This is the final slide deck from my Social Media in Law Practice course for the Univ. of Dayton School of Law Digital Lawyering Program. Covering time management, future of social media, its application to the legal profession, and our deliverable for the session.

1. Social Media in Law Practice
presented by
Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D.
Attorney, Burton Law LLC
Fall, November 26, 2012

2. Overview
 Time Management
 Future of social media
 Application to the legal profession
 Deliverable for session

3. Time Management
1. Determine your purpose for using the method of
SM.
2. Develop a strategy.
1. Focus on time when it will have most impact
2. Schedule engagement as much as possible
3. Go back to the purpose repeatedly and reevaluate
3. Maximize productivity by using tools.
1. Management and analytic tools

4. Sample Method
 Step 1 (about 5 minutes of planning)
 Plan SM strategy for the day in two parts: 1) Your
engagement. Ex. What blog post you wrote and need to
share, what conferences are going on that you could
retweet, events you are attending that you could post
pics or share and 2) Your growth. Ex. What new features
of a platform or new application are you going to
download, set up, or learn how to use and integrate.

5. Sample Method
 Step 2 (about every hour or two)
 Refocus and refine based on what is going on that day
and what articles or comments may have come up during
the last hour or so. Use this time to check twitter
streams, read Facebook posts, read blog comments, etc.
 Refer back to your strategy from the beginning of the day.
Assess where you are and adjust based on goals and
what has come up.

6. Sample Method
 Step 3 (end of the day review – 5-10 minutes)
 Review if you met your strategy for the day.
 Use the time to give a few extra RTs, likes and thank yous
to those who engaged with you and shared your content.
This goes a long way in SM development. This is the
nurturing part of these online relationships which you may
not have had time for during the work day.

7. Future of Social Media
 Social media will become so integrated into the way we use
the Internet that it will simply be a part of our daily
experience without the novelty.
 Websites will store our social media activities but those
activities are not necessary created or hosted on those sites.
o Ex. Using Twitter to post on Facebook but not actually
using Facebook as an application.
 How do we know this?
o Note how Facebook and other APIs already let social
media be embedded into any applications online
o The proliferation of mobile devices will continue this
trend.

8. Use of GPS Tools in Social Media
 Facebook and Foursquare allow people to state where they
are and when.
 While most social media may be scanned to provide
intelligence to companies looking for information about their
consumer’s reactions to products and services or the
company itself, GPS allows the company to know exactly when
the consumer enters the store.
 They used to know when you checked out and purchased
something and could provide relevant coupons to encourage
repeat visits.
 Now they can provide encouragement at the BEGINNING of
the engagement.

9. Private Social Networks
 Balance is coming to social media in the form of apps
that provide more privacy or limited networking
abilities.
 Examples: Path and Pair

10. Reaching Capacity
 Most consumers focus on a core group: Facebook
(the basis), LinkedIn (for professional), Instagram or
Pinterest (for photos)
 Other will tack on Foursquare or Twitter to this core
 There is limited capacity for the consumer to manage
and use on a regular basis more applications than
these on a regular basis.
 New options may replace existing applications and
the core may shift, but we’ve probably reached the
consumer’s capacity to adopt more than 4-5.

11. Companies Blending Earned with Paid Content
 Owned content – what is on your own blog or
website
 Paid content – paid advertising on different social
media sites
 Earned content – the interaction, engagement,
recommendations, likes, shares, etc. of a company,
it’s products or services
 Companies realize they will need a better synergy of
earned with paid content in order to be effective.
 Realizing offline brand experience will be biggest
generator of online discussions so may shift focus.

12. Predicting Tools
 Using social media to predict real-world outcomes.
 For example: Pulling together data from Twitter searches
to predict box office revenues for a movie.
 See Predicting the Future with Social Media, Sitaram
Asur and Bernardo A. Huberman, Social Computing
Lab, HP Labs, Palo Alto, California
http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/scl/papers/socialm
edia/socialmedia.pdf

13. Visual Based SM
 Rapid growth of Pinterest beyond pace of Twitter at
same stage.
 Younger generations more in tune to graphics based
content.
 Increase in use of photography apps and sharing.
 Slideshare growth in 2012
 Prezi
 Pinterest
 Instagram

14. Mobile Friendly
 Businesses without mobile friendly website will fail.
 Ensure the sites render well in mobile devices, not
just in browsers.
 Content delivered through videos and images
through a mobile application rather than text-based.

15. Remember the Conversation
 Concepts of VRM
 Shift in control from vendors to consumers
 Law firm website as a placeholder in the past.
 SM is the beginning of the online conversation.
 Social media expands the engagement
 It will be increasingly necessary for client development as
well as for maintaining client and professional
relationships.

16. How does this apply to lawyers?
 Developing offline relationships that start online
 Building brand and expertise
 Primary driver of traffic to online legal service delivery
methods
 A growing method of basic legal service education for
the public.
 Integration with platforms provided by companies with
online legal service delivery to the public.
 Malpractice not to research using SM for a case/use in
trial.
 Use of SM data to predict legal needs, refer or match to
the appropriate lawyer

17. Social Media Policy
 Read samples posted in Resources folder.
 Customize to your expected needs as a practitioner.
 Base it on which social media platforms and methods you
intend to use and for which purposes.
 Set out how you plan to interact with clients and
prospective clients who interact with you using these
platforms.
 Polices for your employees. (ie, any disclaimers, what they
should avoid posting, etc.)
 Who will be responsible and how will it be handled and
monitored?
 Consider additions to traditional engagement agreement to
educate/notify clients.