Have we reached a tipping point? Can yesterday’s rules hinder a lawyer’s ability to serve their clients today? “Yes,” say the leaders (and members) of the Legal Marketing Association (LMA).

The issues at stake

1. The patchwork quilt of advertising rules across states is exhausting and difficult to maintain in today’s world where multi-jurisdictional practices are common. It’s a huge pain. So, in 2005, the LMA sent its first official position statement to the American Bar Association (ABA) advocating the need for uniform advertising rules for all jurisdictions.

2. The Internet has changed forever the way we communicate with others and how professionals and businesses educate the public about their services and products. For lawyers, the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct that relate to advertising and marketing are pre-Web 2.0, and they are simply outdated. Short of the impossible idea that the ABA could regulate the Internet, lawyers and marketers need clarification in the use of new tools made possible by technology in order to comply and still serve today’s Internet addicted clients and potential clients. In 2009, the LMA formed a task force to help move those things along, too.

How it unfolded: The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20

In 2009, the ABA acknowledged that advances in technology and global legal practice developments were reaching a tipping point, and that a top down review of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct was necessary. The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 was established under then ABA President, Carolyn B. Lamm. Their job: Conduct a thorough review.

The final request for comments, on relevant parts of the Commission’s earlier drafts, closed April 2, 2012. The Committee is slated to discuss and finalize their recommendations at the Annual ABA meeting, August 2012. Draft resolutions to date are found here. My earlier summary of the last draft can be found here.

LMA behind the scenes

No shrinking violet, the LMA, aka, The Authority for Legal Marketing, formed a task force to respond to the Commission’s calls for comment. They had these objectives in mind:

1. Build a bridge between traditions that the profession holds dear and the reality of all that is new and transformative.
2. Respond to the need for LMA members to be conversant with the rules and regulations.
3. Show leadership in helping the profession adapt new tools embedded with respect for the profession.

I recently had an opportunity to speak to LMA Executive Director, Betsi Roach, and past presidents Nathan Darling and Kim Perret, to catch up on how the LMA is working on members’ behalf on these important issues.

“The Task Force, created by Nathan Darling, 2010 President, and chaired by Kim Perret, 2006 President, works with the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 and with the Florida Board Review Committee in order to ensure that the voice of the legal marketing community is heard on significant issues such as how Internet-based communication and marketing tools can be used in every firm’s marketing mix and the negative impact that state by state rules and regulations can have in this new border free marketplace,” explained Roach.

The timeline goes something like this: Task Force was created in late 2009. Darling presented LMA’s position on the Model Rules review with in-person testimony before the ABA Commission in October 2010 and written comments. Darling and Perret also landed a private meeting with 20/20 Commission co-chair, Jamie Gorelick, to further advocate LMA’s views.

“We believe that our advocacy helped the ABA avoid going further in the wrong direction,” explained Darling. “Our involvement to date also leaves the door open for addressing upcoming issues after the Commission releases its final proposal in August 2012.”

Meanwhile, in 2011, Perret presented official LMA comments to the Florida State Bar Review Board, in a follow up to the 2005 position statement. (Florida currently holds the top award, in my opinion, for particularly irrational standards for lawyers’ Internet use. I say they need all the help they can get.) Moving on…

“Focus on the message, not the medium,” says Darling.

“We’re not just trying to focus folks on the ethics rules, we’re trying to change the way lawyers find and develop business,” explained Perret. “Up for debate is: How are customer relationships actually formed and what role does the Internet play?”

More specifically, areas in debate include:

• Can a customer relationship be formed via a “chat now” screen?
• A Tweet? A blog post? A Facebook status update? (PLEEEEASE, seriously?)
• Pay per click advertisements that offer a “contact us” or application option?
• What role do referral-network links play in engaging new clients?

Darling added,

“At the end of the day, many of the activities on the web equate to educating buyers of legal services about the services you offer. Even when they are found online, lawyers are not forming client relationships without full disclosures, agreements, or in-person identification, appropriate paperwork with signatures, and so forth.

“Federal statutes, heck, the U.S. Constitution, are in place to govern how commerce works. Why should lawyers be handicapped from competing for business within that structure?”

They shouldn’t. I applaud the LMA for their concern and for leading advocacy efforts to help the profession transform itself in the new information economy. Technology renders traditional borders meaningless. State by state regulation of the profession only causes confusion, layers of enforcement (that laughably the Florida Bar intends to delegate to peer policing), and ultimately unnecessary expense for law firms.

For example, an LMA survey, conducted for the purpose of presenting the ABA 20/20 Commission with statistics, revealed that collectively, hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in cash and valuable lawyer and staff time ($10-30K per firm of the 194 firms responding) are spent by law firms each year in an attempt to comply with the contradictions imposed by multi-jurisdictional ethics rules regarding Internet use. This is on top of the fact that even many honest attempts at compliance can fall short due to technical shortcomings or misunderstandings. This scenario cannot be sustained, nor should it.

The facts are simple. According to the LMA Task Force:

1. People, retail consumers of legal services as well as businesspersons and corporate counsel, seek information via the web as a matter of course, daily. Websites are information on request—not advertisements.
2. You can’t paint with one brush. All social media does not constitute solicitation. A distinction must be made between regulating the medium and regulating the message.

Agreed and agreed. Moving on…

What’s ahead for LMA advocacy efforts?

“We will continue to seek ways to advocate in the interests of our members where evolving Internet advertising issues and related topics develop. We are prepared to respond to follow up issues after the August 2012 meeting of the Commission,” said Darling. “And, we are committed to making a difference in addressing the issues that go beyond business development and marketing, including ongoing questions related to professional ethics and law practice management. We believe this is an area where marketers can and must show leadership. Marketers can play a critical role in leading their firms, ethically, as they adapt their practice to compete in the 21^st century.”

The LMA also informed me that in the near future they will have a section on its website devoted to reference information on the Model Rules, state-by-state rules, and the ABA 20/20 Commission. An ethics program via webinar is planned for the Fall of 2012 and an in-person session at the 2013 Annual Conference to be held next spring in Las Vegas, Nevada, is in development.

I am impressed by the advocacy efforts of the LMA. I’m also relieved to learn that marketers have a seat at the table. That’s right…we’re not just planning parties and printing nametags anymore. The very large and venerable profession appears to now recognize that diversity of voice is important for a healthy transition to the realities of new media and marketplaces. Darling and Perret reported that the Commission has been very open and objective in regard to their contributions. This surely is worth great recognition to all involved.

I encourage all lawyers and marketers to consider joining the LMA and receiving membership benefits. If you have further interest or questions, please feel free to contact the LMA directly. They will be more than happy to assist you. (Disclaimer: I am an LMA member but hold no official role in the organization and receive no compensation for endorsement. Simply a cheerleader on the sidelines for a great organization.)

But wait…there’s more!

During my discussion with Darling and Perret, I asked, “Who owns the issue of liability in the law firm? HR? Marketing? Management? Lawyers? What are professional liability insurers saying?” Good questions. As far as we know, they’re not saying much right now. So, while it may be a sleeper issue for the moment, what happens when the House of Delegates approves the ABA Model Rule changes is anyone’s guess. Will there will be some trickle down effect? Might insurers require a social media audit before a law firm’s policy gets renewed?

In a follow up post here on the VMO, we’ll imagine that a managing partner gets a memo from Chubb or Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society, Inc. (ALAS) that reads like this: If you have a Facebook page, take it down now because we will not cover any social media-related mal-practice claim etc, etc…GULP.

Can the marketer (or LMA) be a bridge to liability issues that are CRITICAL to the marketer’s toolbox?

Hmmm… Sign up to receive the VMO in your mailbox or RSS reader so you won’t miss a post!

And now for something REALLY fun….

This post may not be directly important to your work as a marketer or lawyer, but I’m pretty sure you’ve heard or read many of these words in one context or another, and may even be wondering what they mean.

The Cloud? Social Discovery? SOA? De-dupe? SoLoMo? Robust? Emoticon?

Well, fact is, so do the people who actually use them in their work! Curious? No, that’s not on the list, but if you are, here are the Most Confusing High Tech Buzzwords of the of the Second Decade of the 21st Century, thus far (2010, 2011 & 2012) as released by The Global Language Monitor.*(see end of post for explanation of how the list was compiled.)

Note: Along with the tongue-in-cheek commentary provided by GLM, where I could find them, I’ve added common definitions in italics.

1. Big Data. Big Data is a big buzzword.  It has been called the key to new waves of productivity growth, essential to the US place in global economics, and more.  Now if only we could agree on exactly what this means and how we get there. Consider yottabytes: A quadrillion gigabytes. Hint: Just think a lotta bytes. In information technology, big data consists of datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools.
2. ‘The Cloud.” The Cloud, in various manifestations has been ranked No. 1 for 2008, No, 4 overall for the decade, and now as No. 2 for 2012. Still all very nebulous. Most commonly defined as the Internet, where delivery of computing as a service (software as a service of SAS) rather than a product, i.e., shared resources, software, and information, are provided to computers and other devices.  
3. The Next Big Thing.  A cliché rendered nearly meaningless by the innumerable daily claims made by VCs, entrepreneurs, college dropouts, etc.  Actually, you can count the history of next big things on your fingers, and possibly toes.
4. Social Discovery. Social discovery is the process by which a user finds and connects with another while a social network is a social structure of people with social connections between them. Webster’s 1910 definition: “Consisting in union of mutual converse.” Might be an excellent corporate strategy.
5. Web 2.0 (3.0, and so on).  Ranked as the 1,000,000th English-language word in 2009, it just keeps morphing along. Web 2.0 is a loosely defined intersection of web application features that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.
6. Solid State. As in Solid State Disks (SSDs).  Remember ‘solid-state’ televisions switched from vacuum tubes (Paleozoic)? How about LED watches from the ’80s (Mesozoic)?  Today, it’s all-about Solid State Disks. Think iPad, net-books, and other handheld computers, all light weight because they don’t contain the spining hard disk drive. They use SSD for data storage.
7. CERN. You might want to understand the acronym before the Earth is swallowed up in the ‘mini’ black hole it just might create. CERN is The European Organization for Nuclear Research. It is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory and home of the first Web server used by British scientist, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
8. Solar Max. In the 1850s telegraph wires melted.  Best not to shuck off the hype here. Solar maximum or solar max is the period of greatest solar activity in the solar cycle of the sun.
9. De-dupe. First we dupe, then we de-dupe. Flash forward to 2014: Re-duping!  Ah, the next big thing! To de-dupe is removing duplicates in records linkage, i.e. databases.
10. 3G/4G/5G. One of the benefits of having an open, open standard (AKA, no standard). Anybody can claim to lead as the (Generation) ‘standard’ expands into meaningless. The G stands for the generations of cellular mobile communications.
11. SoLoMo. This is not an oh-so-trendy neighborhood like Soho or Dumbo, at least not in the sense of brick-and-mortar.  This is the convergence of Social, Local, and Mobile.
12. SOA.  The number one Most Confusing Tech Acronym of the decade. Solutions Oriented Architecture (SOA), is the underlying structure supporting communications between services. SOA defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity. There a highly popular SOA for Dummies edition and Google Books list 47,300 editions that explicate upon the subject.

Want more?

Here is the first decade (2000-2009) of the 21st century’s Most Confusing High Tech Buzzwords with GLM comments.

HTTP — HyperText Transfer Protocol is used for HTML (HyperText Markup Language) files. Not to be confused with text-on-too-much-Starbucks.

Flash — As in Flash Memory.  “Flash’  is easier to say than “ I brought the report on my EEPROM chip with a thin oxide layer separating a floating gate and control gate utilizing Fowler-Nordheim electron tunneling”.

God Particle – The Higgs boson, thought to account for mass. The God Particle has eluded discovery since its existence was first postulated some thirty years ago.

Cloud Computing – Distributing or accessing programs and services across the Internet. (The Internet is represented as a cloud.)

Plasma (as in plasma TV) — Refers less often to blood products than to a kind of television screen technology that uses matrix of gas plasma cells, which are charged by differing electrical voltages to create an image.

IPOD – What the Alpha Whale calls his personal pod. Actually, Apple maintains that the idea of the iPod was from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The origin of the word IPAD is a completely different story.

Megapixel – Either a really large picture element (pixel) or a whole mess of pixels.  Actually, one million pixels (that’s a lotta pixels) OK, what’s a pixel? Computer-ese for picture element.

Nano – Widely used to describe anything small as in nanotechnology. Like the word ‘mini’ which originally referred to the red hues in Italian miniature paintings, the word nano- is ultimately derived from the ancient Greek word for ‘dwarf’.

Resonate – Not the tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude, but the ability to relate to (or resonate with) a customer’s desires.

Virtualization – Around since dinosaurs walked the planet (the late ‘70s) virtualization now applies to everything from infrastructures to I/O. I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system (such as a computer), and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system.

Solution — Ever popular yet still an amorphous description of high tech packages of hardware, software and service

Cookie — Without cookies with their ‘persistent state’ management mechanism the web as we know it, would cease to exist.

Robust — No one quite knows what it means, but it’s good for your product to demonstrate robustness .

Emoticon  — A smiley with an emotional component (from emotional icon).  Now, what’s a smiley? :’) (See Robust)

De-duping – Shorthand for de-duplication, that is, removing redundant data from a system.

Green washing – Repositioning your product so that its shortfalls are now positioned as environmental benefits:  Not enough power? Just re-position as energy saving.

Buzzword Compliant — To include the latest buzzwords in literature about a product or service in order to make it ‘resonate’ with the customer.

Petaflop — A thousand trillion (or quadrillion) floating point operations per second. Often mistaken as a comment on a failed program by an animal rights’ group.

Hadron – A particle made of quarks bound together by the strong force; they are either mesons (made of one quark and one anti-quark) or baryons (made of three quarks).

Large Hadron Collider – The ‘atom smasher’ located underground outside Geneva. Primarily built to re-create the conditions of creation, 1 trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

So, there you have it. If you made it through this list, you may now consider yourself EDUCATED! Happy Friday

* From the The Global Language Monitor website: the GLM uses a proprietary algorithm, the Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) to track the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the Blogosphere, as well as accessing proprietary databases. The PQI is a weighted Index, factoring in: long-term trends, short-term changes, momentum, and velocity.

Not particularly relevant photo.

There really is no substitute for the energy generated when people come together LIVE!  Discuss, debate, share ideas, practices, and swap stories—yup, it can be done virtually, but that’s so two dimensional. It’s no substitute for a real handshake, a paper business card passed to a new “friend,” makin’ eye contact, and feeling the table vibe as notes are being frantically scribed on keyboards, iPads, and even the ever trusty pen and paper.

A couple weeks ago, a bunch of lawyers, marketers, vendors, and consultants met LIVE in NYC for a day of all things social media hosted by Hildebrandt Institute and WEST LegalEdCenter and the result was “ELECTRIFYING!”

That’s right. I love social media and how it connects people and content 24/7, but golly gee, a little old fashioned interaction is good for the soul. This LIVE event was no exception and reminded me why I urge the lawyers I consult with to add social media to their business plan but not to the exclusion of personal contact. Okay, ‘nuf said on that. Here’s some tid-bits from the day: Social Media for Law Firms LIVE!

Every Audience has an Audience.

There’s more engagement value when you can create or post content that your audience can readily distribute to their audience. Stop trying to push your lawyers to engage directly with others over the content they create. Instead, encourage them or help them produce or select something OTHERS want to talk about. It makes them look smart while positioning them and their content, exponentially, in the minds of a much larger audience. One that you could never before reach in the bricks and mortar world—including business lunches, newspapers (print) or email and telephone.

This tactic—building content with the intent of helping others engage with others—was a recurring theme among panelists including: attorney blogger Roy Ginsburg – Dorsey & Whitney LLP; CEO, Peter Ozolin – Manzama, Inc.; and CMO, Adam L. Stock – Allen Matkins, as well as among my own panel mates Adrian Lurssen – JDSupra, John Hellerman – Hellerman Baratz Communications, and attorney/blogger Brian Wassom – Honigman.

The desired outcome, i.e., exposure, thought leadership, or feeding the sales pipeline all comes about when we facilitate conversations among a broad audience. And we thought our only challenge was getting attorneys to respond to @ replies on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, or LinkedIn. Not so. Although valuable, no question, producing content that others like, share, download, and discuss makes one’s contribution even more relevant and important to ROI. Especially in light of the fact that search algorithms are now accounting for “likes” and “shares” with even greater emphasis when indexing content in search results. Google+ has truly impacted this new model. So, get out there, build or share valuable content, get noticed, and don’t forget to notice others’ content. It’s a WEB! (LIKE THIS POST? Share and Like above or below!)

From my Lawyers’ Guide to Social Media which was posted to the conference website:*

• It isn’t what you’re saying on Twitter that best connects you and your services with others: it’s what you can get others to say about you that has the most impact.
• Getting reTweets can do more for you at the “handshake” level than any other social site.
• Focus on top 20% of followers as they are your most valuable conduit.
• Show up often. Repetition matters.

Take Control of Your Footprint.

Whether you blog or maintain a profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, you MUST pay attention. Adrian Dayton and Amy Knapp gave attendees an excerpt of their eBook LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers:Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age, emphasizing the POWER of these new tools—not to be taken lightly. Your mere presence on the Internet (i.e. social media) is not enough. You have to be present. Opening an account and ignoring the obvious tactics of optimizing your profiles and responding to connections is a recipe for getting ignored-globally across networks. Clients, prospects and referral sources are taking social media seriously and woe to the lawyer or law firm that isn’t mirroring that.

I add that it is way too easy to use social media—to ignore it is a crime! Social media provides FREE tools that enable more marketing opportunities for FREE! What’s not to like about FREE?

VIDEO 2011.

Are your law firm videos still talking about yourself and how wonderful your commitment to client service is? Or, how carefully you recruit associates, and how you “understand” your clients’ business? Guess what? One point for trying, 0 points for execution. You’re missing some fertile ground for communicating REAL value. Aden Dauchess, Director of Digital Marketing – Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC and Adam L. Stock, Director of Marketing & Business Development- Allen Matkins Leck Mallory & Natsis LLP had a few things to say about creating and posting video content that gets noticed, shared, and adds value. This session, I believe, was one of the most valuable of the whole conference. Aden’s diagram of the video process his law firm follows from start to finish was worth the price of admission.

What’s effective today? Videos that demonstrate thought leadership, news, industry events, education, and community involvement. Check out the Allen Matikins and Womble websites for a taste of how video is done right! You don’t need an expensive crew, charismatic talking head, or an elaborate setting. Just a credible topic, authentic delivery, and a modestly professional recording.

AND MORE….

Thanks to the lawyers who shared their stories—bloggers who found a way to stand out, lawyers using LinkedIn Groups effectively, and time saving tips for cross posting and distribution.

Bottom line…social media is no longer a fad. It is a VERY POWERFUL medium. But, I’ve been saying that for almost 4 years now. The Law Gravity vision celebrates it’s 4th anniversary January 1, 2012 and we’re looking ahead at 2012 with optimism; offering lawyers, law firms and marketers context, training, coaching, content, policy, and strategy for successful and rewarding social media participation.

Look for a west coast edition of Social Media For Law Firms LIVE! in the Spring of 2012. 

* If you’d like a copy of Lawyers’ Guide to Social Media, drop me a note and I’ll send it along to you in a PDF. It compares sites and services and suggests best uses for communication and engagement during the buyer/seller process.

Cheers! Stop by often and share the knowledge….

Created by: Online Schools

WHAT’S IN YOUR DIGITAL LIFE?

Me. Well, I recently moved and do not have an extra outlet at my bedside so I’ve been recharging my iPhone at night beside my desk–in another room. The difference is noticeable. Before I used to wake up in the middle of the night and look at the email.  Then before I got out of bed in the morning I’d check my email and chat. Now, I open my eyes, step out of bed, open my curtains and greet the morning sky (and usually sun) with a big stretch and thanks to the heavens for giving me another day. I put on the coffee and then….I go to the door to pick up the morning paper from the stoop. I breath the fresh air deeply. With my cafe con leche in hand, I move slowly to the desk, unplug the phone and check the email, but rarely respond unless there is an emergency. (Is there ever really a marketing emergency that can’t wait till I get to the office at 8AM?) Then I move outdoors to read the paper and laugh at page 2 of The Key West Citizen. The Citizen’s Voice is a barometer of the tribe–these days it consists of those of us strong enough to weather the summer in Key West. Late this winter it’ll document the 2 cents of the snow birds (as if we really care, right?). But besides being informative it can be amusing! You probably aren’t up to speed on the impact that cruise ships, ghost tours, street musicians, and the chronically homeless have on a small island community such as ours–it’s just outrageous! (tongue- in-cheek). If only the world had such troubles. And, I often LOL at the ever humorous page 2 Crime Report–stupid is as stupid does.

After indulging in this “real time” experience, I awaken and go to my office refreshed and connected for another day! Then I fire up the Mac, the apps and the mail and wonder….what did I ever do without technology?

How does your day begin? With a smart phone or a sun rise?  With a café con leche and a laugh? I hope so!

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…

Looking back – Looking forward.

Social media and social networking platforms open up doors to new relationships and often work well as tools for marketing – broad distribution, top of mind impact, and exposure for expertise.

However, looking back on my social media involvement during 2010, these two uses actually had the least impact on my business goals.

Interestingly, social media was most helpful to me in 2010 when I was engaging with colleagues and friends with whom I already had an off line relationship at one point or other in time.  This didn’t mean that I ONLY interacted with people I knew in the bricks and mortar world; in fact, I made several significant new connections in 2010 with people I’d only met via social media who became new clients, valuable resources, and generally great people to know. But overall, this was the exception not the rule. I received more new business from mining my known network and from using social media tools to deepen relationships with those in my network who are geographically distant.  Realizing this is helping me focus my social media activity in 2011.

Focus on content and community.

Based on my experimentation with open networking in the very large marketplace of the social web, I’ve learned that the best use of social networks, and even my blog, is to “get together” online with people I already know using smaller communities; so I intend to do more of that in 2011.

Essentially my community interaction revolves around content, i.e. status updates, reviews, ideas, suggestions, quotes, links to what’s being read, and notes about what’s going on in lives, both personal and professional.  For the most part, I care about what my established communities are talking about because I already have a sense of who they are and where they fit into my life. It gives our interactions focus. It allows me to contribute in a meaningful way. The content we share creates a sort of bond. Within this type of community we are all free to do business with one another and indeed we do. What really makes focused communities helpful to me is in knowing that being social online becomes something I want to do and not just another “marketing” chore. It’s authentic. And, when you’re doing something you like to do, the enthusiasm is noted by others and often translates to new business.

This is really important, I think, for law firms who are trying to make sense of how they can leverage social tools for the entity. Casting a wide net may have a place in the marketing mix, but finding or creating smaller communities to engage in is where they will begin to see the most meaningful activity and new business prospects.

Chris Brogan recently blogged about the importance of building your social media activity around an object of focus to stimulate content and community:

You need a campfire…you need that social setting that consists of: object of focus, group experience of that object, and then creative expression thereafter. In literal terms, the party is around a campfire. In more stretched out thinking, the party is around the creative content. It’s content, community, and marketplace, said another way.

Community intersects with business.

As more law firms (and individual lawyers) will be entering the age of social media this year they will be looking for beneficial ways to engage. I suggest you do yourself a favor, skip a couple steps and take note; human behavior doesn’t change: Humans seek connection – in both their personal and professional lives.  Whatever community you want to penetrate, reach, influence, or start, the secret to successful social media engagement is to study human behavior. Humans connect around commonalities, interests, issues, industries, questions, answers, topics, opinion, politics; you name it. Study the behavior of your clients, “friends of the firm,” referral sources, and even partners and employees in far flung offices, whoever you wish reach, because the more aware you are of the fundamental human behavior at work, the more likely your online activity or social media strategies will feel natural and be valuable on numerous levels.

A community within the very large online social marketplace is the most viable source for doing business. The best way to create business opportunities using social media is to be a member of a community where you can engage others, enable relationships, and create trust. How do you do that? I’ve said it before and will say it again…in using social media tools we’re not doing anything different, we’re just doing it differently. In life, we chose our friends based on synergies – we share a love of conversation, family, sports, literature, politics, movies, travel, wine, etc. And, we gravitate toward certain people in our workplace based on like passions for the work and other commonalities like schools, neighborhoods, or even the charities we support.

Whether you are a law firm marketer building a social media strategy or a lawyer executing on tactics, devote your premium time to interacting with people you know and converse about what it is that they, and you, care about most; if you try to force interaction or push content that is not relevant, it just won’t happen. Think about your object of focus, build on the experience of the group, and your social media activity will become meaningful, natural and beneficial no matter what the topic or focus. It’s really quite basic.  Oh, and lest I forget to mention….it’s been my experience in 2010 that engagement that leads to new business does not happen without consistent participation, i.e. work! Those who are new to social media, looking for a short cut or quick fix will be disappointed. Here’s to a great new year with social media!

And, here’s an excerpt from my recently published book, social.lawyers | Transforming Business Development, West, (2010 ed.), that tells the story of how community creates business.

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!

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!

“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 17^th Annual Marketing Partner Forum, Hildebrandt Institute and West EdCenter.

“If you are not reading blogs how do you know if you’ll like the environment? Find some blogs you like to read and come back to us.” Melanie Green

Not a criticism, just an observation, other than that clever, tactical idea; the Success on the Social Web  breakout panel was surprisingly “101;” a lot of focus on blogs and push delivery. Lacking was any discussion about using enterprise social web tools or Google Wave for client team collaboration. No one was talking about integrating mobile applications, yet. …Though this year I predict everyone will be.  The panelists didn’t report that social web interactivity was taking hold.  And, there were no examples of firms implementing cross-platform strategies—except to promote blog content on Twitter or LinkedIn. (Stay tuned for an upcoming post on how Arnold Porter is using social tools satisfy their client’s appetites for multiple access points.)

The VMO often covers the social web from a more forward-looking perspective, but there were a few bits of information, graciously shared by the in-house marketing panelists, which readers may find beneficial.

• Law firms are using Facebook fan pages and Twitter to push out news releases, announcements and seminars.
• Involvement in LinkedIn is lawyer driven. Participation varies across the board. Most firms do have a firm profile. (Whether it differs from their website “About” page, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check that out. Missed opportunity if it’s the same.)
• Hubbard One shared numbers from a recent survey that showed 35 percent of the top 20 U.S. law firms are blogging.  And……
• The panelists confirmed the popularity of blogging. They all claimed to have a blog, sometimes several, in their marketing mix.
• In one example, a panelist described their blog as an extension of their PR campaign and replaced the firm newsletter. (Hmm…they didn’t take audience questions, but I was curious to know if the bloggers interacted with their readers or if it was truly just another method of pushing out newsletter content. Again, not a criticism, just wondering when corporate law firm bloggers are going to start leveraging the power of social to full extent. Why are they hands off? Share your thoughts….)
• That panelist also claimed to have tracked “client generation” from their blog.(Great!) Her firm now has six practice specific blogs and adds six new posts everyday. They now claim 1000 subscribers in total. (That’s cool. Statistics are always useful.)
• Another said that promoting seminars on the social web via twitter or blogging was delivering an entirely new audience. (Very nice.)
• Using hash tags on subject and keywords in Twitter posts significantly increased their exposure and brought in over “400 subscribers.”
• All agreed that when it came to interaction on the social web, the skill sets, or interest, was not yet in place.  (Perhaps they’re all still too risk averse?)
• The panelists like the social web’s inexpensive cost of entry. Most are do-it-yourselfers, committing some of their time or their staff-time to learn the tools.
• Significant challenge lies in training lawyers to integrate the social web into their daily activities. (Sounds familiar. We’re all time challenged. That’s why marketing success comes from “do what pleases you.”)

Overall, it seemed that, at least, “we” all now agree that the social web is not a fad and it’s here to stay. (That’s a relief!)

The Bottom Line

Bottom line for marketers: the social web offers new tools at a low-cost of entry and offers measures of progress via statistics to share with management. Further, social web activity places more of the burden on the individual lawyer-participant, freeing up time for marketers to work on strategy and look to the future for new opportunities.

DIY vs. Hired Help

Of interest to note, there was a healthy discussion among a few attendees after the session on the issue of DIY vs. outsourcing social web strategy. (Thanks Adrian Dayton for your insight!)  There are definitely legitimate arguments on both sides.

Having an outside agency or independent marketing consultant focused on social web tools, strategies and synergies, who lives and works in the trenches, who knows the legal industry, and knows how lawyers go to market, can take some of the details off the in-house marketer’s desk. In that regard, it is often worth having them around; especially if in-house marketers don’t have excess manpower.

I know how challenging it is to keep up with the evolving social tools. Sometimes it takes a while to connect the dots.  And, sometimes new tools can really make a difference.  Finding them among all the noise, taking time to test them and apply them to strategy can be a full-time occupation. I know. I read hundreds of pieces of content and look at new tools each week.  Of those hundred or so ideas, I am lucky to find a few usable pieces of information.  That’s a huge chunk of time for small return. But it’s my job. My clients benefit from my legal industry marketing expertise and my focus on what’s new and what’s on the horizon. Putting it all together is a task that often benefits from outside perspective.

Either way, in-house marketers must be familiar with the social web and conversant on its value to the overall marketing strategy of the firm or business development efforts of individual attorneys. The panel participants were certainly in that group. Thanks for your insights!