.g. conveying to busy (or non-busy for that matter) clients that the value of Twitter is found in having conversations on topics that interest mutual parties, the real test is in not simply “suggesting” that there IS value, but rather being able to help them make that happen. And, before that can happen they want to know what kind of return on their investment they can expect. That’s a little more challenging to explain, especially when there are so few examples and my own numbers don’t really add up.

Twitter By the Numbers

Indulge me in more personal terms. I am turning the corner on my second anniversary of participating on Twitter (20 months).  I have 473 followers; I follow 437 people, 14 listed. (I could have more, but I have plenty of excuses why I do not.)  I have 650 Tweets and 140 direct messages. There are pages of retweets of my stuff by others but to get that number I’d have to count the @jaynenavarre Tweets and that’s tedious.  I’m lousy at math so I won’t even attempt to calculate the numbers specifically. But, generally speaking, considering the number of Tweets and DM’s over 20 months, my exposure has been 39.5 times a month. Multiply that by the 473 followers and the number of times my Tweets have been retweeted by them to their networks that expand beyond my own tiny one and that’s significant exposure; certainly more than I could ever hope for in the bricks and mortar world. What’s not to like?

Exposure vs. Conversations

Well, taking all that exposure into consideration, the only “conversations” I’ve had on Twitter can be counted on my fingers and toes.  Except for the DM’s that are primarily between people I have met personally and have their email address where Twitter just adds another layer in those conversations, my live conversations on Twitter are RARE.

With one caveat. Twice in those two years I have had “rock star” contact. Once with Shel Israel talking about his book Twitterville and once with Jason Calacanis. Both are now following me (and thousands of others) But they never talk to me anymore.

Calacanis, being the most coveted follower, elicited this “email” to my friend (Heather Milligan of the Legal Watercooler) about the big day….

WaHOO! I’m in the big leagues now, baby…JC is following me on Twitter. Note below he has 77694 followers and is only following 1757! Them are some sweet odds. I sent a Tweet @jason about the Murdock may kill Google thing. It caught his attention. Waiting for his reply/discussion. 

I’m still waiting. (No disrespect to Jason he has added a significant dimension to my perspectives via his email blasts on various issues and he’s a busy guy.)

Through Twitter I have met a half dozen very interesting attorneys and a few new marketing professionals that have taken the time to have a non-DM conversation once or twice. Socially and professionally speaking those contacts are worth the 9100 characters I’ve typed over the last 20 months. From a business development perspective, I have no idea what my followers think of me, but I can assure you that I cannot directly link my Twitter investment to the growth of my business. And that’s where I need your help!!!!! No more soft stuff. I need the FACTS. Are you having conversations on Twitter? Where are they going? What is your time worth? Is it okay just to be social for social sake? Is that the value prop?

The Evolution of Twitter

In the beginning it really was a potential conversation, but currently, at least for me, my Twitter stream has evolved into an article-sharing database, a customer service outlet (I go there first when I need help with Comcast, Wachovia, Best Buy, or Apple) and a way to keep up with the news. As an article-sharing database it sort of, but not really, replaces Delicious, the social bookmarking site that I use to search for recommended web reading. As a customer service call to Comcast, it really rocks! You wouldn’t believe it. They are all over it when you Tweet something serious about their performance. (Reputation management!)

In my view, beyond the touchy feely—let’s get engaged, be transparent and collaborate rationale (Don’t get me wrong, I love social media and think Twitter is valuable subject to individual interpretation) Twitter has two aspects that dominate and make it hard to pin down.

1. It is very serendipitous. I can’t read every tweet and I can’t keep up with the public time line. So, it’s kind of like closing your eyes and pinning the tail on the donkey. When I go to Twitter, I open my eyes and see what I’ve pinned. E.g. I browse the latest Tweets in my stream and happen upon random information, but rarely conversation. Sometimes I comment. (Lists are an improvement but they’re still a bit awkward.)
2. Got conversation? (Granted, this may be my fault as I struggle with work and social balance.)  I see a lot of pushing articles, pushing blog posts, products, giveaways, and news. (This is not a bad thing, just another channel and may be where it’s evolving.)  Recently I re-tweeted a provocative post by John Cass, a blogger whom I do not know. Apparently he’s a really popular bloger and has thousands of followers. He direct messaged me asking me to add any thoughts as a response. That’s the right spirit and I’d certainly be smart to engage in that conversation, but at the time I found it I was swamped with work. Going back in to find it and connect my thoughts may be a bit of work. (He is a new follower of my Tweets though so who knows?) Ergo, you get back what you put in.

How can I, in all honesty, recommend to a client something that I can’t do myself? There’s probably a simple answer to that, only I’m too nearsighted. I need your help.

When is the last time you had a beneficial discussion/conversation on Twitter? I’m sure you have. If you can share some tips or stats on your actual experiences that would be helpful for me. Or, are you just using it to PUSH information? That’s not a bad thing, per se. But, is the purpose of Twitter changing? What is Twitter, really?

You can improve your ability to build meaningful business relationships on Twitter.  I’d like to introduce you to my new role model, Dan Churchill @netbizdan.  Dan is different.  He has a pay-it-forward approach to Twitter; it all starts with the “follow.”

As you begin to build your network on Twitter by following others, you’ll also be building followers.  Managing Twitter can get overwhelming the more deeply you become involved. Desktop tools, gadgets, and mobile apps are available to help you manage various aspects of your online life.  On Twitter, some people use apps for sending auto-responses via direct messaging to new people who follow them. I don’t use one, but many people do.

In my opinion, auto-response messages are rarely sincere in effect and some are down right offensive.  If you’re unfamiliar with auto-respond direct messages, here’s a quick look at how people are using them.

Twitter Auto-Responses:

• Many just say, “thanks for the follow.” ( Very benign, polite, but immediately forgotten.)
• Some include a link to their business Web site. (Ho hum. Maybe I care, maybe I don’t.)
• Some suggest joining them on Facebook or LinkedIn. (Interesting approach to network building. But not now. Let me get to know you a little better via your Tweets.)
• Some tell you about their services. (Thank you, but I know how to find you.)
• Some are blatant marketing messages with sales pitches, links to products they are shilling. I really dislike those and sometimes I will block those people from my stream. I don’t even know you yet and you are trying to get my money?

Here are three  auto responses I received last week.

Meet Dan Churchill.

Last week I also received a VERY DIFFERENT type of response from someone I added to my follow list: Dan Churchill @netbizdan. It was so effective. It blew me away and made me say out loud, aw shucks, why I didn’t think of that!

@NetBizDan sent a message into the public stream to thank me @jaynenavarre for the follow AND he included a link to MY WEBSITE and a few words about ME from my Twitter bio! What a genius.

Just to repeat: Dan, who I previously did not know or trust, sent MY Twitter name/address and a link to MY business website onto the public time line, to all of his followers, and for anyone who searches for me @jaynenavarre to see. How nice is that. Thanks DAN!

I’m looking forward to getting to know @NetBizDan better.  (And who were those other people who DM’d my inbox with their marketing spam? Totally forgettable!)

Dan doesn’t need to shout about what he does. Actions speak louder than words.  This small gesture shows me how good he is at what he does.  I hope I can refer him some business!

Who is Dan Churchill?

…..Dan is ABOUT:

AdWords PPC & Internet Business Development for B2B, Franchise, Legal, Healthcare & Automotive.  His business website is: netbizconcepts.com

Follow-management-tools.

If you’re still interested in setting up some follow-management-tools, there are dozens of apps available to help you manage your Twitter stream on the Twitter Fan Wiki under the Follow Management apps.

What interesting “follow” stories do you have? How do you deepen relationships using Twitter?

And, @heathermilligan, it hurts to say it, but, good luck in the series! #dodgers. Too bad the Birds played like the Cubs!