I’m always interested to learn about the different ways lawyers and law firms use social media, so I was excited to find this video about how Howard Rice uses social media to recruit law students.

How is Your Law Firm Using Social Media?

Every day on Twitter and LinkedIn, I watch lawyers make connections, get referrals, ask and answer questions. I would love to hear how you and/or your firm are using these and other social media tools. Networking? Recruiting? Attorney referrals? Monitoring for your clients? Talking to your clients?

Are you getting what you want out of it? 

That’s one of the questions law student Rex Gradeless is asking on his new blog Social Media Law Student.  Rex Gradeless is a third-year law student at Saint Louis University School of Law, specializing in Civil Litigation. He’s been actively networking on sites like Twitter to find a job in a big city. (I’m secretly hoping he’ll come to Chicago, because I’d like to meet him!)

Rex Gradeless, Social Media Law Student, Says:

“The law student experiment is off to a lightning speed start. The response has been overwhelming. I have met many generous people in a very short time - the power of social media!!”

About the Social Media Law Student Experiment:

Rex says, “We know that “Real Lawyers Have Blogs” but do real lawyers read blogs? Can Twitter shape the way lawyers communicate with each other? This experiment could change the way career service offices operate and the way attorneys communicate. Let the experiment begin!”

Looks like the experiment is already well underway! I’m wishing Rex all the best and biggest opportunities. If you don’t already know him, take care of that now. Drop by his blog, Social Media Law Student and follow Rex Gradeless on twitter.

Checking your messages from twitter.com’s web interface isn’t the most efficient way to do things. It also only catches any @replies that begin with your username. So if, for example, I send a message that says “Hey @you, do you do Chapter 7 bankruptcies or just Chapter 11?” my message to you would not show up in your @ Reply tab, because my message doesn’t start with @.

There are several different applications you can download and use to make your Twitter experience easier. I’ve tested several, and my favorite is Tweetdeck, because it catches any @ message that contains your name, and it’s the best for organization.

Getting started with TweetDeck

Go to http://www.tweetdeck.com, and click on the “launch now” button, and that will get you started.

You’ll be able to see your tweets in columns, so you can see your replies and direct messages all in one place. You’ll also be able to write your own messages directly from this screen.

Customizing TweetDeck

The colors in TweetDeck are dark and ugly. You can change them so you won’t go blind by clicking on the little wrench icon in the top right corner.

While you’re in there, you’ll likely want to uncheck the box that says “play notification sound”… unless you want to be knocked out of your chair by an annoying tweeting bird every time someone writes a new message.

Then you might want to head over to the colors/font tab, and you can change the colors and/or make the fonts easier to read.

Video Tutorial on Creating Groups, etc

My friend John Haydon at CorporateDollar.org has put together a video tutorial on how to get started using TweetDeck. His video shows step by step how to do everything, from downloading the application to responding to people to setting up and organizing groups. You can click here to view John’s TweetDeck video tutorial.

Are you using TweetDeck? How do you like it?

If you have any questions about using TweetDeck, feel free to drop your questions in my comments box, or shoot me an email at amy@lawfirmblogger.com.

My ironic moment of the day: I found the ABA Journal’s article Web 2.0 Still a No-go via Twitter, tweeted by Michael Lubofsky (aka @lawmarketing). I was fascinated by the article and had something to say. And hey, abajournal.com is in blog format, so yay; I was actually going to get to respond with what I thought were some very valid points.

Then I got to the bottom of the post and found this:

“Commenting has expired on this post.”

“How sad,” I thought at first. Then my thought pattern quickly changed to, “How ironic that a blog post talking about lawyers not understanding Web 2.0 has closed off its comments.”

Why in the world would anyone do this?

Blog Posts Don’t Expire

You slap it on the web; it’s there forever. Blogging is a conversation, and hopefully an ongoing one. Blog posts from 2005 still get new readers today, and those readers still have something to say. Is their view less important because they found your post a few years later? I think not.

The ABA post is from September. Clearly folks are still reading it. (At least @lawmarketing and I are!) What are they gaining by closing off comments?

Build Bridges, Not Walls

Closing off comments means you’re having a one-sided conversation. You’re saying “This is all about me. I don’t care about you.”

Web 2.0 is interaction. Today, next month, presumably twenty years from now.

How do you feel when you land on a blog post, have something to say, but then can’t say it because the blogger has put up a wall where a door should be?

My last post (Is SEO Killing Your Law Firm Blog?) has gotten me a few emails from folks asking where I draw the line between good SEO and bad. It’s a fine line, but my boilerplate answer is that good use of SEO doesn’t interfere with your readers’ experience.

Good SEO

You use keywords in your blog post’s title so folks can find you. For example, if you’re writing a post about Company X’s bankruptcy, you title it “Company X Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filed in Illinois” rather than “New Bankruptcy Case Filed”. It makes sense to do this so folks googling you will find you; that’s a good idea.

Your post might be a few paragraphs long and perhaps uses the phrase “Company X filed Chapter 11″ and “Company X bankruptcy” — BUT you use those phrases naturally, so that your visitors reading experience isn’t disrupted.

Bad SEO

Bad SEO would be if you went through a keyword search tool and made a list of 25 different variations of strings folks might search for, and you wrote your post so that you included most of these (possibly including misspellings for the sake of picking up the traffic).

Rather than a natural read, folks are now reading stuff like “Company X Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed Monday in Delaware came to no surprise for investors anticipating that Company X bankruptcy would happen. Company X bankruptcy petition was filed in the Northern District of Delaware. Company X voluntary petition can be downloaded here.” Who wants to read that?

Have you seen this type of thing? (I know I have!) What’s your reaction when you see it?

SEO (search engine optimization) is important to any website or blog, of course. But more important is not losing sight of the people using those search engines.

Example: I’m currently in the top spot for “law firm blogger” in google, but if you clicked through and didn’t find any useful information here about law firm blogging, that wouldn’t do you (or me) any good.

Not all SEO is created equal.

You don’t have to rank at the top for every search term. In fact, you shouldn’t bother trying to. If you’re an E. coli lawyer, that’s probably a key phrase you want to come through so folks searching for you can find you. Do you need to be at the top for every search phrase containing the word “E. coli”? Probably not. Trying to do so will waste your time and drive your readers crazy.

Don’t stuff your pages.

One of my big pet peeves with many self-proclaimed SEO gurus is that they want every page of every law firm website and blog to be crammed full of as many related keywords as possible. Doing that harms you in several ways:

1. Your content becomes hard to read. Key phrases should come naturally if you’re talking about what you do. Forcing in as many keywords as possible, and repeating them unnecessarily, loses your flow (and your readers).

2. Your personality gets lost in the sea of keywords. Folks can’t find you anymore. And if they can’t find you at your blog, they’ll move on.

3. Folks see through it. They catch what you’re trying to do straight off, and they move on to read someone who is talking to them rather than to a robot.

4. Your tricks are disappointing. You waste the time of anyone who clicks through landing on your key phrase after it turns out you’re not really writing about that topic at all.

5. People will remember you as a cheater. (Let’s face it… that’s bad for lawyers.) Your first impression is ruined, so even if you do something really cool in the future, they’ll see your link and think bad thoughts.

Online, there are rarely second chances. And you only get one first impression .

Rather than spend your time talking for robots, wouldn’t you rather spend your time talking to people?

How does your firm use SEO on its websites/blogs? Are you happy with the results?

If anything, your appearance matters more online than off, because folks will judge you faster. The average web browser spends 4 seconds taking you in before deciding whether you’re worth getting to know.

You wouldn’t show up to court in cut-offs and sandals; why show up on the web looking like kid eager to rob a candy store?

Invest in a domain name.

I’m shocked at how many lawyer blogs I see on free Blogger and Typepad accounts. If you’re not willing to invest in a $2 domain name, why bother blogging? Very few people (if any) will take you seriously online if their first impression of you is that your domain name is yourlawfirm.wordpress.com.

Invest in a professional design.

If your firm doesn’t have a designer on staff, make the investment and hire someone who specializes in law firm blog design. Lexblog offers some of the best lawyer blog designs out there. David Carson, a lawyer and web consultant, also does fine work. If you insist on using a free template, make sure it’s one that will reflect you in a good light.

Are you dressed to impress?

In case you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, it’s a free online networking tool based on the question “What are you doing?”

Those random thoughts not interesting enough to make it to your blog have at last found a home! Finally, folks who are interested in knowing your every waking move can follow you around…. and you can follow back!

Twitter: it’s more than the self-obsessed geek’s wet dream.

Lawyers across the web are using Twitter to share resources, ask questions and make connections. It’s a free and easy way to stay on top of what’s going on in your practice area around the globe, meet colleagues you would otherwise never meet, and chat about baseball (or politics, or your Golden Retriever).

Are you with me?

I’ve been using Twitter for my own personal use for a while now. I just recently opened the door on my own Law Firm Blogger Twitter account. If you’re already on Twitter, feel free to follow me @lawfirmblogger! (Also feel free to follow Adrian Lurssen’s lovely long list of Lawyers (and Legal Professionals) to Follow on Twitter.)

Get started using Twitter in 3 easy steps:

1. Create a free account at twitter.com. Your name or your firm’s name would be a good choice for a username. You can go to the Settings tab to edit your bio, add a link to your firm’s site or blog, upload your picture, etc.

2. Do a Twitter Search to find likeminded folks. The Advanced tab can be used to better target your search. (see also: Twellow, a twitter directory)

3. Start Twittering. Type what you’re doing into the box and voila! If you want to reply to someone else, you can scroll to the right-hand side of the person’s message and hit the arrow that appears. Or, you can simply copy/paste their username and preface it with an @.

You’ll be twittering away time in no time!

Twitter Tip:

Remember: as with all social networking tools, people are more apt to want to talk to you if you talk about other folks as well as yourself.

Questions? Feel free to ask! Drop your question in the comments box or shoot me an email at amy@lawfirmblogger.com.

P.S. I’m putting together a free guide to Twitter for lawyers. Any input you want to share or questions you want addressed would be most welcome!!

What do you think of Twitter? Are you finding it useful? Confusing? Worth the time?

Folks can find the facts anyplace on the web. Chances are, if they’ve landed on a law firm blog, they’re looking for more than what has already been reported by the Associated Press. As is true anyplace in the blogosphere, people come to your blog to find you.

What do you think of what the Associated Press said? What is the media missing altogether?

You’re a lawyer, not a news reporter.

You don’t have to be unbiased. In fact, appearing as though you are unbiased will likely make potential clients who land there wonder, “Why would I want this guy representing me? He can’t even make a case on his own blog.”

Who are you? What do you stand for?

The attention span of the average web browser is brief. Anyone who stumbles onto your blog needs to be able to immediately get a feel for who you are and what you’re all about. Every single post you write should reflect your unique perspective and make folks want to further get to know you. After all, clients don’t want to hire a stranger; they want to hire someone they know, who they feel is on their side.

Are you putting yourself into your blog posts? Have you reaped positive results for doing so?