To friend or Not to Friend – Social Media for Lawyers Part 4: Twitter for Lawyers

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks on the Web. Recent statistics show that there are more that six million Twitter users and in the average day, there are more than 225 million tweets. In fact, Twitter turned down a $ 500 million buyout offer from Facebook even though their current business model is not income generating and VCs already have $55 million invested.

What is Twitter anyway?

Twitter is a social service for people to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of 140-character answers to one simple question: What are you doing? The idea is to have a conversation with the people you follow and those who follow you. The term “follow” is used similar to “friend” on Facebook and “contacts” on Linkedin.

Twitter is considered a micro-blog and it uses its own brand of language. A Twitter user is also known as a twitter-er, twitterer or tweeter. And when you want to reference a twitterer in a tweet, you prefaced their “handle” with an @ symbol. So, my “handle” on Twitter is ginarubel but if someone tweets to me on Twitter, it will say @ginarubel.

A tweet is either a noun -- a message sent on Twitter -- or a verb -- the act of posting a message on Twitter. The people who tweet in general are considered tweople. And when you post something already tweeted by another twitterer, it is called a retweet or, for short, “RT”.  When you contact someone directly through Twitter it is called a direct message or DM. And when you want to host, participate in, group, filter and track a conversation you use a hashtag. (Hm, I wonder why it is not called a twashtag.) The twitterer creates a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol (#). Example: #hashtag. You can then track the conversation real-time at http://www.hashtags.org/.

 And the six-plus million Twitter users as a whole are known as the twitosphere or twittersphere. For a more extensive list of Twitter language, go to the Twitter Dictionary, read Mashable’s 66 Twitter Terms You Don’t Need to Know and follow @twittonary. For every day Twitter tips, follow @Twitter_Tips.

 To tweet or not to tweet?

As a public relations practitioner and lawyer, I do not believe all attorneys should spend time posting on Twitter. It is certainly a useful tool and an excellent way to expand your network, build your reputation, comment on legal issues and trends, and establish a relationship with members of the media and other thought leaders. It is also an excellent tool for you to research public opinion on many different topics.

On the other hand, everything you post is up for public scrutiny, you must be careful not to provide legal advice, and you must follow the Rules of Professional Conduct. Tweets used for marketing cannot directly solicit business, cannot be false or misleading, cannot omit necessary facts (tough to do in 140 characters), cannot compare one lawyer to another, cannot contain subjective claims and cannot create unjustified expectations.

And as I’ve suggested in previous posts, all law firms should be adopting social media policies for these very reasons and to protect their firm brands.

Do lawyers actually use Twitter?

Although Twitter is still a very new phenomenon, it is growing rapidly. Lawyers actually do use Twitter. In fact, there is a comprehensive collection of lawyers and legal marketers on Twitter at LexTweet  which, as of this week has nearly 3,000 users in its "community." ﾠ

I spoke with Julie A. Schaefer, founder and president of You Manage Law, who said, “It is all in the results. Our colleagues are seeing them in the form of direct referrals and new business opportunities.”

What do the experts say about Twitter for lawyers?

In order to get a broad spectrum of opinions, I posted the following tweet on Twitter and DM’d a few of my tweople: “I'm writing an article on Twitter for Lawyers. What do you think? Should attorneys tweet? Why? Why not? Consider your A permission to quote.” (A stands for answer in my 140-character post.)

Here’s what I received in response:

Paul Gillin, a long-time technology journalist, aka @pgillin said, “Great way to promote expertise by commenting on timely legal topics. Any smart lawyer should know the bounds of what to say.”

Russell Thomas of Earned Relevance, aka @3rddeadline said, “They should Tweet to crowd source, listen, and exist at the edge of the business news cycle.”

Lance Godard of Are Your Writing This Down, aka @lancegodard said, “Lawyers should be on Twitter and should use it to communicate with clients.”  Lance sited two blog posts:  Aren’t You on Twitter Yet? and Shouldn't lawyers be tweevangelizing to clients?

In a comment to Lance’s post, Doug Cornelius, the Chief Compliance Officer at a Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, and Compliance Building blogger opined that “there many be some over-enthusiasm for Twitter as a client development tool for lawyers.” He said, “I think there is a big variation depending on your practice. Chris Brogan gets lots of clients through Twitter because that is the nature of his business. He is a social media consultant. Kevin O'Keefe gets lots of business through Twitter because he is in the social media business. I am a big fan of Twitter. But I am less sold on evangelizing it to clients.”

Laure Fitton, owner of Pistachio Consulting and a leading Twitter expert, aka @Pistachio, said, “Twitter is just a new channel to communicate that has significant additional value over old channels. Twitter is socially networked, it is mobile and it keeps you in contact with a lot of people and a lot of ideas in a very fast, fluid way.” She said, “Twitter is a tremendous way to circulate ideas, to listen and learn, to demonstrate thought leadership and to build a powerful network. It also has astonishing SEO value. Used well, it is a powerful tool for building reputation, leadership, trust and influence.” I encourage you to take a look at Pistachio’s Twitter for Lawyers reading list.

Others in my social network that I communicated with about Twitter for lawyers shared additional thoughts.

Cherry Manuel, a marketing consultant shared what she called a “compelling audio clip regarding Social Media, Twitter and Law Firms.” The clip is from Lawyer2Lawyer sponsored by Law.com, hosted by Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams in a conversation with legal marketing professionals, Heather Milligan and Brian Carter on social networking. If you do nothing else, listen to this audio clip. It is an excellent resource on social media for lawyers.

Francis Pileggi of FoxRothschild said, “I am still learning the benefits as a lawyer of LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter as an adjunct to my blog, but so far they play a supplemental role to my writing at Delaware Litigation.”

Matthew Homann, founder of LexThink and author of the [non]billable hour blog said, “Twitter can be a tremendous resource for not only connecting with potential clients, but connecting with their influencers. Twitter, with effective use of search, is also better adapted to a lawyer's busy schedule.” Check out Matt’s blog: Ten Tweets About Twitter.

How can lawyers use Twitter?

The great thing about the Internet and social media is that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If you type a question into a search engine, chances are, someone has already answered it. Chris Winfiled, the President and Co-Founder of 10e20, presented “What is Twitter and How Can I Use It?” at LegalTech along with Kevin O’Keefe and Matthew Homann. I encourage you to check it out.

As to how lawyers can use Twitter, my advice is that you need to determine if your target audiences, including clients, prospective clients, referral sources and the media, are using Twitter. If you find that they are, then this may be a very useful tool to incorporate into your business development practices. As with any communications, engage wisely. Allocate 10 to 15 minutes per day. Follow others. Listen. Learn. Then engage. To review a more detailed list of considerations lawyers should take when participating in social media, read Part 1 of this series.

In Part 5 of To friend or Not to Friend – Social Media for Lawyers, I will talk about the ins and outs of YouTube. Stay tuned to The Legal Intelligencer’s Lawyers and the Media blog.

Gina F. Rubel Esq. is president and CEO of Furia Rubel Communications Inc.

 

Comments

[Sean Carter]

having a strong presence online is important for legal marketing and any sort of marketing really, but you need to know how to do it right and do it effective, having a great company behind you can really help you grow!

[Michelle Bryan]

The key for you as a lawyer is learning how to use Twitter in a way that allows you to develop and expand a strong reputation as a reliable and trusted authority in your niche area of the law or locale.

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[Gary Neal]

Thank you so much for that information. I work for an SEO company and we've been trying to build a social platform to provide law firm internet marketing, and we are finding that it is really hard. Do you have any suggestions for Facebook? Also, have you heard about the new channels that you can create on Stumbleupon? What would be the feasibility of creating a platform on that site?

[SEO Company]

Anyone invested in themselves as a brand or their business needs to be using Twitter to promote that. It offers a great opportunity to interact with others on topics of law and for you to show your knowledge and expertise on that subject matter. Plus it allows you the opportunity to show you're not just a lawyer, but a human being, which can be a big deal for a lawyer.

[Nader Yasin]

Twitter's helping break down traditional barriers to communication, within the legal community and outside it too. @NaderYasin

[financial spread betting]

Yes you can get into a lot of trouble using Twitter.

[Sue Holm]

This is great and useful information. Thank you so much. I'm sharing it with my legal network. I'm just coming up to speed on Twitter and other social media, as I transition from litigator to financial counselor.

[gyi tsakalakis]

One of the first things lawyers need to understand about twitter is "twitmanagement." http://tinyurl.com/bebhhm

Spending efficient time on twitter can grow your professional network, position you as an expert, and help you gain clients.

Too many lawyers are still "twitspamming" legal news, etc. (just like they do on their blogs).

It comes down to how you use it. http://tinyurl.com/dz9vk7

[Doug Cornelius]

Gina -

Just to clarify that I am skeptical of Twitter as a client development tool for lawyers. (unless you represent technology cos.) But I am a big fan of using it to connect with peers and loose ties.

I particularly disliked Lance's idea of using precious time when meeting with a client to talk about using Twitter.