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Why Should Lawyers
Use Social Media?
Marketing and Branding Your Legal
Practice Using Social Media David Harlow JD MPH
THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
blog • healthblawg.com
twitter • @healthblawg
April 27, 2011
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THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
What is Social Media?
• Online content created by people using highly
accessible and scalable publishing technologies.
• A shift in how people discover, read and share
news, information and content.
• A fusion of sociology and technology,
transforming monologues (one to many) into
dialogues (many to many), and the
democratization of information, transforming
people from content readers into publishers.
Wikipedia, 06.29.09
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THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
Social media popularity: Google Trends
global warming sex facebook
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Why Social Media?
• All the cool kids are doing it . . .
• Willie Sutton logic: it’s where the money is
Remember: It’s one arrow in the quiver
• Social media: a tactic, not a strategy
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Uses of Social Media
• Preliminary questions:
▫ What are your strategic goals?
▫ How can social media help you achieve them?
▫ What resources will you devote to this effort?
▫ How will you structure this effort?
• Clear planning early on can help avoid
retrenchment and/or errors later
• NOT a forum for legal advice
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No shortcuts.
No matter what your reasons for engaging via Web 2.0,
you must develop trust in order to gain influence
Authentic Genuine
Trust Influence
interaction Engagement
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So how do we do this?
Objective Description
Listen Monitor your customers’ conversations
Engage Participate in two-way conversations
Energize Make it possible for customers to help you and each other
Support Support customers and enable them to support each other
Embrace Help customers work with each other to come up with ideas
to improve services
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, April 2008
Monitor, rinse & repeat
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Four key social media tools
• Blog, or Blawg
• Twitter
• Linked In
• Facebook
• Remember, the medium is not the message
• Social media strategy must fit in with remainder
of marketing strategy
▫ Depends on your target audience
E.g., new media startups vs. insurance companies
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Blawg
What is it? Why do it?
• Legal web log = law blog = • PR/marketing for your
blawg practice and yourself
• Web 2.0 • Improved web presence
(Google loves blogs)
• Online journal, posted in
• Networking/Community
reverse chronological order
▫ Other bloggers
▫ Interactive
▫ Readers
Links ▫ Referral sources
Comments ▫ Clients
▫ RSS: (“push”) • Marketing
▫ Higher Google profile
▫ more press calls
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How to blog
• Pick a niche and start writing
▫ Don’t stop . . . commitment matters
▫ You will find your voice . . . or several voices
▫ Don’t do this unless you really like writing and have
something to say
But don’t be put off by the fallacy: “If I’m thinking it, then
everyone must be thinking it.”
▫ Begin publicizing after writing several posts
• Read voraciously
• Join the conversation
▫ Comment on, and link to, other blogs
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Learning the ropes
• Read other blogs
▫ Find them via directories, e.g.:
Blawg.com
Justia.com
ABA Journal
myHq:blawgs
▫ Read Blawg Review and posts from other blog
carnivals (definition) (examples) and follow the links
• Subscribe to blogs using a feed reader, e.g.:
Google Reader
Seesmic (integrated social media client)
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More technical stuff
• Syndication
▫ Tune into the magic of RSS – “really simple
syndication” for your feed
Register with Feedburner (RSS & email for the dinosaurs)
• Link love
▫ You must give in order to receive
• Track readership
▫ Track reactions and links with Google Alerts
Freshness and authority count
▫ Track incoming traffic with StatCounter or SiteMeter
SEO: Adjust writing based on this information
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Blog carnivals (“traveling posts”)
• Participate in blog carnivals (definition)
▫ Submit posts
▫ Host carnivals
• General and specialized; legal and non-legal
▫ See BlogCarnival.com
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Blog carnivals (cont’d)
• Blog carnivals I contribute to and/or host
▫ Blawg Review
▫ Health Wonk Review
▫ Grand Rounds
• Others:
▫ Carnival of the Capitalists
▫ Cavalcade of Risk
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Google juice in action
OIG
Health
Blawg
HFMA
Ober
Kutak
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Google juice in action (cont’d)
Health
Blawg
Politico
CNN
ABC
CBS
The New
Republic
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From blogging to microblogging
• Twitter
▫ Microblogging platform --
140 character limit per post
▫ Millions of registered users,
including big business and
lawyers from solos to
Am Law 200
▫ “Broadcast” vs. interactive
Can be used for one-way
communication
More effective as medium
for conversation
▫ Networking and
communication tool
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THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
Using Twitter effectively
• Need to establish tactics that further your
marketing strategy, e.g.:
▫ Broadcast blog posts
▫ “Tweet” information/links not worth a whole blog
post or that you have no time to blog about
▫ Follow other “tweeps” of interest
▫ Engage in dialogue – public or private – with
other tweeps
Follow hashtags of interest; post with hashtags
Participate in tweetchats
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Some Twitter tools
• To find other tweeps to follow:
▫ Twellow (index organized a la the original Yahoo!)
▫ Twubble, MrTweet (once you’re following some)
▫ JD Scoop list of 500+ twittering lawyers
▫ Legal Birds aggregator (Justia)
▫ LexTweet aggregator (LexBlog)
• To follow tweeps without being overwhelmed by
the volume; lets you assign tweeps to groups;
integrates with other social media
▫ TweetDeck or Seesmic
• Twitter on the go
▫ UberSocial, OpenBeak or Echofon
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THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
Some Twitter tools (cont’d)
• Integrate tweets into other social media
▫ E.g., tweet via Ping.fm TweetDeck or Seesmic
configured to post to Twitter, Facebook, Linked In.
▫ Feed blog through Twitterfeed or FeedBurner so
post titles end up in “tweetstream” with links back
to the blog.
• Posterous, other platforms allows for easy
integration into multiple streams
• Google and Bing Twitter search increase blog posts’
and tweets’ exposure
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Facebook and Linked In
• Online networking communities
• Leverage your network to avoid cold calls
• Allow you to feed content to their sites, including
▫ RSS feeds of blogs
▫ Tweets
• Allow you to remain top-of-mind
▫ Need to use the right online tools to reach each of
your target markets
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Facebook
• Personal pages and business pages
▫ Personal pages – access may be limited to
“friends”
▫ Business pages open to all
▫ Examples:
David Harlow and The Harlow Group LLC
• Turned “friend” into a verb
• Useful platform for communication with defined
groups and friends
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Linked In
• Linked In – “Facebook for grownups”
▫ Allows for exploration of contacts’ networks
▫ Includes Q&A forums to demonstrate expertise
▫ Adding functionality mimicking Facebook
Groups
Feeds
▫ Slideshare
▫ JDSupra – Legal Updates
• Convergence of Linked In, Facebook, Twitter
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Learning to fly
David Armano, SVP Edelman Digital http://darmano.typepad.com/ 3.22.10
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Resources
This presentation (downloadable with live links):
http://j.mp/SoMeLawyers
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Legal Guide for
Bloggers
• Twitter for Lawyers on HealthBlawg
• Darren Rowse’s TwiTips
• My Web 2.0 sites:
▫ HealthBlawg
▫ HealthBlawg on Twitter
▫ Linked In
▫ Facebook
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Questions / Discussion
David Harlow JD MPH
THE HARLOW GROUP LLC
harlowgroup.net
healthblawg.typepad.com
twitter.com/healthblawg
david@harlowgroup.net
617.965.9732
for contact info in an sms, txt dharlow to 50500
