I haven’t really been following the debate of whether or not microblogging (Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook “updates”) is/will/can kill blogging.

Kevin O’Keefe has a piece today, Law blogs far from dead in this world of microblogging : Blogging is on the rise that goes into detail about why blogs aren’t dead.

Personally, I didn’t need to attend Blog World to know that blogs are on the rise. I continue to get more and more of my news and information from blogs. I’m seeing more and more mainstream news organizations take on blogging rather than just writing or posting news stories. In my industry, legal, I continue to see more and more attorneys and law firms embracing blogging as a necessary means of communication, and not see it as simply a fad.

Granted, microblogging is still met with skepticism by most people with whom I engage in the “real” world. They think Twitter is silly, and don’t understand “why would people want to know what I’m eating?” (By the way, I don’t care to know what you’re eating, I want to know what you’re thinking … the eating part is just a silly sidebar you can use, only if you have already established trust with me.)

I’ve never really considered either tool as mutually exclusive. In fact, I have a hard time developing relationships with microbloggers who don’t have a blog. I’m not saying that relationships CAN’T develop with microblogging alone, I’m simply saying that the relationships are SLOWER to develop, and therefore the value is more elusive.

In his post, Kevin comments on Rick Klau’s presentation at Blog World:

I couldn’t agree more with Klau (also a lawyer) that “Microblogs are complementary, not competitive, [they are] a driver of attention and engagement back to the blog.”

As Klau reports is the case with his blog, Twitter has become the highest traffic generator for my blog outside of search. As is my practice, Klau suggested “Rather than trying to fight against the flow on microblogging, to embrace it, and make sure your content is available to these disparate networks, while remembering to engage where it lands.”

Think about it. How authoritative can I be in 140 characters? I can be witty, salient, poignant, humorous, memorable, charming, annoying, but it is difficult to build trust, reliability, and respect in 140 characters ALONE.

I counsel people to use microblogging, particularly Twitter, to grab the attention of the masses around those broad areas of commonality, whether it is the law, your industry, or personal interests (Go Dodgers!). I like to think of my social media and social networking as a funnel that lead to the trifecta of Know, Like and Trust … and we all know that, all things being equal, clients hire attorneys that they know, like and trust. :

Twitter is the wide net where I can capture the interest from the masses. I can then lead people to my blog, where they can learn more about me and my opinions. From here, LinkedIn Connections can be made, providing more detailed information about who I am, my experience, and who I know. I find that it is somewhere around here that relationships start to develop via commenting on blogs, retweeting posts, direct messages and the like.

For me, once a more personal relationship develops, then and only then, do I send or accept a Facebook Friend request (I have pictures of my kids in there, after all).

So, microblogging killing blogs?? I think that the social media and social networking platforms have vital use for both. And while both can be utilized successfully as independent tools, I will continue to use both to complement the other.

I’m really enjoying 5 Ways Social Media is Changing Our Daily Lives by Soren Gordhamer, which I found via my Google Reader, which was posted to Mashable.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot of late. How I discover, read, share and distribute information has changed in the past two years, and it continues to evolve. As a marketer this energizes me. I then begin to think: How do I capture what I am doing personally, so that I can interpret this for others, namely, my law firm?

In his blog post, Soren identified the following five areas where social media is changing our lives:

  1. Where we get our news
  2. How we start and do business
  3. How we meet and stay in touch with people
  4. What we reveal
  5. What we can influence

Here’s how these five categories are impacting me.

Where we get our news: Personally, I start my work day with scanning the major cable news channels (MSNBC, CNN, FOX) as well as some political blogs and a couple news aggregators. I can’t remember the last time I picked up a newspaper. I then hop over to my Google Reader to see what the blogs I follow are reporting on. I have these all categorized: General news, insurance industry news, marketing, legal industry, and more. I want to know what our competitors are saying, so I track their blogs as well.

I then check my Twitter feed where I track more news agencies, reporters, bloggers and the like. I then check to see what my most influential group of leaders, friends and colleagues are saying, posting, retweeting, linking, reading, etc.

I do all of this in about 30 minutes. I then spot check this several times throughout the day.

How we start and do business: I know a lot of companies are turning to social media more and more to redistribute their content, and my firm is no different. While I have “owned” this behavior for The Legal Watercooler, I am now migrating the best practices over to my firm.

How we meet and stay in touch with people: First thing I do every day is check my Facebook and Twitter. I want to see what my friends and close colleagues are up to. Sometimes it’s the fun tidbits of what is happening in their lives, but they are also passing along information, links, and other knowledge-based information that I can use throughout my day.

(as a side note, my Facebook page is limited to my friends, not “friends.” I need to have already established a personal relationship with you before I invite you into that world, or accept your invitation. I have pictures of my kids in there …. I always feel bad ignoring invites, but c’est la vie.)

What we reveal: On the natch, I’m a pretty private person and pretty much anti-social. I prefer to be home reading a book than attending any type of social event. I am amazed at how easy it has been for me to reveal parts of myself via social media and social networking. In turn, I have found that it has softened me in face-to-face interactions, as well. I’m still not 100% comfortable in social situations, but I can fake it really, really well.

What we can influence: This is what amazes me the most. By building a networking and establishing trust, I am able to be heard and influence in a very noisy environment. I track and watch how people find me, retweet my messages, click through a link, or link to my blog. I have developed new relationships, and have found myself well regarded by many. This has been humbling, as all I really wanted to do, when I started this blog, is have a conversation.

Yes, I’m still reading and enjoying Trust Agents.

A concept that I have been playing with of late, along with good colleagues Jayne Navarre and Russell Lawson, is that we’re not so much doing different things in social media and social networking as much as we are doing the same things, only differently.

So my question to you is: Why put on paper, or e-mail, what you can blog?? If you put it on paper, or send it in an e-mail, the circulation and the lifespan are limited. However, once you put it up onto your blog, it lives forever.

From Trust Agents, p. 25-26

Let’s take a concrete example: Say that you’re asked a question by e-mail about a specialty of yours — for instance, banking products. You could just respond by e-mail, but you don’t. Instead, you write about it on your blog. You’re writing the same information, but it’s public. You point the person who made the original inquiry to what you wrote, so that person gets what he or she wants; but now, anyone else can see it as well. People who arrive via Google by searching for similar information can visit and post comments weeks, even months, later. Your blog post, which used to offer answers to typical questions asked by a few people, has now become a resource. If you’re like most people, you’re receiving a lot of the same questions repeatedly. But now you only respond once — and you get credit each time someone new discovers your answer.

I finally put down my summer reading and picked up Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust (which has been sitting on my nightstand since the day it came out).

Where have I been?? Oh, yeah, pre-WWII Shanghai, pre-Tudor Court England, revolutionary France, and other far off places, but I digress.

While I am only on page 88, Trust Agents is now the #1 recommended book for my attorneys who are participating in social networking and social media.

I plan on dropping some wonderful tidbits onto the blog as I read along, the points that really resonate with me, but I suggest that you pick up your own copy and read with a highlighter and pen at hand’s reach.

For instance, on transparency (page 9):

Those who are the most familiar with the digital space – we refer to them as “digital natives” – have become accustomed to a new level of transparency. They operate under the assumption that everything they do will eventually be known online. Realizing they are unable to hide anything, they choose not to try. Instead, they leverage the way the Web connects us and ties our information together to help turn transparency into an asset for doing business.

Well, considering how difficult rolling out a CRM system can be in a law firm, I am amazed at how quickly and easily attorneys “get” the power of LinkedIn’s connections and are willing to go transparent. While they look at sharing contacts within the firm with distrust and skepticism, they SEE how sharing connections on LinkedIn creates those “6-degrees of separation” (or, in the case of LinkedIn, 3-degrees).

Transparency in your work can include uploading court filings and decisions to JDSupra. Yes, it’s work product, but once it’s filed in court, it’s part of an open record. Your competitors know how to easily find it … why not make it easy to find for those who might want to hire you??

And how about uploading to the firm’s blog the slides from the recent conference where you spoke? And why not post to the firm’s blog a case update about one of YOUR cases (with the client’s knowledge … you never want to surprise a client)?

Companies can no longer hide behind the veneer of a shiny branding campaign, because customers [clients] are one Google search away from the truth. p. 11

So, get out there and create your own truth. What is it that you do? How well do you do it?? For whom do you do it??? Instead of TELLING your prospects, let them DISCOVER it.

I know that times are tough. The economy, despite what the pundits are saying, is still precarious. Law firms continue to lay off good employees as they right size their business initiatives to the changing economic models.

However, there are some open (Legal) Marketing positions in the Los Angeles area that need to get filled.

  • Manager/Director of Marketing for a local Accounting firm. Westwood.
  • Director of Marketing for LA-based firm with 200 attorneys. Century City
  • Marketing Manager for LA office of AmLaw 100 firm. Century City.

Email me at legalwatercooler at gmail dot com for details.

A very interesting conversation is taking place on Kevin O’Keefe’s blog, Real Lawyers have Blogs, and on Twitter (unfortunately, no hashtag to follow) as to whether it is appropriate to use social media as a distribution channel for law firm content.

In the “No” corner is Kevin O’Keefe, blogger extraordinaire to the legal industry.

In the “Yes” corner is, well, pretty much everyone else.

Kevin, good guy that he is, is promoting the debate, and you should weigh in as well.

For me, Social Media and Social Networking are about balance. I personally use both to promote content, as well as promote conversations, for my personal brand and blog.

For my firm, however, I use social media primarily as a distribution tool for our firm’s blog content. That will evolve as our social media evolves. Right now, the “conversations,” the social networking, takes place between the lawyers and the individual people.

According to Kevin:

Pushing law firm content on people is not what social media, or for that matter, the Internet, is all about. By all means have your content (lawyer articles, newsletters, alerts) accessible to be indexed by Google so it may be retrieved on search, but the Internet is about communicating. Communicating does not mean shouting content at people.

Here are some alternative opinions:

Adrian Lurssen (@JDTwitt)

Why limit the scope of these powerful tools? Why, for that matter, so limit the definition of the Internet? (To say nothing of defining the Internet on behalf of everyone in the first place.) In a broader view, the Internet enables both one-to-one AND one-to-many communications. How we use it rests entirely with those who use it. In other words: different for everyone.

Fred Abramson (@fredabramson)

When using social media, lawyers should balance the information they put out there. I agree with the rest of your post, with the caveat that lawyers will be missing out on a ton of traffic if they follow your advice.

Tracy Thrower Conyers

Kevin, I think you’re blurring the line between social media and social networking here. Blogging, for instance, is a web 2.0 social medium and is most definitely a platform where lawyers should be pushing out their content. Anything interactive on the web is “social media.”

Social networking, on the other hand, *is* more about relationships, yet is also a venue where you carry your message.

Jayne Navarre – @jaynenavarre

Not sure any social media rules are codified somewhere but last I looked social media did not require conversation. Nice, but not required.

Tom Lamb

I agree with your statement, above, that the Internet is about communicating, but why is sharing information, including lawyer-created articles or blog posts, “shouting content”?

So, Coolerites, what say you??

Bzzzzzzzzzzz. That sound you hear are the wheels spinning in my head. Or is it the bee in my bonnet. Or the new rant I feel coming on about being transparent in our online social networking and social media.

Remember Coolerites, for me, social networking and social media are about getting to know, like and trust someone before you ever get to meet them.

And while all roads might lead to Rome … on the Internet superhighway, for this blogger, they lead to the trifecta of “know, like, trust.”

What we’re doing is about identifying and engaging people we don’t know, we’re building new relationships, and, if we’re selling something (whether it’s ideas, products or services) we get that product or service know, liked and trusted.

So back to the relationship factor. Relationships, whether personal, romantic or business, are built upon trust. If I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, I don’t like you, and I won’t want to get to know you.

Transparency is part of trust. I came across a great post, Transparency in social media. Do you trust me? by Wayne Sutton on his blog, Social Wayne:

What is Transparency?
Let’s talk Transparency. Transparency is one of those social media / marketing buzzwords you’ll hear when being pitched a social media campaign, but what exactly does it mean? Traditionally transparency is referenced with news media to inform the public why and how information is gathered from various sources. In plain English, transparency means I tell you who I received the information from so you know that it’s credible or that I was not the originator of the information. In media transparency leads to credibility, it builds the trust from someone reporting information by providing credible sources.

Transparency in Social Media
But what about transparency in social media? The same holds true yet it also has a double meaning. Transparency in social media especially pertaining to blogging and covering a product, brand or service means that’s I’m giving you an honest non-biased opinion or truth when I write or cover a particular topic. Online this can mean that, I am who I say I am online and that my reason for posting or having a discussion about a product, brand or service does not have any hidden agendas. Or if I’m posting or having a discussion about a product, brand or service and was paid or hired to do so, you’ll know about it up front or it will be included in the conversations.

Why is transparency so important?
Transparency is about trust and with everyone trying to grab your attention online whether it is through a youtube video, blog post, facebook ad or a tweet, trust relationship marketing will be one of the key ways brands will try to sell their services to customers. In other words brands will contact you saying, blog out this, or can you tweet this. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that but will you let your readers or subscriber know that you were paid to post content about a particular brand upfront or at all?

Every so often I receive a request to post information on The Legal Watercooler about something that would help the person sell something that I wouldn’t even buy.

At other times, I have been asked by close personal friends and colleagues, including people I have only met through social networking tools, particularly Twitter, if I wouldn’t mind sharing X, Y or Z information with my readers or followers because they think it would be helpful … and they are usually right.

I pretty much ignore the folks who fall into group #1, and am more than happy to assist those in group #2. Why?? Because I KNOW the people in group #2. I LIKE the people in group #2. And I TRUST the people in group #2.

Social networking and social media are about getting to know, like and trust people before we ever have the opportunity to meet them face-to-face.

Thom Singer has a great video, Twitter Etiquette Rant, that sums it all up for me: Get to know me before you ask me for a favor!

How do you get to know me (or anyone on Twitter for that matter)?? Follow me @heathermilligan. Engage me in conversation by replying to my posts. Tweet out links to my blog posts that you like, including my @heathermilligan so I pick it up in my search column. Retweet something I post, and add your own comments. Send me direct messages and get on my radar so that I add you to my “My Peeps” column in Tweetdeck … that’s reserved for the people I closely follow. I have the room right now … I’m cleaning out my TD columns this week!

Oh, it’s that time of the year. Budget and marketing plan proposals are being drafted.

My friend, colleague and Legal Watercooler contributor Jayne Navarre published on her Virtual Marketing Officer blog a 2010 Law Firm Marketing Plan that I can highly support.

It’s short, memorable, and something that can be lived, even if tossed into a drawer and never shown the light of day once approved.

2010 Marketing Plan for My Law Firm

Goal – Own the first 3 Google results for my law firm; important practice keywords and individual attorneys.

Objectives – Fill the first 3 pages of any related search engine results with relevant “all about me” stuff.

Tactics – Social media, social networking, search optimization.

Obviously, you might have other “goals” for your firm, or your practice. For each of these, I highly suggest following this simple format of Goal, Objective and Tactics. BUT, BUT, BUT keep it short (five or fewer), memorable and livable.

One of my new soap box rants on the importance of social media and social networking is that it allows clients to get to know, like and trust you BEFORE they ever meet you.

Before a prospective client picks up that phone to take your call, he or she has already formed an opinion about you and your company based on how easy it is to FIND you on Google, how easy it is to navigate your Web site, the conversations you are participating in, or, better yet, the conversations you are leading within the major social media and social networking applications.

When it comes to social media and social networking, we’re not doing anything “new,” we’re just doing things differently.

Here’s a great video showcasing the “then” and “now” of B2B fundamentals of getting to know you.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXG7zYWKHGU&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

Thanks to Bruce Allen for posting the video to his blog, Marketing Catalyst.