Articles Posted in Social Networking

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Full disclosure: I am the sort of person who gets off the plane in DC and heads directly to the National Archives before doing anything else. I wholeheartedly admit that I am a fan of seeing these documents up close and personal and have been asked by security to “move along” as I stand mesmerized by their enormity.

Apparently, not many young Americans would likely beg their parents to head to the Archives. But they probably all should go there before stopping elsewhere in our beautiful capital city.

This year, the ABA is focusing its educational effort on civics education for young Americans. The ABA has noted that many of us are not as well-versed as we should be in the documents that are at the core of our Democracy.

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Avoid the overwhelming and daunting task of establishing a business or professional social media presence with this excellent post by a seasoned marketer. This is a reasoned list of considerations that will help anyone trying to work through a social media strategy.

This valuable advice applies to many other communications efforts and is particularly helpful for marketing and communications professionals trying to make social media work for our clients, firms and businesses.

Briefly summarized, these five important recommendations include that social media users should: set goals, have realistic expectations about results, take on one social media site at a time, be consistent about attending to profiles, and schedule social media activity as a regular part of the work day.

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When the DOJ recently subpoenaed Twitter for access to the accounts related to Mr. Assange, as well as other individuals involved with WikiLeaks, we were all reminded that there are evidentiary components to our social media posts.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were frantically disseminating usage policies to employees, law firm personnel and clients on the perils of the electronic age, including the new fangled electronic discovery. Once you have seen captured emails in major litigations and investigations, you ask yourself: Did these executives fail to realize that these emails exist in perpetuity?

We have migrated from what only recently was “web 2.0” to a sophisticated social media world that has quickly matured far beyond our expectations perhaps.

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The time has come to admit to ourselves the significance of social media and the fact that it is not going to get less important. There is a place for social media in the legal profession and lots of us know we just need to accept it and dig in.

Recently I asked a very bright young adult (24) with a social media job a at a tech giant, why she values sites like Twitter and Facebook. She said she “loves it” because it allows her to have, what I would call various “communities of interest” in all areas of her interests such as news, work and entertainment. But more than this, it allows her to see what matters to the people in her network — and to use that as a way to know more about things she might never otherwise see or learn.

I finally got it. Social media replicates and enhances interactions within communities that are multi-dimensional. Rather than getting a link to an interesting article and seeing that in one dimension, social media allows us to see who else cares about an issue and even better, enhances our community depth and breadth. For example, not only does one of my formidable FB “friends” have a journalistic background in tech and science, he presents his research “finds” to our FB community and we enhance that by our knowledge base. In other words: we learn about cool stuff we never knew about before.

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It’s getting complicated. The brandchannel.com reports that MBA programs are adding courses on digital media to ensure that their grads have the requisite knowledge base to add immediate value when they join management. Naturally, those of us who are not digital natives might well need some support in the details of social media know-how.

This of course prompts the discussion on legal issues raised in the use of digital media by businesses both internally and externally. In the piece, David Kaufman, a partner at Duane Morris cautions that ” ‘ [c]ompliance with the rules is complicated, and mistakes are easy, and plentiful.”

Kaufman has published the “Top Ten Rules to Avoid Legal Trouble in Social Media Programs and Campaigns” and they are absolutely worth a close look. He addresses everything from content to internal management of social media policy. I highly recommend a full read of his version of the ten commandments.

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Interesting view from AdAge on using internal resources for branding and focus groups. This got me thinking, should professional firms consider going to internal audiences for brand enhancements and understanding?

The AdAge piece looks at consumer packaged goods, finance and retail brands, noting the use of employees for branding, product development and social-media evangelism. Some brands are using employees for the pitch, like Pizza Hut and Overstock.

In professional settings, we often go to very sophisticated business development experts, as well as branding and identity firms to develop and pitch business and establish brands.

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Back to School

As the month closes and students of all ages and all over the country are going back to school, I would like to share my own back to school experience.

Earlier this month, I attended the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in San Francisco, getting most of my participatory Continuing Legal Education credits and generally catching up with my profession. I saw long time friends and made some new ones as well.

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Just imagine the back room operations of a major law firm. You know the place where only the few and the brave venture? The place where paper once reigned and the Iron Mountain truck pulled up regularly? That place?

Things are changing, even for our profession. Even for us, the late adopters. The ones who come last to the tech table — especially in Gen Law Boomer.

Well, welcome to the digital conference room.

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