presented by

Stephanie Kimbro, M.A., J.D. Attorney, Burton Law LLC Fall, November 26, 2012

Social Media in Law Practice

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

oNote 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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/socialmedia/socialmedia.pdf

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

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.

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.

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

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.