Internet 2.0 and the Law: Twitter
StopPoliticalCalls.org
Shaun Dakin: CEO & Founder
05/21/2009

Agenda
• Twitter (social media) – What is it?
• Twitter and Lawyers
• Twitter Tips
• Discussion And Questions

Why Twitter?

Lawyers Using Twitter Today

Twitter? Tweet?
What Are You Doing? 140c
1. Micro-blogging
2. Broadcast Instant Messaging
3. A time sink

Twitter Basics
• Twitter – Twitter.com
• To Tweet – The act of Twittering in 140 characters
• To Follow – To follow someone on Twitter
• Follower – Someone who follows you
• @Replies – People who “talk” directly to you vs.
broadcast thoughts =
– @IsCool what do you think about lawyers?
• Direct Messages – Like email
• Favorites – bookmarking specific Tweets

My Twitter Account: @EndTheRoboCalls

The Worldwide Conversation
• Twitter is Great for open conversations

Twitter Search: Where You Listen To The
Conversation

How Do You Start?
• Just Do It. Free. Twitter.com
• How do I get people to care?
– Be authentic (no spamming, self promotion)
– Be interesting (remember high school)
– Be conversational
– Follow people that you are interested and may be
interested in you
– Engage with people that contact you
– Answer Questions

How Do You Get Others To Listen?
• ReTweet other people’s Tweets (like
forwarding an email)

What to ReTweet
• Whatever you think others will be interested
in.
– News
– Tips
– How To
– Breaking News
– Anything

What to ReTweet
• Whatever you think others will be interested
in.

Add Value By Asking and Answering
Questions
• I asked my followers a question this week:

How Often?
• As much as you care to. Seriously.
– People will either listen or not

Hashtags Are The Key To Following The
Worldwide Conversation
• Hashtags - #WhatEverYouWantToPutHere
• Used with Twitter Search to monitor
conversations
• Like “tags” on webpages and blogs
• Very event driven
– Elections (#VoteReport)
– Crisis (#Mumbai)
– Movies / TV (Idol)

Twitter Search and HashTags

Twitter and Law

How Many Lawyers On Twitter?

Law Firms on Twitter
http://lawyerkm.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/law-firms-on-twitter-an-update/

Womble Carlyle

McDermott

Tools and Tips

Don’t Do It, seriously
• Social Media Takes Time, Lot’s Of It
• You Must Be Engaged
– Immediately and authentically
• Resource Allocation Decisions – Can’t be an
intern

Twitter Tools - TweetDeck
What: Visualize multiple searches and create groups

Twitter Tools - HootSuite
What: Tool to manage multiple Twitter Accounts;
schedule Tweets in the future and Get Stats.

Twitter Tools - TweetLater
What: Tool to manage multiple Twitter Accounts
and schedule Tweets in the future AND auto
follow

Twitter Tools - Twitterfeed
What: Automatically update your Twitter account
with your blog posts.

Twitter Search And Variants

My Favorite - Twazzup

Questions
• Contact Information:
– Shaun Dakin: dakinshaun@gmail.com
– Twitter:
• @EndTheRobocalls (Business)
• @IsCool (Personal)
– 703.201.1146 (no robo calls please)
– Facebook, Linkedin, Friendfeed, etc…

What It Can Be 

I Polled My Followers Monday
• For Blackberry users  Twitterbery
– http://www.orangatame.com/products/twitterber
ry/
• TinyTwitter 
– Love twitter and love tweeting from your mobile
device? But don't want to get dinged for updates
and double dinged for friend updates continually
arriving via SMS?
– http://www.tinytwitter.com/

I Polled My Followers Monday
• For Vista users  @BlueAp
– http://www.thirteen23.com/experiences/desktop
/blu/
• Another Twitter Desktop App - @Twhirl
– http://www.twhirl.org/

Twitterfeed Example

With Only 140 C’s Links Need To Be
Shortened
• To keep it under 140 characters you’ll need to
shorten the links:
• Some tools:
– TweetDeck – built in
– HootSuite – built it
– TinyURL.com

How to shorten links

Case Study: Motrin
From Twitter …
• The Ad
• The Reaction
• The Alternative
• What Motrin did:
– Over weekend responded to moms
– Took down offending ad
– Suspended the entire campaign

… To the Mainstream Media

WeFollow/Law

Twitter and Law

What is Twitter?

My Latest Project - #AskPres
http://www.communitycounts.com/obama

Twitter Strategy - @AskThePresident

Result – Open For Questions

Case Study: From Member / Twitter To
Maddow (MSNBC) in 24 Hours
• The Ground Work:
– Educate members to immediately report robo call
activity
• The Execution:
1. Members sent email about robocall in CA
2. Monitor Twitter Search to confirm / validate
3. Distribute link to interested reporters
4. Story in local media by morning and national
media by that same evening

Email From Member About Robocall

Twitter Search
http://search.twitter.com/

Twitter Search Reveals…

My Response

Blog It: ASAP

Stupid Is...

… As Stupid Does

Email Reporters: Link to blog

Maddow

Who is using Twitter – Corporate?
• Dell – messages about discounts ($1.5 M)
• Zappos – CEO Tweets, 435 employees
• Comcast – Customer Service
• Ford – Social Media Director
• JetBlue – Customer Service

Dell

Zappos

Comcast

Ford

JetBlue

Social Media?
• Remember the 90’s? eCommerce, the web,
www, cyber, netscape, internet.
• Google?

Nothing New Under The Sun
• The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999) 95 Theses:
– Markets are conversations
– Markets consist of human beings, not
demographic sectors
– Conversations among human beings sound
human. They are conducted in a human voice.
– The Internet is enabling conversations among
human beings that were simply not possible in the
era of mass media.

It started
• With the internet, way back …
– Amazon: book recommendations, speed, one click
– FedEx: tracking, shipping, rating
– Dell: custom computers
– Pointcast: news and information pushed to you
– Netscape: the browser
– AOL: the walled garden

And is today…
http://usernamecheck.com/

The Largest SM Players
• Twitter Vs. Facebook
http://www.alexa.com/

SNL