AHLA Annual Meeting 2011 Social Media Legal Marketing Resources by David Harlow

Why Should Lawyers Use Social Media?
Marketing and Branding Your Legal Practice Using Social Media
American Health Lawyers Association Annual Meeting
Boston MA
June 2011
David Harlow JD MPH
The Harlow Group LLC
blog • healthblawg.com
twitter • @healthblawg
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“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
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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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Social media popularity: Google Trends
global warming
sex
facebook

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.
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No matter what your reasons for engaging via Web 2.0, you must develop trust in order to gain influence

So how do we do this?
Monitor, rinse & repeat
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Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, April 2008

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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 = blawg
Web 2.0
Online journal, posted in reverse chronological order
Interactive
Links
Comments
RSS: (“push”)
PR/marketing for your practice and yourself
Improved web presence (Google loves blogs)
Networking/Community
Other bloggers
Readers
Referral sources
Clients
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 Reviewand 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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Technical stuff
Blogging infrastructure
Choose a platform
DIY
Typepad
Blogger
Wordpress
Posterous
Others
Hosted, designed, optimized
Justia
LexBlog
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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 StatCounterorSiteMeter
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
SeeBlogCarnival.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
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OIG
Health Blawg
HFMA
Ober
Kutak

Google juice in action (cont’d)
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Health Blawg
Politico
CNN
ABC
CBS
The New Republic

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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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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TweetDeck
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Some Twitter tools (cont’d)
Integrate tweets into other social media
E.g., tweet via Ping.fmTweetDeckorSeesmic
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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28
Learning to fly
David Armano, SVP Edelman Digital http://darmano.typepad.com/ 3.22.10

Resources
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Legal Guide for Bloggers
Twitter for Lawyerson HealthBlawg
Darren Rowse’sTwiTips
My Web 2.0 sites:
HealthBlawg
HealthBlawg on Twitter
Linked In
Facebook
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Questions / Discussion
David Harlow JD MPH
harlowgroup.net
healthblawg.com
twitter.com/healthblawg
david@harlowgroup.net
617.965.9732
for contact info in an sms, txt dharlow to 50500
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AHLA Annual Meeting 2011 Social Media Legal Marketing Resources by David Harlow

by David Harlow on Jun 28, 2011

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AHLA Annual Meeting 2011 Social Media Legal Marketing Resources by David Harlow — Presentation Transcript