Tweeting for Lawyers 101 - Law Blog - WSJ

Tweeting for Lawyers 101 - Law Blog - WSJ

Click the link above.

JULY 15, 2011, 10:14 AM ET
Tweeting for Lawyers 101
By Tamer El-Ghobashy

Aside from the pitfalls most of us contend with when making a debut on social media (like being uninteresting or over-sharing, often not mutually exclusive characteristics), criminal defense lawyers using it for business purposes must also consider the ethical ramifications.

Nicole Black, an attorney and co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, said bar associations have recently studied online marketing and social media for lawyers. So far, they’ve concluded that such advertisements are subject to the same ethical rules as marketing materials in print.

A good rule of thumb for attorneys is that “if you can’t do it off-line, you can’t do it online,” said Black. She advises most attorneys to post clear disclaimers on their blogs and Twitter bios informing readers that what they write doesn’t constitute legal advice.

Black said criminal defense attorneys would have a more difficult time generating business from social media than a divorce lawyer or a tax attorney because their “target audience isn’t necessarily looking for counsel online.”

And it’s not necessarily an approach everyone should take, Black added. The worst you can do, she said, is force yourself to use social media simply because you think it’s good business.

“If you don’t like writing, don’t force yourself,” she said. “It’ll be painful for you and the reader.”

But if you’re inclined to use social media, you should promote your own content 10% of the time and spend 50% of your bandwidth sharing other people’s content “relevant to your area of practice.” Thirty percent of your activities should be interacting with other people. The final 10% should be personal.

Black cited Scott Greenfield as a good example of how a criminal defense attorney has developed a following and a voice on Twitter and through his blog, Simple Justice.

For his part, Greenfield said his blog and Twitter presence is not for promotion or marketing.

“To be honest, I don’t think it’s done a damn thing for me,” he said of his blog’s ability to generate clients he would take. “A DWI in Phoenix, a shoplifting case. That’s the [stuff] I get on the internet. There was no time in my career that I needed those cases.”

As for what he looks for in a link-worthy blog, Greenfield said: “Don’t give me superficial pap that sells to the lowest common denominator.”