Once again, it's time for a round-up post, updating information that I covered in earlier posts.

1. Lawyer-Bloggers All A-Twitter About the Value of Twitter 

Back in February 2009, I considered whether lawyers should be using Twitter, ultimately concluding that at the very least, they ought to give it a try.  Last month, however, lawyer marketing expert Larry Bodine stirred up a controversy with this piece contending that Twitter isn't a very effective tool for lawyer marketing.  Bodine highlighted Twitter's high churn rate, with 60 percent of users dropping off after just a few months' use and pointed out that other tools such as email promotions and blogs were more effective ways to drive traffic to a website.  Most significantly, Bodine argued that Twitter was a time sink -- a distraction from getting real marketing work done that didn't lead to serious business.

Bodine's post earned him lots of criticism in the blogosphere, which David Barrett exhaustively summarizes at Linked In Lawyer.  Most of the commentary emphasizes that Twitter isn't an end in itself, but a supplement to other marketing tools, such as creating an introduction to warm up a cold call or other personal connection, or helping lawyers reinforce their personal brand.

2.  Are Listservs Obsolete?

Back in December, I made the point that the new generation of social media still hadn't rendered listservs obsolete.  Fast forward six months... and is that still the case?  Via the Legal History Blog, I came across this interesting article, Where Do Legal Listservs Fit in A Social Media World? by law librarian Greg Lambert.  Lambert notes that while listservs still remain a great way to build relationships, network, and discover new resources, at the same time, they have drawbacks such as "lazy research" (obvious questions sent out to 2500 members) and a tendency to generate flame wars if left unmoderated.  Lambert favors Ning (which I'll post about on Monday) as his tool of choice for combining the ease of use and spontaneity of listservs without the drawbacks.  I checked out the Law Librarian Ning that Lambert referenced -- and while it's a nice looking site, it lacks the fluid interaction of a listserv.  At the same time, the participants have all filled out bios, which can facilitate connections and networking.

As I did a few weeks back, here are a couple of updates to topics that I covered previously:

For Twitter, which I posted about here, there are two great blog posts on usage.  At Law21, Jordan Furlong focuses on Twitter as a business tool, while Steve Matthews of Stem Legal shares the most comprehensive list of dos and don'ts that I've seen to date.

Meanwhile, relevant to my earlier post on eBooks is a classic by marketing guru Trey Ryder explaining education-based marketing.  Since eBooks are a great example of education-based marketing, Ryder's post may give you added motivation to try an eBook campaign.

Over the past nine months or so, Twitter, a micro-blogging service that enables users to communicate with each other in 140-character spurts has steadily gained traction with lawyers.  Some lawyers regard Twitter as a bit of time-sink in an age of information overload, while others revere its immediacy and use it largely for business purposes.  I'll admit that initially, I too was was skeptical of certain aspects of Twitter, though it's since grown on me as I've become a regular user.

But that's just me.  As for you, to Twitter or not to Twitter? That is the question that I'll address in this post.  But before I evaluate the pros and cons, I'll begin with a quick description of what Twitter is, how it works, and how lawyers are using it for marketing and other purposes.

1.  What is Twitter?

According to Wikipedia, Twitter is "a social neworking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length."  Users can find out what others are doing by signing up to "follow" their tweets and can comment by sending a reply.  You can keep messages private (by direct messaging) or posting them to all your followers (the default).  If you're interested in seeing what the Twitter interface looks like, take a look at this Legal Tech presentation by Chris Winfield.

Users employ Twitter in a variety of ways.  Lawyer Bob Ambrogi summarized sixteen "reasons to embrace the Tweet" -- which include sharing information (such as links to recent blog posts or news items of interest) -- like monitoring buzz by finding out what topics are of interest to lawyers, making introductions to lawyers whom you're following and would like to meet and even finding clients by responding to inquiries for legal assistance that sometimes crop up in the conversation.

More recently, Twitter has helped build communities of lawyers.  Two sites, LexTweet and Justia Legal Birds list lawyers with Twitter accounts along with information on where they're located and how many followers they have.  If you're ever heading out to a law-related conference, chances are it will feature a "tweet-up," i.e., a casual, in-person get together of fellow 'tweeps.

2.  Getting Started

The only way to get started on Twitter is to dive right in.  After registering for the site, you can check your email to determine whether you already know folks on Twitter -- because you can sign up to follow them.  After that, you may choose to follow some of their followers or identify other lawyers from LexTweet or Justia Legal Birds whom you might want to follow as well.  If you're interested in expanding your inner circle, use Twellow or Summize  to search for specific topics that interest you and find people within those groups to follow.  Feel free to introduce yourself, but thereafter, you can jump into a conversation.

You can use Twitter through the web, but most power users rely on applications like Tweetdeck to keep track of tweets and replies.

3.  So, is Twitter for me?

Continue reading "To Twitter or Not To Twitter? That Is the Question for Lawyers" »