But social media is still uncharted territory for many lawyers, particularly in big firms, said Rachel Zahorsky, a legal affairs reporter for the ABA Journal. “Varied and outdated ethics rules in regards to online communication, as well as numerous examples of cases put in real jeopardy because of prosecutors and judges posting on Facebook or jurors twittering mid-trial, only fuel a general tendency in the legal profession to distrust new technologies.”

Blog: Go Niche

One of the best ways to put a face and voice on your legal expertise is to blog. Building a credible discussion resource on topics in your practice area can serve as the foundation for your professional presence on the social web.

“Jumping feet-first into the blogosphere expanded the national reputation of lawyer Dan Schwartz as the go-to guy on Connecticut employment issues,” said Zahorsky. “Former Monroe Country, NY assistant public defender and litigation associate Nicole Black reignited her legal career after a nearly three-year hiatus through a series of legal blogs.”

Of course, it’s one thing for a sole practitioner or a small firm to focus their blogging message. It’s quite another for employees of a corporation.

While many of the larger firms in the U.S. have started blogging, “Most of them aren’t doing it right, because they aren’t comfortable with individual attorneys building their own brand,” said Adrian Dayton, an attorney, author, and social media strategist for major global law firms. “They are so worried that attorneys blogging under their own name will take away from the power of the firm’s brand. They want to control the message.”

Dayton believes they are missing the point. “The power of social media is to create the message. Just look at attorney Roy Ginsburg and his blog Quirky Employment Questions. After three years of blogging weekly, last month his blog hit over 10,000 unique visitors. Thanks to his blog he has landed a six-figure client, and has won the Author of the Year award from Lexology. His blog is working for him, and the firm is benefiting. It may not be the firm’s message, but it is a message that is resonating.”

Become a Source for News in Your Practice Area

In addition to creating your own content, aggregating and curating news about your industry is important. Twitter is ideal for this, and using it effectively to share pertinent information can help attorneys brand themselves as subject matter experts, said Dayton.

“A great example of this is Bob White, a partner-level attorney in Florida [who] uses Twitter to share the best tech articles he finds each week. After a few months of finding and sharing great tech articles, Bob was able to bring in a couple of tech companies as new clients,” Dayton notes. “They came to recognize, by the quality of his research and the articles he shared, that he really gets it.”

“I have used [Twitter] extensively to get information out there and to show my particular expertise in a way marketing dollars could never do,” said Dr. Lisa Haile, Partner and co-chair of DLA Piper’s global life sciences sector.

And the info stream flows both ways. As you tap into fellow experts in your field, the content they share will inform your own discussions.

“In addition to informing people about the firm and my expertise, I use Twitter to gather current news in my industry and generally,” said Haile.

Get Social Referrals From Your Network, Not Your Followers

You’re not amassing followers and readers with the hope that some of them will call you for legal advice one day. You should be making connections with other thought leaders in your practice area and relevant industries so that when they know of someone in need, they can refer to you as a credible source.

Landing clients may be a few steps removed from the initial investment you make in social media, but the effort pays off, according to Haile.

“Last year, [the San Diego News Network] contacted me to post a weekly biotech blog on their new site after one of the editors began following me on Twitter. I have also had several referrals by followers to venture capital firms doing [intellectual property] and technical due diligence for new investment opportunities, as well as startup companies in need of intellectual property counseling,” said Haile. “Recently I was contacted by an intern with the General Counsel of a large public life sciences company, after being referred by a mutual Twitter ‘friend.’”

How can you tap into these social resources in the first place? It’s all about the conversation.

“One way to connect with other attorneys is to locate and follow blogs in your practice area or your geographical region,” said Nicole Black, attorney and author of the book Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier. “Leave comments after posts that interest you. Engage in conversation in the comments with other readers and the owner of the blog and link to your blog or website when commenting. Another way to connect with other lawyers is to participate in online forums on lawyer-specific networks or join forums on more general online networks like LinkedIn and Facebook.”

Delineate Between Sharing Insights and Real Legal Advice

When engaging on the web, it is absolutely critical that lawyers demarcate the difference between sharable insights and actual legal advice — the two should never be confused by followers or friends.

Put a disclaimer at the top of your blog, and leave room in your Twitter bio to express this point, to the effect of: “Thoughts shared here do not constitute legal advice.”

Get Personal

Social media is not a broadcast channel for talking shop 24/7. Many professionals who have had success will emphasize that finding a good balance between sharing expertise and personality is the way to go.

“Twitter is the least formal of the major social networks, so don’t be afraid to share your personal interests, including sports, food and wine, or other hobbies,” said Black, whose own blog repertoire incorporates one devoted to legal humor.

After all, prospective clients aren’t shopping for a new iPhone or sofa. They’re looking for a real live person who they can connect with, and who can guide them through important business, financial, and personal matters. No matter her credentials or expertise, if you can’t communicate with your attorney, it may be best to look elsewhere. That personal touch with social media could make or break an important connection.

“Sullivan & Cromwell partner Frank Aquila, who was named a Legal Rebel by the ABA Journal in part because of his use of Twitter, captivates his nearly 1,400 followers daily with insightful and sometimes humorous tweets as @FAquila,” said Zahorsky.

Zahorsky notes that Aquila is one of many well-known attorneys whose recent success with social media has encouraged others to test the waters.

via Mashable.com

A metrics taxonomy that is easier to explain, understand and apply is needed. Ideally one that is applicable for traditional and social media. Here is the model applied at Fleishman Hillard.

New Scope, New Integration

While public relations has traditionally been oriented toward ‘earned media’ – gaining placements of client stories in print and broadcast media based on the strength of the story and quality of the pitch – today’s content-driven world demands much more. The scope now must include all the consumer touch points available in our increasingly digital world. We capture this new scope and integration in a model we refer to as PESO – Paid/Earned/Shared/Owned. Our PESO model predates the similar Forrester model (Paid/Earned/Owned) and is different in an important way. We created two categories, Earned and Shared, where the other model has one – Earned. We believe this better comprehends strategies like blogger outreach and other proactive efforts undertaken by practitioners as ’Earned’,  distinct from efforts that may be passive or reactive. Here is how we define the elements of our model:

Paid – refers to all forms of paid content that exists on third-party channels or venues. This includes banner or display advertisements, pay-per-click programs, sponsorships and advertorials.

Earned – includes traditional media outreach as well as blogger relations/outreach where we attempt to influence and encourage third-party content providers to write about our clients and their products and services.

Shared – refers to social networks and technologies controlled by consumers along with online and offline WOM

Owned – includes all websites and web properties controlled by a company or brand including company or product websites, micro-sites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter channels.

The enhanced scope and integration represented by the PESO model drives a corresponding broadening and need for integration in digital research and measurement. One can easily find themselves attempting to measure a highly integrated program that includes the awareness created with paid media, the relevance and information delivered via owned, the credibility delivered by earned media and measuring the conversations and interactions occurring in shared media. Just from a metrics perspective, the PESO model requires a significant broadening in thinking as shown in the matrix below.

Digitization has changed what we need to research and measure, where we find data and how we perform analysis. The future will bring more data, better tools and improved methodologies. Sifting insights from the mounds of data will remain a major challenge. The intersection of marketing, privacy concerns and research must be navigated. The constant in all the change brought by digitization is who – human analysts and research. Discovery and insight, like it was 15 years ago, remains fundamentally a human process. It remains the analog constant in a world of digitization.

via socialmediaexplorer.com

The question has been raised lately about the value of publicists in today’s market. The five reasons why you need a publicist:

Reason #1: Social Media
Social media tools allow publicists to interlock all the activities into a cohesive campaign. Through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Slideshare, features on websites, and blog reviews they can get more exposure and help build the clients’ reputations in their target communities.

Reason #2: Timing
Social media has also changed the timing of marketing campaigns. Instead of creating a blitz campaign of shock and awe (advertising driven), today we need a sustained campaign of community building and long-term exposure. Publicists are best suited for this kind of work. Blogging and social media are only tools. A good publicist should map out a campaign strategy so you know what to blog and tweet about. The strategy should be blended carefully into the short- and long-term goals of the client. Here’s a cool tool you can use to check out timing: Google Trends can give you an idea about when a topic becomes a tipping point.

Reason #3: Cost-Effective
As amazing as your product or company may be, it needs help to find its market. It is more cost-effective to tailor the relationship-building campaign to its niche markets through blogger outreach, Web publicity and social media interactions than to spend the money on advertising in mass media.

Reason #4: Access
Although access to journalists and producers is no longer the domain of the well-connected publicist, those relationships are more important than ever. Journalists are getting pitched by amateurs through email, not to mention on their blogs, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn and even on Facebook. Many of them tell me that they are feeling under siege from these relentless nonprofessionals. Although getting access has become easier, gaining attention is tougher than ever. A publicist builds his or her relationship with editors, journalists, producers, freelancers, and bloggers over months and years. They then trust the publicist as a filter for quality and control.

Reason #5: Reputation Monitoring
Word of mouth and positive reputation is not only important today, it is the essential growth element for all persons and businesses. Creating good will and a good customer experience is important for the tech savvy consumer who is a click away from switching to another expert. Monitoring reputation has come a long way. With search tools like Google, Topsy, and Social Mention, publicists can stay current with the conversations, allowing them to react more quickly to protect their clients’ reputations as well as to take advantage of any hot-button issues. Another great tool to monitor conversations is Bing‘s real-time Twitter search.

In this new decade, publicity is changing in an exciting and fundamental way. It is constantly improving because the tools to monitor, research, build relationships, and develop strategy have never been better. This trend will only continue to grow and expand. In the words of Seth Godin, “Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations.”

via HuffingtonPost.com

1. They never/rarely send tweets.
2. They send over 50 tweets a day, with extremely useless information.

Very few agents fall into either category, yet we know that there are well over 88 people who call themselves agents (and some of the accounts on the list are agency accounts – most likely run by interns).

If you think that it has taken an unreasonable amount of time for agents to embrace Twitter, their adoption of Facebook is even slower.  While I do not have a listing of all sports agency Fan Pages (you can find Dynasty’s Fan Page here), I believe that there are less agent/agency Fan Pages than there are agent/agency Twitter accounts.

Agents and agencies are missing out on a great opportunity to spread brand awareness, create relationships with fans of the agencies and their clients, and promote their knowledge on open platforms – all for free.  Yes, all of our favorite price.  There is no cost to have an active voice on Twitter or Facebook.  But there may be a cost to not having an active voice.

If Facebook Fans are worth $3.60 a piece, as discussed in this Mashable article, then sports agencies without a presence on Facebook are missing out on potential income.  Does the post have any credence in our industry, though?  Perhaps, as people who Fan a sports agency’s page are most likely people who will find the content relevant.  It’s not like Fan-ing a generic brand like Taco Bell or KFC.

The CEO of the company that ran the study is quoted as saying, “It’s no longer an option, it’s a necessity,” when discussing the importance of brands to have a strong Facebook presence.

Personally, I don’t like trying to assign a value to each Fan.  Whether it be $3.60, $1.00, or $7.00, there is value added to having your brand prominently displayed on Facebook.  And whether you believe it or not, your clients will end up benefiting from the increased exposure, as well.

via SportsAgentBlog.com

Why Track Retention?

1. It will not only improve the K-factor, but it will also make virality itself last longer.
2. It’s a great way to measure the overall sustainability of a product. Even if you don’t have high virality, a sustainable business will last.

Retention and Virality

The K-factor is the product of three numbers, so to increase that product, we want to make all three numbers as large as possible. The first and last numbers, X and Z, are conversion rates. By definition, they are always going to have a finite limit –- 100% engagement. While having perfect conversion rates would be amazing, it wouldn’t really mean much if Y, the number of people invited, was only one.

So, if conversion rates are maxed out, then the only thing left to tweak is the number of invites sent out. There are two main contributors to this:

Invite Rate: The frequency with which users send out invites

Engagement Period: The duration that users actively use a product

On a platform like Facebook, the daily number of invites that can be sent is capped, limiting the invite rate. The engagement period, however, is never going to have a limit. Users will play a game as long as they get value from it. This is where tracking retention becomes vital to the success of a social game. The ability to measure user retention rates will give you a better understanding of where you need to improve in order to increase that Y variable. If rates are on the low end, not only can you work to improve them overall, but you will also learn when in the engagement timeline you should try new distribution strategies to get users to invite more people.

There are many other ways to take advantage of this information. For example, if you know the customer life cycle of your product (i.e. the time between when customers start using it to when they stop), you can use that information to determine how long you have before you should launch a new product.

Retention for the Long Term

Just because something becomes viral does not mean it will stay viral for long. Even if a situation arose where all the stars of virality are aligned — all of the users are inviting all of their friends, and all of their friends accept -– if there is no real retention, this phase will not last. The number of users will reach a saturation point, and then start to decline. If retention isn’t being tracked, then we have no idea why this is happening.

Think Value, Not Hype

Companies are becoming more and more metric driven, but not all data is created equal. Distribution and growth are obviously very important, but when it comes to long-term, planning we need to start moving toward metrics that better reflect the end goal. A sustainable model should be the goal of any business, and retention is a core metric that can help drive that.

via Mashable.com

“While the popularity of mobile social networking is widely believed, this is the first time we have been able to truly quantify just how much the category is driving adoption of the Mobile Internet with actual usage metrics,” said Evan Neufeld, vice president of marketing, Ground Truth. “The disparity of time spent between social networking and the next category, portals, which account for 59.83 and13.65 percent of time spent respectively, is a vivid illustration of the impact social networking has on Mobile Internet traffic in a given week.”

Percent of Time Spent on Mobile Internet Usage by Category
U.S. Mobile Subscribers
Week ending April 4, 2010

Source: Ground Truth, Inc. Census of mobile subscribers for the week ending April 4, 2010 (n=3.05 million U.S. mobile subscribers).

via GroundTruth.com