AttorneySync Blog

AttorneySync’s newest guide is one that we have been asked about numerous times.  We are happy to be releasing AttorneySync’s Facebook For Lawyers Guide.

Some quick facts on Facebook:

• More than 300 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

It is important that you leverage the power and reach of Facebook to build professional relationships and establish your law firm’s brand. The following guide outlines some simple suggestions and ways you can utilize Facebook to achieve this including:

• Segmenting Your Profile For Personal and Professional Relationships
• How To Properly Setup A Facebook Page For Your Law Firm
• Setting Up Groups To Interact With Like-Minded Users
• Leverage Existing Groups For Referrals And Connections
• Advantages Specifically For Lawyers In Using Facebook

You can download the free Facebook for Lawyers Guide here!

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Are Sponsored Tweets A Good Idea?

I read an article in Time Magazine this weekend discussing a company called Izea.  Izea started a platform called sponsoredtweets where companies can pay Twitter users to Tweet about their products and services. According to Time:

“Twitter users can sign in, set the price they want companies to pay them for tweeting an ad on their behalf and wait for the offers to come in.”

Izea got it’s start building a platform connecting bloggers with advertisers willing to compensate them for plugs on their blogs.

Every sponsored tweet is appended with a “sponsored” disclosure tag at the end of the tweet.

What Are The Ethical Implications?

With a blog post, I think it is easier to let readers know that the post is sponsored. Readers can draw their own conclusions as a result. However, even when some type of disclosure tag is appended to a Tweet, this tag is easy to miss or gloss over when viewing a stream. I think it is important that people know, without a doubt, that the Tweet they just saw was sponsored.

That being said, I don’t have a problem with it if people want to monetize their Twitter accounts. It is their option to face the backlash of lost followers or angry replies when people realize they are tweeting out sponsored tweets. I could even make the argument that if they believe in the product they are tweeting about, who does it hurt if they get paid to tell their friends about it?

I get tired of all the “experts” in social media telling people the “right way” to act or use a service. Twitter is in its infancy, and while there are basic rules developing, it is far from a mature community. Sure there are basic guidelines and common decencies, but at the end of the day if you don’t like the way someone interacts with you, I’m betting you’ll avoid them. However, just because it turns you off, doesn’t mean someone else won’t like it.

What do you think? Are sponsored tweets a good idea?

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

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While there is so much talk about how blogs, social media, and the web in general, are useful to lawyers from a marketing standpoint, there is very little about how these tools impact other facets of the legal profession.

Anne Reed’s post A Trial Lawyer’s Guide To Social Networking Sites, reminded me that regardless of whether us lawyers are using blogs and social media, jurors are.

This is yet another example of why “being in the conversation” is simply no longer a choice.

When the internet went mainstream, we were amazed about the speed at which information was being exchanged.  Well guess what, as blogs and social media enter the fray, they make the early internet feel like a dinosaur.

So, go on.  Keep ignoring the conversation.  Dismiss the blogosphere as quaint.  Bash social media as a waste of time.  Not only will your resistance lose you clients, it may just end up losing you cases.

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Tweetlater is a free service for that helps you to manage your twitter account.  I have been using the service for several months and they keep releasing cool new features.  Among other things it allows you to:

• Schedule tweets to send out when you aren’t on the computer
• Send automatic thank you messages to new followers
• Automatically follow people who follow you with the ability to vet new followers so you don’t wind up following someone you would rather not
• Track keywords in the “tweetstream” and have the results sent to you via email

Check them out when you get a chance and let me know what you think.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

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I read this rather interesting post on Kara Smith’s blog the other day. She did a great job researching and reporting what happened, it’s worth checking out.  In a nut shell, Kara uncovered a situation where someone had assumed the name of a law firm through social media profiles and was directing traffic to sites that posted negative comments and articles about the firm.  These articles were getting picked up by journalists and being re-published on additional sites, furthering the “vicious circle” as Kara explains.  Most importantly, she goes on to tell us that the firm has no social media presence or blog and appears to be doing little to combat the attacks to their reputation.

This brings me to my main point.  Is your firm paying attention to what people are saying about you online?

How are you building your reputation online?

Ok…you have an informational website up there.  Do you blog as well?  Do you contribute articles to your blog or does your paralegal write most of the content?  Is your blog just designed around building keywords and SEO to get a good ranking for your site or do you put time and effort into building your reputation and marketing message?  Does your blog help to build your online reputation?  Are you active on LinkedIn and Twitter?  These are all questions to ask yourself and examine how you are branding and marketing your firm, how you are building your online reputation.  Don’t you want to be in control of the messages you are sending out?

What tools are out there to help monitor what people are saying about you?

There are some good free and paid services out there that will help you to monitor what people are saying about your firm on the web.

Google Alerts: This free tool from Google allows you to enter keywords to monitor.  It will then scour the internet looking for new instances when they appear.  You can then have the results emailed to you or connected through RSS to a reader such as GoogleReader.  I monitor my name, the name of my company, my twitter account name, and so forth.  This way you can get a handle on what people are saying about you, delivered in real time as it happens.  You can respond appropriately and help to better control your online reputation.

Trackur:  This is a paid service that offers features included with Google Alerts and a whole lot more.  There is a 14 day free trial, so it’s worth checking out and seeing if it’s extra features are a better fit for your needs.

Post your comments and let me know if there are other reputation management tools worth looking into.

Photo by Jin T

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