Social Media For Lawyers — Legal Practice Pro

Should Lawyers Fear Google Sidewiki?

October 5, 2009 By Jay Fleischman

Google WHAT? Before we get into the whole “fear,” thing, let’s talk about what Google Sidewiki is and is not.

Sidewiki is basically an add on to the Google Toolbar that lets you comment about any site, directly on that site, via the Google Toolbar. Once you download and enable Sidewiki you’ll see a little bubble on the left side of every web page. It looks like this:

See that little note bubble in the corner? That lets you know that Sidewiki information is available. If you click bubble or the >> tab, the Sidewiki panel opens up like this:

Check it out – what you’re looking at are comments placed onto the web page. But not all comments are shown, and the ones that do show up are denoted by a special Google algorithm. For example, some of the signals that Google uses for ranking comments are (according to our friends at Search Engine Land):

Use of sophisticated language: “This page sucks” isn’t sophisticated; think complex sentences and ideas. Apparently, Google has a language sophistication detector now, and one that works in the 14 different languages that Sidewiki supports.

User’s reputation: Are your comments being voted up or flagged down?

User’s history: How long have you had a Google Profile? How long have you been commenting?

So Should Lawyers Fear Google Sidewiki?

Sidewiki is a powerful way for people to comment on websites even if there is no place on the actual site for comments to be put in. That means a lawyer with a website may be deluged with negative comments from clients and other members of the public. What’s even more interesting is that the lawyer won’t even know about it unless that lawyer has installed and activated Sidewiki on his or her own computer.

Without having Sidewiki installed and activated on your computer, you won’t know if a site has any Sidewiki comments. So if you keep your head in the sand, you may miss the opportunity to see and respond to negative comments on your online reputation.

For more information, check out this video on Sidewiki:

Filed Under: Online Marketing For Lawyers, Social Media For Lawyers Tagged With: Google, Sidewiki

Making A Difference With Social Media – Go Global 24

September 28, 2009 By Jay Fleischman

I am proud to announce that I have decided to sponsor Go Global 24, which is being billed as 24 Hours of Global Fun and Frolic in aid of Doctors Without Borders.

Go Global 24 is being billed as 24 Hours of Global Fun and Frolic in support of Doctors Without Borders, and is organized by Henie Reisinger as a 12for12K event.

About 12for12K

The 12for12k Challenge is the combination of social media awareness and fund-raising that aims to change the lives of millions worldwide. Founded by business consultant Danny Brown, its aim is to raise awareness and funds for 12 charities over the course of 2009, with a new charity being supported every month. The concept is simple:

* 12 months of the year
* 12 charities, a different charity each month
* $12,000 per charity

12for12K uses social media to spread the word – from Twitter to Facebook, blogs to social media newsrooms and more. All the partners in the 12for12k Challenge are offering our time and services for free.

About Doctors Without Borders

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971 MSF provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. In other words, doctors who help sick and injured people no matter who they are or what they believe in. If someone’s injured, MSF steps in and helps. That’s pretty cool.

About My Involvement In Go Global 24

On September 29, 2009 from 11:00am-12:00pm (Eastern time), I will be hosting a live call-in radio show to answer questions about personal finance issues. Among the topics I will cover are:

* bill collection harassment
* foreclosure-related issues
* consumer bankruptcy
* credit reporting issues and identity theft

How You Can Benefit From My Involvement In Go Global 24

Just come back to this page on September 29, 2009 at 11:00am Eastern time or go to Blog Talk Radio, where you can listen live, call in with questions, and get all of your most pressing issues answered. It’s that simple.

Click here to go to Blog Talk Radio

When the show is live, the player below will be active – all you’ll need to do is click the “play button”.

Don’t want to call in? No problem! Just go to Twitter and ask a question, making sure to put “#GG24″ in the body of the tweet (that’s a hashtag, and it’s how I will be able to identify a question for me during the event).

Filed Under: Social Media For Lawyers Tagged With: #12for12k, #GG24, Doctors Without Borders, Go Global 24

What If You Met Your Client Yesterday?

September 24, 2009 By Jay Fleischman

As lawyers, we focus on building our business by seeking out people in need of help. We market our legal practice with whatever means we deem appropriate – websites, TV, radio, newspaper, even social media tools – and focus on getting out the message that relates directly to our practice area.

We talk about bankruptcy, divorce, criminal law, estate planning, whatever. But we talk about our solution, hoping that our audience needs that which we are selling.

People who sell hammers look for people who have a bunch of nails. Makes sense, right?

But what if you met your client yesterday? Before the marriage started to crumble, before the job loss or unexpected medical condition, before taking that fifth shot of whiskey and getting behind the wheel of the car on a dark and stormy night?

If you had met the client yesterday, they’d already know about you and trust you by the time they needed your help. You’d be a friend, a trusted resource. And because you met the client the day before they needed you, the relationship would have been built on something other than marketing your law firm.

Consider this:

A consumer bankruptcy lawyer offers free budgeting seminars to residents or his or her community, offering information on personal finance (no pitch for bankruptcy services). At the end of the seminar, the lawyer offers attendees the opportunity to get on his mailing list to receive a freebie newsletter about personal finance issues. Among the topics covered are debt problems, but this is just one of many subjects discussed in the newsletter.

The seminar is marketed through local schools, houses of worship, and community centers. For an hour each month, the lawyer stands in front of a room of strangers and gives a standard (though informative) presentation about personal finance. Gives a few tips, shares some resources, and collects names.

Over time, the seminars begin to attract attention. Maybe the lawyer tells a news reporter about them (failing to do so would be a bad idea, in fact). The lawyer takes the presentation and uploads it as a series of videos on YouTube so people can share it with friends and family members who aren’t able to attend in person.

Next, the lawyer creates a fan page on Facebook for attendees to gather and ask questions. The lawyer puts up more information over time, including links to blog posts of interest. Before each seminar a tweet goes on on Twitter, alerting the world of this upcoming, free, no-pitch seminar.

Maybe 4 people show up in person each time. Maybe 5. Maybe even 10. And perhaps a few people view the videos on YouTube, passing them along to a few close friends.

One day, someone loses their job. They’re in trouble. Who do they call?

The lawyer who’s been talking with them about money all along, who hasn’t tried to pitch them on bankruptcy, who’s become a trusted and reliable local source of information.

All because the lawyer met the client yesterday.

So let me ask you, dear reader – how could you meet your client yesterday?