From the category archives:

Web 2.0

Build a Blog – Build a Law Practice: One Lawyer’s Journey

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 [...]

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How Law Firm Marketing Teams are Working the Social Web: Another #MPF Recap

“What blogs do you read?” That’s what CMO Melanie Green of Baker Daniels in Indianapolis, Indiana (Go Colts!) asks an attorney before approving their request to blog. Melanie was  a panelist on the break out session, “Success on the Social Web,” at the 17th Annual Marketing Partner Forum, Hildebrandt Institute and West EdCenter. “If you [...]

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Social Touchpoints for Your 2010 Marketing Plans

Law firms may need to play catch up if they don’t start integrating social technologies into their marketing, client service and business development mix in 2010. In the late 90’s, the word “touch-point” was frequently heard in legal marketing conversations. There was even a session on it at the LMA annual conference. No longer a [...]

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Lawyers: To Tweet or Not to Tweet -You decide.

Image via CrunchBase The debate rages on the value of Twitter to lawyers in their practice, marketing, and the business of law. Here on the Virtual Marketing Officer, I acknowledge Twitter as one of the tools to fit into a holistic social media program; however every tool isn’t for everyone. Twitter is a place where [...]

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Fast Facts. Rising Tide. Social Media.

Great storytelling from Erik Qualman. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8] I haven’t read it yet, but he has a new book “Socialnomics” How social media transforms the way we live and do business Happy Friday.

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Facebook Friday – It's Posterous

Two days ago when I posted about my top ten tools for organizing my online “social-life” I considered yoono about as close to finding the holy grail as possible – I was wrong. Today, I created a Posterous lifestream. I am www.virtualmarketingofficer.posterous.com. I’d been hearing about Posterous for a month now since Steve Rubel moved [...]

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Facebook Friday – Law Firm Fan Pages

In the interest of transparency, I am enthusiastic about social Web tools and particularly Facebook. Continuing in my series of Facebook Fridays, today’s post will address: Should a law firm have a Fan Page and if so, what should it look like?

If you haven’t seen it action, you’ve probably at least heard about how Dell or Zappos, the poster children for companies using social media, are creating revenue and positively impacting their brand in Social Media. According to various reports, most other companies, retail or B2B, have barely gotten started; law firms are no exception.

An April 2009 article on Adweek.com confirms that law firms are not alone:

“Thousands of brands from large, medium and small companies… crossed that hurdle a few years ago of making a Web site. But they are not yet waking up to the fact that the Internet is not just about parking your information somewhere and hoping people stumble across it somehow. You have to be active for anyone to notice…. Companies obviously know Twitter and blogs and Facebook. They just don’t know how they fit in. ”

Most law firm marketers are slow to increase social media in their marketing mix. It’s looked upon as mostly experimental and they invest only as time and priorities permit.

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Taking Care of Business –Social Networking Style

If you are still questioning the effectiveness or the role of social networks in “real” business transactions, just ask some of the the 32 law firms that have made it to the next phase of FMC Technologies, Inc.‘s law firm challenge: Abbott Simses (a 16-lawyer firm in New Orleans) Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld [...]

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Square Peg? Round Hole? Lawyers, In-House Counsel and Social Networks.

A huge source of information about the law resides in lawyer authored blogs, says Rees Morrison, who blogs at LawDepartmentManagementblog.com.

Rees is a law firm management consultant. However, when it comes to finding management related content from in-house counsel, the story is a quite different. Social networks targeted to in-house counsel get most of their management [related] comments from non-practitioners.

“Having hosted for more than a year discussion groups on LinkedIn about law department management and on Legal OnRamp about legal department operations, I can attest that very few in-house attorneys either start topics or comment on topics,” stated Rees on his blog post of June 1, 2009.

I’m not surprised, at all. Why? Aside from factors such as time, confidentiality, and other resources, why do in-house counsel need to post on social networks? Don’t they get their information from, and exchange ideas with, their trusted advisers and staff? What does public discourse add to the equation?

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3 Geeks and a Law Blog publishes best of '09

Greg Lambert, 3 Geeks and a Law Blog, just posted the ’09 list of must read blog posts. Gathering suggestions from his Twitter community, this list rocks. So far there are 150 posts. And we’re only in the first half of ’09.

There’s so much great stuff here it will take me all year to read them. My plan is to read one a day for the next 145 days. (I already read 5 and the inspiration factor is off the scale. Check out The Sun, The Cave, Enterprise 2.0 and the Ah Ha Moment on Cheryl McKinnon’s blog Candy and Asprin. The 2 minute video at the end is a treat.)

Thanks Greg (@glambert) and everyone who contributed selections. This a true example of community. What did we do before the Web went 2.0? Not to worry. No looking back.

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