Originally published on September 26, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.
"What's happening?" That one little prompt on Twitter spurs thousands of tweets every single second. It has given way to country-defining revolutions, some of the biggest reporting scoops of our generation, and life-saving warnings of natural disasters.
But for busy professionals at small law firms like yours, that prompt prevents so many lawyers and other professionals from using Twitter, which has an onboarding problem. Onboarding refers the process of enabling new users to quickly benefit from a service. For example, when you signed up for SmallLaw, you knew you'd start receiving newsletters like today's issue.
Regarding Twitter, why would prospective clients want to know what you ate for breakfast? How could that possibly make you money? They don't. And it won't.
Leveraging Twitter by Curating Information
What many lawyers don't realize is that Twitter isn't for mundane updates on one's day-to-day life. It isn't for anything specific. Twitter provides you with a ball and a field. What and how you want to play is up to you.
For lawyers seeking an effective client development strategy through Twitter, acting as a curator of information and active intelligence agent is the best game to play.
Instead of starting by figuring out what to say, lawyers must instead begin by deciding to whom they should listen.
By drawing on information from a wealth of credible sources and monitoring keywords relevant to your practice (client names, articles, cases, and the like) and then passing the best content along through Twitter, you can effectively establish yourself as a knowledgeable source of information within your desired niche. Twitter's limit of 140 characters per tweet is a blessing because no one expects a detailed treatise when you link to an interesting resource (including your own blog posts and articles).
Every morning before work I spend almost the entirety of the 35-minute ferry ride from my home on Bainbridge Island across the Puget Sound to LexBlog's offices in Seattle perusing the content in my RSS newsreader — a collection of feeds from sources I find credible and keywords relevant to my expertise — and passing along 10 to 12 headlines and my own short comments by way of Twitter.
Not only do I learn by skimming the latest news, but my brand as a thought-leader in my niche is going through the roof — all because I spend a half hour every morning using Twitter. All of the following metrics have increased as a result of my tweets:
• Traffic to my blog.
• Comments on my blog.
• Speaking engagements.
• Calls from reporters.
• Calls from law firms asking me to speak.
• Employee morale and our ability to recruit talent.
• And most importantly, our bottom-line.
Why Twitter Works So Well
These 35 minutes probably produce a higher return on investment (ROI) than any of my other client development work. Why? How could something so basic and seemingly impersonal work for client development?
Pause and think about how people get their best clients not just in the legal profession but in almost every single field — relationships and word of mouth reputation.
I have over 11,600 people following me on Twitter. While this group includes clients and potential clients — lawyers other legal professionals (managing partners, CMOs, CKOs, CIOs) and marketing and communications professionals — it's also comprised of the individuals who influence them — conference coordinators, editors, publishers, reporters, and the like.
These folks have come to rely on me for news and commentary about client development for lawyers, online networking, social media, and other relevant subjects. I'm their trusted intelligence agent.
This is the type of audience a public relations professional craves. A tool that puts me in touch with my target audience on a daily basis? Previously impossible.
And as an added kicker I'm nurturing and making meaningful relationships with people I want to get to know. We're becoming friends with one other.
Whether you work in employment law, estate planning, intellectual property, personal injury, or any other practice area, Twitter can be an effective client development tool. I have watched numerous lawyers connect with clients, prospective clients, and their influencers on Twitter. Those who follow them on Twitter aren't simply reading and digesting the information the lawyers highlight — they're passing it along to friends, business associates, reporters, and association leaders all the while keeping the originating source in mind.
Start Small and Think Big
Start small. You are not going to gain 1,500 valuable followers overnight. Growing an audience interested in news related to your niche area of the law from 50 to 100 to 500 followers can take time.
That's okay. You're strengthening your brand as a reliable and trusted authority in your specialty and creating relationships with your target audience.
Call Twitter mindless babble and beneath lawyers if you like. Smart lawyers and law firms will ignore such short-sighted rhetoric and use Twitter as a high ROI relationship-building tool.
Written by Kevin O'Keefe is CEO and Publisher of LexBlog, the leading provider of social media solutions and strategies to law firms.
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